Much of what I have posted here lately has been the words of others because frankly, my own words seem to get stuck in my throat or don't make it all the way to my fingers.  I am struggling with so many emotions right now that I can't seem to get everything I have to say out into the open and so my head feels full to bursting and it just shuts down when I try to express what I am feeling, thinking, doing. Today feels a little different, though, so here I am.

It has now been 4 months and 3 weeks since Dave died and there has been a decided shift in how I feel. Now I am finally settling into a stage of grief (although I think "stages of grief" is bullshit but I don't feel like coming up with my own new, patented phrase for how my psychic progression is moving along) where I feel like I am drowning most of the time.  I have had panic attacks in the past and I know what that feels like and this isn't it. It is like claustrophobia almost, where the air seems thick, dense almost, and taking a really deep breath is next to impossible. In yoga, correct breathing, Pranayama, is essential. It releases nervous anxiety and negative emotions, it clears and calms the mind and helps achieve both physical and mental balance.  I could use some of all of the right now but I can't seem to breathe in enough to exhale and  release all of the things that have me bound at the moment. And so it kind of feels like I imagine drowning must feel.

Day to day life continues to be mundane and I am stagnant, doing nothing to move forward, it seems. I am falling into habits that I would rather not develop but I seem to be unable to stop that from happening. What is wrong with me? There is this gnawing, craving feeling inside of me that wants to get busy with the business of living, but without Dave here, I can find no motivation to actually do anything about those feelings. I spend a lot of time pondering how I can go about doing something, anything, but instead I just flounder and do nothing.  It is making me crazy.

Guilt feelings take up a lot of my time, too. In my life with Dave, he did things constantly to allow me to grow and shine. He gave me every opportunity to move forward as a person, without trying to control or hold me back.  I did the same for him and it was part of the reason that we had such an excellent relationship.  We truly loved and supported each other in every endeavor, no matter how harebrained it may have seemed to the other and it worked for us. It worked very well. When he was here.

I vowed when Dave died that I would do everything in my power to honor his memory in so many ways but I just feel, well, powerless. Now I am finding that I am having a very hard time without his love and support, even though I am surrounded with people who only want the best for me and for me to be happy. But sometimes, that support is based on what is perceived to be the best for me, not the reality of what is best for me.  Only I can know what that is but I have so many issues surrounding Dave's death that in dealing with those, I am losing myself a little everyday and what I need to make me happy again is not something I can see on the horizon for me because Dave is what made me happy and he is gone. My life with him was the only time in my adult life that I can say that I was truly happy. And I don't mean "la-la-la" happy. I mean to the core of my soul happy. Loved, protected, accepted, absolutely, completely happy. . Can you imagine what losing that feeling is like? It feels like some one reached into me and pulled out everything about me that was good and left this empty, hollow shell that is sad, weak and exhausted. Sleep has always been a refuge for me and that is true now. It is the only time I don't miss him. I think I must dream of him, even though I don't remember the dreams, because the first thing I am aware of when I wake up is that feeling of melancholy that is my primary mood these days.


Jeez, Louise...I have got to snap out of this before it starts to become my dogma.
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