Not just another birthday

I’ve been feeling empty these past couple of weeks.   I have felt like something is wrong and I didn’t know what it was.  Something has been bothering me.  I have thought it was the stress from the test I just took.  Or maybe it was my job.  Maybe it was just this solo parenting thing I’ve got going. Mostly I am just so damn tired.  Tired of the day-to-day.  The running around for the kids and trying to do it all alone.  And then I started to think about it closer.  The date on the calendar….April 5th. It’s my birthday.  I should be happy.  But we all know it is not just my birthday.  Three years.. it has been three years today since Pat died.

Even though I have come to terms with so much in my life, this day looms in my unconscious and bothers me.  I miss him.  I miss him so much.  I miss everything about him.  But mostly I miss our life together.  I know it is easy to say looking backwards, but life seemed easier when he was alive.  We had a rhythm of life together and it worked for us.  It was comfortable.  It was supportive.  It was something we had built together for 20 years.

And now.

Now I am still struggling day-to-day to figure it all out.  There is a piece of grief that just lingers there and settles into the nooks and crannies of day to day life that you just can’t shake.  It is there all the time.  Not in the forefront of your mind or in the things you do, but it’s there behind the scenes.  In the little moments.  And it likes to make its appearance at the strangest and sometimes most inopportune times.  You never know when it is going to come out of the shadows and place a dark cloud over your heart.  It just shows up and tears you down.

So that is where I am.  This day isn’t a day of total sadness, but it is a day that just hovers over me.  It lays a fog around my heart and my mind and my soul.  It brings an uncomfortable feeling that I want to be rid of desperately.  I hate feeling this way.  I hate being brought down to my knees again with despair.  I hate feeling so alone and so unsure of what I am doing.  Not that I usually don’t feel a bit of this, I think that is normal.  But on days like today it rains down hard and reminds me of all that I have been through these past 3 years without Pat.  How far I have fallen from who I was and what my life was like.  And in a lot of ways the change isn’t bad.  But it is still change.  It is still a complete evolution of what life use to be.  I forget about that as I battle my way through each day on my own.  I put my head down and do what I have to do and just keep going.  I just keep breathing and I just keep trying.  I forget to look up and see where I am and all that has gone by.

Today marks three years without Pat.  I hate the sound of that…without Pat.  He is always with me.  I know this.  But you also know what I mean.  I miss him.  I miss him so much.  But it’s my birthday.  And I will enjoy the day for that reason.  But I will also remember today as the day that I lost Pat.  And somehow, someday I hope to find peace with it all.  I hope that the lingering pieces of grief shape me into something or someone worthy of all the love he gave me.