Feeling a little lost

Having a spouse/partner/significant other is kinda like being a Democrat living with a Republican. Not that politics really has anything to do with your relationship but you come from different backgrounds with different thought processes and life experiences. Their YIN, your YANG. Their YAY, your NAY. You get along but sometimes you wonder what it would be like to NOT have that constant "governor" in your life. Now I know. It's empty, hollow, sad.

There's nothing in my way now to do whatever I want to do but there isn't anything I really want to do. My inventiveness is limited. I react. I didn't think of spending my 20th anniversary in a hot-air-balloon, but he did. Or going Christmas shopping on Santa Catalina Island after a helicopter ride there, but he did. Or touring Alcatraz Penitentiary, with a short lock-up in one of the tiny prison cells, but he did. I remember when we flew to NYC to have dinner and flew back home that night. I thought it was too expensive to take vacations in the Bahamas, Virgin Islands, and El Salvador, but he didn't. He gave me so many singing and talking stuffed animals/characters, from two frogs singing "I Got You Babe", a bear singing "I'm Sexy And I Know It" to Stuart the Minion laughing and farting and rolling on the floor.

When will I stop crying at the thought of all the great places we will never go, all the new restaurants we will never try, all the conversations/debates we will never have again? Today I filled out a form and had to check that box, widowed. It's like slamming into a wall.

I had to shred all his old bank records and looking at the payee's name brought back memories of when we were going to counseling. We had separate therapists and I think he was enamored with his. She is a lovely person. I wrote her about his passing and she sent me a warm and thoughtful message, remembering that he was her first patient. I know she helped him. On those checks there were all the addresses of places we lived, from Birmingham and Greensboro, to Atlanta and Los Angeles. I shredded the checks, but not the memories, from our first 22 years of marriage. I realize that the day he died is the one anniversary I will never forget. It's the only one I have no pictures of except the ones in my head. Too early now to predict how I will deal with it.