Sick and tired

A year ago, I had lunch with some female friends, one of whom is also a widow.  I had been telling them about the man I had recently dated and how I wasn’t sure I was even ready to date yet, even though it has been several years since my husband died. She asked me how long it had been, and I said “Five years.”

“Oh….” she responded.  “It’s still fresh.”

Her comment both surprised me and made me annoyed.  Five years is “fresh?”  Why?  It seems like an eternity.  I want to move on, I want to get out of grief and into joy.  I’ve been slogging through this walking flu for five years– living holiday after holiday without him, watching birthdays and anniversaries tick by, attending weddings, becoming a grandmother, creating a life for myself alone for five years– how can it still be “fresh?”  I don’t WANT it to be fresh anymore!  I want to be done!

And yet, the grief just keeps coming.  In the past five years, my marriage fell apart, my husband moved out of our house and then died, my daughter moved out on her own, my mother died, and my son J went off to college.  The nest has been slowly, gradually, painfully emptying, although J was still coming home for summers and vacations.  Two weeks ago, my son– who has always been a kind, thoughtful, communicative young man– picked a huge fight with me over text and moved in with his girlfriend.   We have not spoken face to face since.

Now, I know that it is developmentally appropriate for him to move out.  He’ll be 24 years old in two days.  I understand his desire to be independent and to live with the first serious love of his life.  I support his need to do this.  What I don’t understand is why he had to pick a huge fight with me and call me names.  We have never talked that way to each other; we’ve always worked out our differences with kindness toward each other.  Everyone I speak to says “He’ll figure it out.  He’ll come back.”  I have faith that he will– he has always come around eventually and talked to me about what was bothering him.  I trust that he will again.  But I can’t pretend it doesn’t hurt in the meantime.

I’m writing today not because I’m hurting so much about my son that I need to vent.  I’m writing today because I’m having trouble getting myself motivated to leave the house.  It’s rainy and cold and I’m not looking forward to being around people.  I feel like I’m back to the grief I felt after Anson died all over again.  Like six years later, I’m still grieving just as hard.  I feel like a failure as a parent and as a spouse, and maybe just as a human being in general.  I don’t want to hear people talking about their families visiting and their vacations.  I don’t want to see parents walking through town with their adult children.  I don’t want anyone to ask me “How are your kids?”  I know this will pass.  I know it’s a temporary condition.  But I’m so sick of it.  I’m sick of feeling bad.  I’m sick of talking about feeling bad.  I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.  I can’t pretend like I’m not hurting and I’m tired of talking about hurting.

I know I need to get back to my gratitude journal, and I will.  But maybe I need to feel ungrateful for a while.  Maybe I just need to sit with the injustice and the unfairness of life, and just be stinky by myself.  Like when you’re really sick and you don’t shower for a couple of days.  Because, man….when you start to feel better, doesn’t that first shower feel great?  I’ll get there.