Take me from this place I know, the ruined landscape that I once called home

One month After

This week started out OK, but went downhill, back into sorrow, back into grief.

On the plus side, I've started exercising - doing the same half-hour on Jay's exerbike that he used to do.  I'm hoping it will help.

On the downside, I'm falling back into old habits. I spent evenings this week in the house, not going out, not doing anything, just like I used to do before I met Jay.  I don't think this is the New (Old) Normal, but I also know that I have to watch myself so I don't fall into the habit of wasting my life sitting in the living room.

Slowly, slowly, the house is becoming less Jay's and more mine. His daughter and I weeded out the mugs and glasses in the kitchen, cleaned off the mantel, and went through his dresser.  Then later in the week her mother and I gathered some things for Jay's parents, things they said they would like to have.

A friend told me the story of how when her mother died, she had nightmares that she was giving away all her mother's things and her mother was still alive. I feel like that every time something leaves the house.

I've taken over his desk between the living room and dining room, and now work my days from there, just like he used to.  Work is hard but it's helping me focus, which is a godsend.

I've started cooking again. It's necessary both for financial and for emotional reasons - I need desperately to get back on steady ground with my recovery program, and that all starts with food. But it breaks my heart every time I make something that I think Jay would have liked, something he'll never get to enjoy or get to advise me on recipe changes for.

I'm still having trouble sleeping. I had one night's sleep this week that was what I would call normal, first normal night in I can't remember how long.  But it didn't last.

This just gets harder. I had no idea. It amazes me that people survive this. I sometimes think I'm not going to, that whatever's left of me is so truncated that it will simply fly away, like a leaky balloon giving up the last of its air.