Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow

She should have died hereafter;

There would have been a time for such a word.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day

To the last syllable of recorded time,

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

Today's counseling session

Earlier this afternoon, I had another lengthy (90 minutes) session with Grace the grief counselor. We're now doing remote counseling, so not even face-to-face contact there. I fear that I'm going to be the patient (client?) who finally breaks her, because I'm so unable to grasp onto any of the lifelines she keeps tossing out at me:

Grace: All you need to do is take care of yourself. You deserve tender loving care so you can do the work of grieving so you can heal.

Me: And how do I get the motivation to do that when I don't even want to be here?

Grace: Because it won't always feel this way; you just keep doing the work and know that eventually, it will get easier.

Me: That doesn't sound all that much different from "keep suffering, human, but as long as you obey some arbitrary rules, you'll get all the paradise you can imagine in the afterlife." And I don't buy that, either.

Me: You know, if I had a terminal illness, I could move to Oregon and end my life, and it would be totally acceptable. Why is this any different? *

Grace: Except that what you're experiencing is more like having a leg amputated; it'll heal, and you'll never be the same, but you'll be able to walk. You're wanting a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

Me: Except that you can live without a leg. My heart and soul were ripped out of me, and there are no prostheses for them.

That's just two examples, but you get the gist of it: I have exactly zero hope that I'll ever feel any way other than the way I have for the past 33 days (or 26% of the amount of time I got to be Doug's wife). All this journaling, and feeling my feelings, and attempts to socialize from a distance, and the distractions? Dude, I'm just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic: it looks productive, but the ship's going down nevertheless.

Grace suggested that, if Doug's influence on me was so profound, there's no reason that influence has to end. Except that I was better WITH Doug than I ever was before him. And I can't envision any future in which I'm not a far WORSE person than I was before Doug, because you can take all my negativity and overthinking and self-esteem issues that existed long before Doug (and which are rearing their ugly heads again with a vengeance), and add constant bitterness to that mix. Not a recipe for a happy life. Even if I could find some peace (which, again: not buying it), that's not good enough. I don't want to live half a life, and that's all that I can have without him.

It's a trap

Life without Doug simply isn't good enough. It won't ever be. And "happy" isn't in the cards. My entire life before Doug, I was NEVER really happy, because there was always a little voice in my head saying, "just wait - the other shoe's about to drop." And with Doug, I was finally able to let that go: for the first time IN MY ENTIRE LIFE, I relaxed and was happy. SO fucking happy. And so of course the rug was pulled out from under me.

I'll never trust happiness again. It's a lie.

I'm tired of crying almost all the time. I'm tired of going through even the most rudimentary motions of pretending I'm a productive member of society - a member of society AT ALL, if I'm being completely honest. I'm tired of being sad, and scared, and lonely, and bitter, and so incredibly alone.

Fun story from my past (which maybe I've already told, so apologies if I'm repeating myself): when my mother died in 1990, my Aunt Florence (not actually related, but a family friend), pulled me aside and said, "I feel the worst for you. Because your sister has her husband and her children, but you're ALL ALONE NOW."

At the time, it was both hilarious and horrifying. Now? It seems her observation was prescient. I am indeed all alone now (save it: no matter how much you love me, you don't love me like Doug did, and you aren't living with me, intimately sharing the minutiae of my life - I AM alone).

I'm in this impossible position where I don't want to live, but I won't kill myself, so I get the "joy" of suffering ALL THE TIME.

Rejection from the great beyond

Grace asked if I've tried talking to Doug, and I have indeed. I talk to him every evening. Last night, I sat down right before trying to go to sleep, and said, "Baby, I'm really struggling here. I don't want to be here anymore. It's too hard without you. I NEED you to talk to me. I need you to visit me in my dreams. I'm so alone right now, and I NEED you to let me know that you're still with me. I don't know how much more of this I can take, but if you can at least come see me in my dreams, maybe that would be enough to get me through the days."

Wanna guess what I got? I got nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Same as I've gotten every night since February 20.

Remember when I told you all how I interpret your silence as rejection? Imagine how I'm interpreting DOUG'S silence.

Every day is the same: struggle, struggle, struggle, and have nothing to show for it except for another day of suffering. I'm over it. And yet I keep living it.

And really, that says it all.

* Standard disclaimer applies: I still don't want to live, but I'm still not suicidal.