How are you?

Do you really want to know?

How am I?

I’ve been thinking that I just need a good cry. I have a metaphorical gate that keeps things from spilling out. The gate has kept it all in this whole time. Every now and then I’ll have moments where I get teary. But I haven’t had one raging river that explodes through the gate. I’m not good at being sad. But last night the thought occurred to me - what if there is no explosion through a gate where every bottled up emotion comes raging through? What if it’s just a slow trickle? A long, tortuous trickle of emotions. Gretchen used to hate being asked how she was doing. Not because she was rude, but because she didn’t want to actually tell people how she truly felt. She didn’t want to put that on them. It’s also exhausting to be asked how are you all of the time. I know people mean well. So I usually just say I’m OK, hanging in there, you know. What you say when don’t really want to say what you are truly feeling.

Let me tell you.

This sucks.

Do you know the feeling right before you have a big cry? That moment that leads to the release of emotions? When your chest gets tight and you get a lump in your throat? OK imagine being in that emotional stage every moment of every day.

I have had little cries here and there. When Edie tells me she misses mommy. When I look at photos of when Gretchen and I were young. When I think back to the time before we knew of the cancer. When I think about our dogs not ever seeing Gretchen again or having any sort of closure. When I had to finish a show we had started. When Timehop or Facebook memories shows me a photo of Gretchen.

And you know what really sucks? The fact that death is so final. One moment they’re here. Then bam. Silence. And then you just have to move on. I’d like to have more signs. I’d like to meet Gretchen in my dreams. Even if I could just hear her say that she loves me one more time. Just three words. That’s all I want. Even if it’s just in a dream. I want to hear it again.

But there’s a reason I haven’t seen or heard from her.

Without going into too much detail, I know of two situations where Gretchen either appeared in a dream or in some other significant way that led to two friends of ours getting mammograms and finding out they have breast cancer.

I think she’s been making her rounds to protect and watch out for our people.

How are you?
So overwhelmingly sad. Exhausted. Tired. In a fog. Like a zombie. And to be honest, it’s been real hard to be anything but sad. I try hard. Especially to keep it together for the girls. There’s a lot of guilt I feel around not being able to do more with the girls. I wish I could play with them more. I wish I could be happier and more joyful. I wish I didn’t have so much heaviness I’m holding. I try everything to be happy. I work out. I go outside. I pet the dogs. I read. I write. I color. I doodle. But of course nothing works. But then again what does nothing works even mean? What’s supposed to work? According to whom?

So then I spin it and think no way. There’s not going to be one moment that just splits my life into sadness then happiness. This is my new normal. I still do things. I still have moments where I laugh and enjoy my surroundings. But the sadness will always be there.

And maybe that sadness is how I’ll carry Gretchen with me all of my days.

I’m in the process of figuring out a therapist to help me navigate these wild emotions and my new normal.

In the meantime, I will work on remaining grateful for what I do have and I will focus on the wins every day. And I know that this is a process and it’s only been 4 months.