The six weeks I took off to get myself well didn’t teach me everything, but they did set me on a new path. A year later, I’m only now starting to grasp this boundary setting business, and it is marvelous. But my breakdown and subsequent break from work were a crucial, albeit unintended (and, at least initially, unwanted) first step.

In my more pleasant dreams, at least he smiles. Sometimes I think those dreams are his gift to me, in an I-put-up-with-your-crap-so-you-owe-me kind of way. It’s quite lovely. I like to think it’s an apology from him, or a way he is trying to make it all up to me. Logically, I see that it’s probably my brain just doing its thing and pulling at nice memories.

None of this, however, explains why last night’s dreams were so stressful.

1,459. That’s how many days passed between Mark’s suicide and the first moment I experienced this miracle.

Who needs an elephant in the room when you’ve got a ghost following you around? (ba-dum-tsss!)

Who can say whether or not Mark would have still completed suicide if he’d had children to live for? Or would we all be just barely surviving with his pathological gambling and lying thwarting our every intention to live a great life?

Naturally, I burst into tears, this time in a toy aisle at Target, because why would I ever be home and away from humans during an emotional meltdown? I managed to schedule a call with my doctor for this coming Monday. I cried some more. I texted my people. Then I cried some more. I looked at my basket of random things I’d somehow collected and realized I didn’t even know why I was buying some of them. I cried some more.

Some of this needs to be expressed before I explode on someone in person. Also, my widdas who read this need to know that they’re not the only ones who feel this way. 

My therapist helped me choose the best actions to take, the first of which was attending a group meditation class offered at the clinic. When I left, I wrote the following in the car before even leaving the parking lot. It is unedited, and therefore possibly confusing, and this is the first time I’m sharing it with anybody.

I knew the code to unlock his phone because it was always the same - 0311 for his MOS in the Marine Corps. I leaned on my elbow with my back to him and started scrolling. I don’t know what I thought I was going to find, but I definitely wasn’t prepared for the photos I saw.

I don’t miss our marriage. That’s not me being bitter or refusing to remember the good times because it’s too painful. It just wasn’t fun being married to Mark. Jekyll & Hyde come to mind.

I’m not sure if the moment you start comparing your life to that of Rose from Titanic is worthy of ridicule or praise, but I feel like there’s probably a good meme for it.

I wrote this three months ago and left it unpublished for reasons I can’t recall. Likely, I was embarrassed by what I wrote, but whatever. Here it is, my assessment of dating after five months on the tinder.

There’s just this blog and a nauseating fear that someone in my family will read about my sexcapades and think that I’m a slut. A big ol’ bad widow of a slut. I don’t much like admitting this fear, but once I put words to it, I realized how much that makes me feel like a phony-baloney. If I can talk to people so freely about their suicidal thoughts, why can’t I talk about one of my grandest and most favorite adventures in widowhood?

Let’s just say I nearly threw up several times. Also involved in the cleanup were an entire roll of paper towel, two trash bags, a bottle of PineSol, carpet spray of some sort, Fred cheering me on from the bottom of the stairs, and about twenty minutes spent with my shirt covering my mouth so as to mask the stench.

You can miss someone and despise them at the same time. You can honor their memory while simultaneously giving vent to how very much they hurt you.

Picture me with my back to the wall and layers of blankets over my head with just my face and hands visible and glowing in the light of my laptop. I’ll stay this way, unless I HAVE to move, in which case I’ll spend as much time as it takes fidgeting with and readjusting the blanket over my head so that it doesn’t pull my hood off my head, AND so that the blanket rests with just the right amount of veil to shield my periphery, as is essential.

I used to think this made me a crazy person.

I still do.

Just about nobody is ever going to say the right thing because, let’s face it, we widows are often in terrible moods. People don’t stand a chance against our grouchiness. And we can’t blame them, so you may as well stop and just start venting all your feels to the rest of us widdas who DO understand.

Don’t mind me and my dark humor; it helps me get through the day. And considering our relationship sort of ended twice that week (first with my saying we were going to divorce and second with Mark’s suicide two days later), my redemptive desires were at an all time high.

Give it a week. Or a minute. You could be a sobbing disaster at any moment, but happiness is also right around the corner. The wonky indifference you feel will pass. I think.