No exit

Imagine that you're on an epic road trip with your life's partner. Imagine that this person is your favorite human being on the planet: you're never bored when you're together, even the mundane is fun with him, and there's no one else you'd ever want to travel with. Neither one of you could do this trip alone, but together you've got it. One of you does the driving, and the other handles the navigation, and you alternate who's the driver and who's the navigator. Sometimes you get a little lost, but you're together, and you always find your way back to your designated path and the destinations you want to visit along the way.

Now, imagine that you're driving along like you do every day, and your partner is suddenly gone - just vanished - and you're on your own. You don't know where they went - not with any certainty - but you do know that they're never coming back. And now you're supposed to handle the driving AND following the map all by yourself. But the map has turned blank. And the road is gone; in its place is a wall that immediately popped up in front of you, and another on your right side, and another on your left side, and another behind you, and another above you. You're trapped.

You know that other cars are continuing on their own road trips, with happy couples traveling together. But you're stuck. Nobody can get in to where you are, and you can't get out. It's dark, and terrifying, and you're alone. You can talk to people, and those who've never been trapped will tell you that you can get out of this if you just give it time and try, but they can't actually tell you how to get out. Those who HAVE been trapped will tell you that yeah, you're always going to be trapped, but eventually you'll get used to it if you just give it time.

And all you want is to scream at EVERYONE to let them know that you will NEVER get used to being trapped, and you will NEVER stop being trapped, because the entire world has disappeared: there's just you, in this dark, terrifying box, alone. Scared. Tired.

That's a pretty fair assessment of my place in the world: I'm trapped in a dark, terrifying place; Doug has vanished and he's never coming back; I'm completely alone and stuck, while life goes on for everyone else.

And just writing all that out, I can't breathe. My life is over, but instead of eternal rest I get to spend my days trapped in this horrible, terrifying box from which there's no escape.

In our session today, Brooke asked what my purpose was before I met Doug. I was still raising my son then, so he was my purpose. Beyond that, my goals were largely around spending time with my friends and getting to play as many terrific roles as I could. And then Doug happened, and my purpose shifted: My purpose was to love Doug; to learn how to love Doug and to learn how to let him love me. Our goals together were to build our dream house and travel the world.

Notice that my career wasn't part of my goals: that's not because I didn't care - I did, very much - but I'm 54. I have no illusions that I'm ever going to be a CIO, and I don't want to be. I was happy with where I was in my career, and so long as I was being treated well and intellectually challenged, that was enough for me. My goal was to be happy.

But without Doug, there are no goals anymore. I hate this house - I wish I could walk away from it right this second, leaving everything behind, and never come back. But where would I go? I'm in this box, remember? Build our dream house? Why? So I can be just as alone and anguished there, but in a new setting? Should I travel? Why? What joy is there in traveling without the one person with whom I WANTED to see the world? My goal was to be happy with the love of my life. That's no longer on the table, so now what?

Brooke asked if I think that I don't deserve to be happy without him, and Grace had asked me much the same thing the other day. I don't think that's it; I don't think I'm experiencing survivor guilt. It's not so much that I feel like I shouldn't get to enjoy something just because Doug's not here to enjoy it; it's more that nothing IS enjoyable because Doug isn't here to share it with me. Without him, there is no joy, no meaning, no purpose, nothing to look forward to. Without Doug, there IS no life.

It's not that we had an unhealthy, codependent relationship; far from it. It's just that we were what married couples are supposed to be: we became one. Our friend Zach coined the couple name "Dougleen" for us after we'd been dating about five months, and we embraced that. We were two halves of one whole. Each of us was complete in our own way before we found each other, but we became a unit, and his death didn't just remove him; it removed enormous chunks of me too. Without him, I'm NOT a whole person anymore. Without him, I'm not even HALF a person now. Without him, I'm just a small, scared shell of what used to be a person. And trapped; let's not forget that I'm trapped.

I'm come up to a very bad stretch of days: today marks eight weeks since Doug died. Tomorrow it will be two months since his surgery and exactly six months since our wedding day; Monday will be two months since Doug died. A week from today, I will have been a widow exactly half as long as I was Doug's wife. And I'm scared. And I'm SO LONELY. I miss him, every second. Nothing is meaningful without him.

Day 56, and I still can't come up with one reason to hope, one reason to think that I'll ever find hope, or one reason that makes it worthwhile to continue to live in SO MUCH PAIN. I'm in this box, trapped, with nothing but my sadness and my memories of a love cut short. What I have isn't a life. What I have is a life sentence.