I knew that today would be difficult. I significantly underestimated just how difficult it would be. I tried to spend as much of the day as possible distracting myself with Netflix, but was unsuccessful. Even in the middle of watching The Walking Dead, Doug is never far from my mind. In hindsight, watching an apocalyptic drama maybe wasn't the best choice for binge-watching, given that losing Doug to a monster that came out of nowhere (plus a pandemic that's changed life for everyone) is perhaps a little too similar to what's unfolding on the screen.
In an episode during Season Five, Carol and Daryl are having a conversation about who they are now vs who they were before. Carol says (edited to strip out the details that don't apply to me), "Who I was... she got burned away. And I was happy about that. I got to be who I always thought I should be, thought I should've been. And then SHE got burned away. Everything now just... consumes you." And I understand that; that's me. With Doug, I got to be who I always thought I should be. And now that's been burned away.
I've tried and tried today to think of how I could possibly move forward with my life and find some way to make it worthwhile, and I just can't. In any mental direction I look, I see nothing but Doug-shaped holes. Anything that I might want to do with my life is hollow and meaningless without Doug to do it with. It's really just that simple.
Several people reached out today to let me know they were thinking of me and offered to talk. I rebuffed them all; what else is there to say that I haven't said hundreds of times before? I know grief isn't a linear process, but I would've thought that but by day 44 I could say I'd had just ONE reasonably good day; just ONE day when I could think, okay - maybe I can do this. But no. I haven't had a good day. I haven't had a good hour, or minute, or second. And at this point, I think it's safe to say that I'm not going to.
In 1986, when I was 21 years old, my beloved New York Mets had the season of a lifetime; during the playoffs, I was in rehearsals for a community theatre production of Godspell. I became close friends with the young man who played Jesus (his name was Joel). Shortly after Christmas, Joel committed suicide. I was positively inconsolable. I didn't eat or sleep for days, and when I went back to work, my boss sent me home before lunch because I was so useless. I went home, lay down on my bed, and cried and cried and cried. And then, I felt a gentle squeeze on my shoulder, and I was suddenly filled with the certainty that Joel was okay. From then on, I was okay, too. I missed him, and I was heartbroken that he'd been in so much pain that he took his life, but I KNEW that it was Joel who'd squeezed my shoulder. I KNEW that he was okay, and so it was okay for me to be okay too. And that was less than a week after he died.
I'm on day 44 without Doug, and I'm FAR worse shape after losing him than I was after losing Joel. And yet, nothing from Doug. And I know I'm obsessing about it, and I know that's not healthy, but for God's sake, if I can't have him here, then I NEED him to communicate with me somehow so that I know he's still with me and he still loves me. But I can't even have THAT small comfort, and I don't know WHY he's not coming to me, and it's killing me a little more every day.
It's pretty clear that there's no life in my future; not really. And the people who have loved me, and do love me... well, their patience is going to run thin eventually. Nobody wants to be around someone who's sad and bitter and cries all the time. They'll put up with it for a while, because this is all still new. But eventually, they'll tire of it, as they should. As I already have. But I can't exactly escape myself, can I?
Yeah, I could choose to put on a happy public face so that people still want my company (y'know, when we're allowed to keep each other company again), but how would that be better? Then they'd be seeing and loving some artificial version of me. And frankly, I have neither the motivation nor the energy to do that. I'm wrecked, and I'm wretched, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise.
I haven't worked all my life to get to the point where I could have a healthy relationship and be in a good position to enjoy my upcoming golden years only to have that relationship end tragically and spend those years alone, dammit. This isn't how it's supposed to be. And I can't start over, I just can't. I don't have it in me to build another new version of myself. I just don't care enough. There's nothing to motivate me to do anything.
Make myself healthy so I can have a long life without Doug? Fix this place up and sell it so I can build the dream home Doug and I wanted so I can live in it alone and cook shitty little meals for myself to eat, alone and crying, in front of the television? Start doing theatre again without Doug to share the stage or cheer me on from the audience? Travel the world, seeing all the places we wanted to see, alone? Or with friends? Or some stupid tour group full of strangers?
No, thanks. That's not a life I want. That's not a life, period.
And man oh man, I wish people would stop telling me that I won't feel this way forever. I've known myself for 54 years, and I'm pretty sure I know myself better than anyone else does (Doug being the one exception, but he's gone). I know what I had in Doug, and I know what I've lost, and I KNOW that life without him holds nothing but misery for me. No, I can see my future, and it looks very much like the past 44 days: I'll manage to do the absolute bare necessities to get through the days, and I'll technically be alive in that I'm still breathing, but every second I'll be wishing it were over and I were with him. And I'll do that all day, every day, with no joy and no meaning and no happiness and no intimacy and no hope, until I don't have to do it anymore.
And when I DO finally go, hopefully to be with Doug again, make a note: I died on February 20, 2020, right along with my beloved husband.
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