Fairwell to Summer Hello to Fall

The end of summer is quickly approaching and fall is looming. I
am having problems with my left knee. The Dr. referred me to an
orthopedic, who I will see at the end of the month. I am pretty sure
that surgery is in my near future. The cool weather will be a welcome
relief to the electric bill. Fall is a good time for me, I like the
cool weather for sleeping, the allergies are kinda bad but the trade
off is worth it. I have also decided to get myself into shape
physical. My diabetes is not under control and my weight is up. I
have to start doing the bike again. This is something I am doing for
me. The last year has been about Kevin, this next one is about
getting me into shape. I have been trying to start over from the
point I am at now. This is not a point that I can try to reclaim my
previous life from. I have to get to a point that I can feel
comfortable with myself around men that I am attracted to again. I
know what I have to do in order to get what I want and have made my
mind up to do it.
I feel a little like my old self now that I am realizing that
life is not as complicated as I have made it.

I made it through

I survived the weekend. It was difficult, but with food and a little adult beverage it was tolerable. I am sure that thing will get better as the years go by. I am seeing that things will sometime get better. When I am not sure, and it is possible not to ever get past the grief. Some time the future is too clouded for one to see. Well the second year of my journey has begun. I want to keep moving forward and will force myself to do so.

We not me still

"Happy anniversary baby I've got you on my mind". Here it is the day I have been dreading for so long. One year ago Kevin died. His death was not one of those Betty Davis movies, ie "Dark Victory" she had the same brain cancer as Kevin in that one. He did not loose his sight then simply lay down for a little nap. He was not afforded that. His death was horrific. He died not from the cancer, rather from the side effects of the treatment. His body was consumed with gangrenous infection. He had a fever of 106, was expelling fluid from his mouth when he exhaled and that is how I remember him. Not the active, annal retentive, blue eyed wonder he was. I feel that I was robed of him because of this. I had to watch him slowly slip away over 20 months. The physical losses were difficult but easily managed. The true horror was his inability to be the intellectual man he so prided himself in being. His last days were spent in and out of conciseness. Times he seemed lucid and could communicate somewhat, but others he could become violent and full of rage. I truly believe that was because he knew what he had lost and was so angry that he could not just die so it would not get any worse.
The advise of friends and family is well meant but they do not understand what I have lost, I only know of one person who's mate died. She told me to do what I felt I need to in order to get through it, and ignore everyone else. I could not imagine anything being worse than this, except the loss of a child which I will never know. I still feel as if I am incomplete and it haunts me in my days and especially my empty nights. there is a distinct difference between being alone, and being lonely. Alone is easily rectified, lonely is imposable to fix. I can be in a room full of people and still the loneliness penetrates me to my core. Actually being with others makes it worse, seeing others with their spouse and knot fully realizing what they have.
Kevin and I never watched the sunrise together, other that the last 2 weeks he was alive and he really was not there, and in many ways neither was I. We always thought there would be time for that later in our lives. We put off so many things because we thought we had the time, after I was healthier any way. So many years spent going through the daily routine of life. When asked what I remember the most, it is the routine of us. We were predictable and as off the wall as I am we thrived in it.
I go on not truly living any longer just existing. I have accepted this as what life will be for me, and am actually resigned to it. This has given me a clarity to get trough this last year. A year that like so much of my life has fallen far short of what I expected, from it and myself.

Less than 12 hours

It is less than 12 hours until the exact time of Kevin's death one year ago tomorrow. Today has been emotional hell, and with a multitude of problems. I was hit by an uninsured driver this afternoon, in a car licenced in IL. expired of course, she lives in St. Louis, and has a Missouri drivers license. Once again uninsured! I feel like fate has it in for me. Not too long ago I really thought I was doing better, now I know that the rest of my time in this existence is going to be nothing but pain and disappointment. I have no hope of any sort of happiness, or even contentment. Hell I would settle for a dull ache. It is as if the world is out to get me in everything I attempt to do. I am almost ready to give up trying, it is fruitless. Why even get out of bed, except for the cats.
I have even less hope in my life than I did at this time last year. I knew that Kevin was no longer in pain, he was in a coma by this time, and that he would soon be at peace, or at least not in constant pain. I thought at the time it would just be easier to die with him, now I know it would have been. Life is not optimistic for me. I am alone, lonely, and without any hope of ever being any better. I only hope that this ordeal is soon ended. My body, so frail for so long, is holding up far too well. Maybe my punishment for my transgressions is to live on and bear this horror.

