Year Two

I've heard that in some ways year two is harder than the first year. And so far I'm finding that to be true...just in a different way. 

Year one is all about surviving. You're pretty much somewhat in a state of shock that whole first year.  Even after months and months have gone by, it still sometimes just doesn't feel real. Your life is on pause for a little while, even though you keep living because you have to. Life feels surreal.

Then the one year anniversary comes...you made it whole year without your person, when you never thought you could. One day at a time, you survived.  Now you're in the second year, and this is when you realize that you want to start feeling "better", whatever that even means, or if that's even possible. You don't really know how to even do that...but you do know that life must go on and that you don't want to just go through the motions anymore. You know that you're tired of feeling sad and lonely all the time. You know that you can't keep living like this.

Year two is so different. Year two is about learning how to move forward. It's a lot of processing things, SO many things-this new person you've become, this new life you've been forced to live. It's fear and uncertainty about the future...it's anxiety and depression wanting to pull you back in and make you think you'll never find happiness again, and you sometimes just getting tired of fighting it and wanting to give in. It's the sadness that starts to turn into anger...

It's being exhausted from the whole past year just trying to survive and put one foot in front of the other. It's wanting to be done with the grief, but at the same time knowing that it's there and it's not going away no matter how much you tried to distract yourself. In year one you just did whatever you could to cope and get through the days, and you clung to excitement and fun and whatever you could find to feel something besides sadness. But you can only do that for so long, and eventually you have to learn how find happiness and joy again in the everyday mundane. 

It's learning how to move forward and live on, while at the same time still mourning the past and not wanting to let go. It's still missing your spouse so freaking much, and being sad that the memories are starting to fade and that sometimes it feels like it was all a dream. 

I have happy moments, and for that I'm so thankful. But I'm still coming to terms with not having a husband and my life as I knew it being gone and knowing that I will never be or feel the same again. I'm ready for something new, but at the same time I'm scared to death, wondering when it's all going to end and come crashing down.

But it's also still holding on to hope, that tiny shred of hope...the hope that one day things will be okay. That maybe one day when someone asks how you're doing you'll be able to actually say that you're good.