Ten Months.
Written June 13th. It feels impossible to comprehend that Jason has been gone for almost 10 months now. That I’ve lived over 300 days without him. June was the last “normal” month in our lives before the world broke around us. But, in any actual standards of normal, June still wasn’t even remotely close. But, we tried to make it normal. As normal as we could. Despite all we had going on, with Jason on the clinical trial. We both were so sick with something nasty. But we held out hope that life would get better again. But it never did. The body holds trauma. It knows. No matter how much processing I have tried to do in the last 10 months, it knows. I remembers the pain the hurt and fear that came with the seasons. The same way even after this time, I slid into my car in Denver on a hot day, and my mind instantly thought of the days we’d get into the toasty car after spending 10 hours at the clinical trial. The route we’d drive home. I’d drive Jason while he slept. Physically exhausted from the all consuming cancer. The body remembers its all. Often times before our minds catch up. I find myself sad and angry. Exhausted by the “hope you’re doing well” text message that came my way a few days ago. Well? What does that even mean anymore? And No, I am actually not doing well. Jason is still dead. I cry daily, multiple times I day, sometimes screaming, asking why this is my life. Wonder why my husband has to be dead. Why I don’t get to be happy. Why he didn’t get to live and be happy with me. I continued to be poked by outside sources of anger. As if I don’t already have enough to be angry about. Some people are simply so self absorbed, I guess they just never can quit, or take the hint. I just want to be left alone. I want to be done with the added stresses of life. As if losing your husband at 31 years old is not painful enough. No, some people just can’t let it be. “Why can’t you just fuck off?” I wrote in my notes the other week. As if this isn’t hard enough. Please, just please stop poking at me. Leave me alone.
I am sad and I am angry. I want my Jason. My husband. I hate that this is my life. The unfairness of it feels immeasurable. It follows me around in everything I do. Every moment I seek to try to feel normal, to do something normal, it is there, in the back of my mind, because nothing about the way I feel inside is normal. My person isn’t here and I carry around that heaviness every single day. I don’t just miss Jason. I miss the person he was supposed to become with me. The life we were supposed to live. I physically ache for him. It is so wildly unfair. I miss saying his name. I miss his voice and his laugh. I miss the person he was becoming. I miss who he was. I miss the mundane moments and I miss the hectic days. I miss knowing someone. Having someone to call during the day just to check in. I miss being known. Seen. Understood. Deeply. Being checked in on. Being told about his day. Just talking to him. I miss discussing weekend plans. I miss discussing house chores. Grocery lists. What’s for dinner. I miss every bit of space that he was in when he was here. There is void everywhere, in all the small cracks he used to fill of my life. They are split, and he used to come in and fill them. And now they are wide open. I had him, for what only feels like seconds of this life. Not nearly enough time. I had a taste of what real beautiful pure love was. And now it’s gone. A taste of what a partnership should be. A taste of the life I so desperately once wanted and dreamed of. And then I met Jason. and I felt like I had everything. He matched me and my soul. He was the perfect person for me. And now I have nothing. I feel empty inside. Longing to have my life back. To get back to the person that I was with him. But she’s gone, because he took her with him. And now I’m me. Broken and sad and alone. Longing for him. In every space he ever knew. I just want him here with me. I don’t want this life. Not the one without him in it. That’s why I chose him. Why I chose every day to build this life with him. To overcome hard, and continue to build. To fight. Because I was supposed to get Jason forever. This journey was supposed to be the foundation in which we built our life on. But instead all it did was take. It took everything. Everything I ever wanted. All I ever wanted started and ended with him.
Time goes on, people move on, they almost forget. I guess? So it seems. They assume you’re doing well. They assume a smile means everything is ok. Others, they stop saying anything, stop checking in. To be honest, it is all exhausting. The truth is, and it will sound selfish, I don’t only need to hear how much you miss Jason, because I can guarantee you I miss him more. My life is in shambles. Broken. I have to rebuild everything I ever wanted. All I ever wanted was to be a wife and a mom with Jason. Everything else, my career, it all doesn’t matter when I don’t have him. I cared most about being Jason’s wife. It was tied to who I was, who showed up every day to be the best version of herself. I don’t want to be anything but. But yet, here I am. The world gave me no choice. Gave Jason no choice. I don’t know how many times I can say how unfair it is. How much this sucks. Those words do not even feel adequate to what I am feeling, but it is all I got. These days words seem to fall short of what I’m feeling. I feel angry today. Really angry. Yesterday was mostly sad. Today it is anger. Maybe tomorrow I will be less angry. Maybe not. I never know what each day will bring. The only thing I am certain of is that tomorrow, Jason will still be dead and I will wake up wishing he was here. Wishing that my life was different.
