Letting Go and Going On

On August 31 I will celebrate my fourth Wedding Anniversary.  On September 4 I will acknowledge that my husband has been gone four years.

If you do the math, I was married roughly four days to a living man.  If you see it through my eyes, I have been married nearly four years.  Legally.  My husband and I were together for nearly six years.  We were engaged for most of that time.  To both of us, the engagement WAS the marriage- with jewelry.  We had been married long before the diamond showed up.

I realize that there are those who would suggest that my loss is somehow less valid because my husband and I were not given the luxury of more years.  There are those who would suggest that I should somehow "be over" the loss because he has been gone so long.  I would suggest to those that they shut the F up.

Today I gave several things that belonged to my husband to a friend of ours who will manage them responsibly.  That friend drove over 2,000 miles to take possession of these things and told me how he will manage transporting and handling them.  There is no question in my mind that these things will be handled responsibly and with respect.

And yet...

My step-son and mother-in-law both demanded that they be given the things that my husband had that they wanted within the first month of his death.  I complied with those demands.

What is left are things that my step-son would like to sell- because they mean nothing to him.  While those things have a financial value, that value is insignificant in view of other- and more important - points.  And all these things mean something to me.

Today has been difficult and ugly in many ways.  I let go of things that my husband loved.  It was like losing him all over again.  Right now, I hate everything.  I'm second-guessing myself, I worry that I didn't get every possible "buy-in" from people who don't live here.  I worry about the fact that I don't care about them.

There are more things that I will need to deal with and deal with reasonably soon.  I have been managing pneumonia lately and find that I have lost some ability to breathe and function as a result.  This tells me that I need to understand what it will mean to go on.

I need to get rid of "stuff".  I need to live more simply.  I know this.  But doing the thing I know leaves me anxious and bereft.

There are no easy answers.