4 days to anniversary

The house finally closed last Monday. It is done now and I feel a great relief. One thing done by the deadline I set for it. Life is still pulling me along. School is at least stimulating, if not tiring. I think of this time last year and wonder how I survived it and then how have I managed to survive without Kevin? For so long I just pushed it all down and ignored it. Taking one day at a time. I have repressed so much of the first couple months after his death that are now coming back.
They arrive like a slap in the face, from a cold hand. How close I was to letting life slip away then, and am truly not much better now. I put on the face of perseverance every day before I head out the door and somehow manage to hold it together until I get back home. This is getting harder and harder to do lately. I had become so adept at doing it I was fooling myself as well as everyone else. Well there is no fool like a foolish one. I am beginning to realize that this healing process is never going to be done, I will never recover and have a life like I did before, that life is a dead as Kevin. I have no true zest for life any longer, I feel most of the time that I am best alone and manage to achieve this. The outside world has no concept of what my life is truly like. If it did they would be horrified at what torment and pain I am constantly in. The anger is surging withing me and I can feel it seething with me.
The anger gives me nothing but frustration, it use to give me energy and will. That is all gone and all that is left is this rage that has no focus to lash out at. Time is once again my enemy.

Disapointments run amuck

I am not sure why I even keep this up. No one views it. I guess it is for my own release. The sale of the house is turning into such a cluster, last minute things pop up and I am tired of it all. The whole existence thing is starting to wear heavily on me. I am starting school in a few days and have no enthusiasm for it left. I look at is as one more thing that I must forge through. Why I must eludes me. I am feeling the weight of Kevin's death like a led ball on my back. Every time I feel as if some progress is taking place something pushes me even farther back. I am close to stopping all of my meds and just letting things run the course. I don't really know if they are helping anyway.
Just getting out of bed, is once again almost unbearable. I feel the need to just sleep and let the world go without me. I am tired all the time and do not really what to interact with anyone or anything. I just want to close myself off and lie in a darkened room.
the first anniversary of Kevin's death is just around the corner and I have not succeeded at a single goal I set for myself. I feel as if my life is stagnate. I am giving up on meeting other people, I am not happy and no one wants to be around sad people in the public setting. I have kept up a facade for the past year and it is wearing thin. the reality of how joyless life is has begun to consume me. I think I just will let it do so. I have no fight left in me and my weakness disgusts me. I have always thought of myself as a strong person but this has broken me. I have nothing left and the stores are all closed. Unless things change in some drastic way this will probably be my last post.

Delor Sold

The house on Delor has sold, the closing is August 19. It has been a long time coming. The release from having to maintain it and almost daily visits to check the mail. I spent so many years of my life there. i actually lived there longer than any other place in my life. Strange that one house could encompass so much of my life. Kevin and I lived there for all but the first year we were together. I thought it was a first step to the new house we would have later. I never had any idea that we would stay so long. When we first moved in I expected to die in a few years, as I got better those thoughts left.
Kevin and I could never have predicted that I would be the one to move on after his death. Never was it expected that he would be the one to die in the home we shared. I am saying farewell to the past that envelops me daily. I am who I am today because of the life I led in that home. It was a home not just a house, correct that, it was a home so long as Kevin was alive. Once he died it became a tomb. Shrouding me in the past, clouding my future so that I could not truly see one while still living there. I believe that if I had not moved out when I did I would not be alive today.
The future is mine and mine alone now. I can make of it what I choose. The first anniversary of Kevin's death is quickly approaching I have looked back on the past year and discovered a strength that I never knew I had. I am sure that life will not pass me buy, any longer. I am ready to get going with my own life that does not include the house that holds me to the past. I have a great sense of relief in knowing that it will be someone else to live in and make memories in.
The loss I feel with the sale of the house is the fear that it is my last tie to Kevin and the life we had. That is foolish the memories have nothing to do with the house, or any other physical object that Kevin loved. The memories are within me and those who knew him. These can not be taken or lost, only put away until they are wanted. Someone told me that I am not leaving behind the life Kevin and I shared but simply putting it in it's proper place, the previous chapter that will build upon other chapters of my life. It takes all of these chapters to make one who one is today. They are always there to remind us where we came from so that you will not stray from the path of our lives. I like that thought, it has such truth in it.