Life, or something not remotely like it

I've been re-watching Downton Abbey as a zombie series palate cleanser. Clearly, I'm my own worst enemy, as I forgot just how much Julian Fellowes enjoyed killing off beloved characters. But that's not what this post is about.

No, this post is about a quote from the Dowager Countess. It's one that hit me so hard the first time I watched it, I posted about it on Facebook.

"Hope is a tease designed to prevent us accepting reality." 

My original post on the subject - back in early February 2015, was simply, "May I NEVER become that cynical." And yet, here we are. You see, I had hope back then; I had hope for a full(ish) and content life. A few short months after that Facebook post, I was to meet Doug, and with him I had more than four years of happiness, and hope for a future happier than I'd ever dreamed possible. But that hope was a tease; suddenly, Doug was gone; and with him gone, so is that future. And so is hope.

"Hope is a tease designed to prevent us accepting reality." 

What is my reality? It's pretty damn bleak, honestly. It's endless days of filling the hours with distractions, meaningless tasks (like showering and making myself eat the occasional vegetable), and lots of crying. SO MUCH CRYING. It's finding zero joy anywhere: the best I get is the ability to temporarily distract myself from the hell that is now my life. It's going from a life where every moment is infused with a great love, to a life that is so lonely and empty that it defies description. It's all my favorite foods suddenly not tasting like anything. It's recognizing, objectively, that the sun on my skin is warm and the cat's fur is soft, but deriving no pleasure from either of them. It's getting no pleasure from anything.

"Hope is a tease designed to prevent us accepting reality." 

Life without hope is, quite simply, not life at all.

Conventional wisdom says that the hole left by Doug's death will always be there, and nothing can ever replace it, but by golly... what's the "but"? The "but" is hope: hope that I'll somehow convince myself that a life without Doug's love is one I'll find worth living; hope that I'll manage to lower my expectations enough that I'll decide it's totally okay that I'm going to spend the rest of my life without true love, without emotional intimacy, without sex; hope that someday I'll be able to spend time with my favorite people - my family - without resenting their long, happy marriages like the one I'll never get to have.

Maybe for people stronger than I, all those things are possible. But for me? Not likely. I'm far too bitter about my husband dying just as we were starting to build our life together. I'm too bitter about finally finding the kind of love I dreamed of, only to lose it so quickly. I'm too bitter about all of it.

"Hope is a tease designed to prevent us accepting reality." 

My reality is that I finally grabbed the brass ring, and then it was stolen from me. My reality is that my greatest happiness is gone and won't ever come back, and so I know with absolute certainty that my best and happiest days are behind me. My reality is that my remaining time here will be, at best, just killing time, because happiness is no longer an option. My reality is that I'm alone, in a house I no longer want, with no future to speak of. My reality is debating with myself whether I should exercise because it's likely to help with my sleep issues, or whether I should instead resist exercise because exercise would also extend my "life" and who the hell in their right mind would want more of this?

"Hope is a tease designed to prevent us accepting reality." 

My reality is that I'm surviving despite my desire not to be here. For 75 days, I've gone to bed every night wishing in vain that I'll not wake up in the morning. My reality is that I'm existing, and that's it. But existing is not thriving. It's not happiness. It's not joy. It's not hope. All "existing" means is that I'm still here, even though every minute is torture. Ironically, this is considered a win by the people who love me, because I'm still here - the fact that every minute is agony for me doesn't seem to factor into their win/loss calculation: I'm here, and that makes THEM happy. MY happiness (more accurately, my lack thereof) is irrelevant. Because THEY still have hope.

The Dowager Countess was right: hope is a tease designed to prevent us accepting reality. And that, at least, is one problem I don't have: I know what my reality is. My challenges are first, that no one wants to believe that I know my reality; and second, that I don't want this life, I can't have the life I DO want, and so I have to navigate my remaining days on this rock knowing that it's never going to get better than this.