I’ve lived 9.5 years, post-loss.
My loss isn’t something I think of every day - although he is - and I’m not constantly thinking about this or that stat.
But when I turned 40, I felt that milestone. I was 30 when I lost him - that made it a quarter of my life I’ve now lived post-loss.
Whoa.
There’s something I never thought I’d do. ESPECIALLY in the months immediately following.
It was hard enough to get to work and eat 3 times a day. I wasn’t thinking 10 years.
I do remember thinking I had 70 years to live without him, if I made it to 100. That was overwhelming and intimidating.
My brother put me on a plan to get through the days. I didn’t think about more than one day. Each day, I woke up and got to work (bagel shop). One down. At 10am, post morning rush, I got a smoke and a breath. Get through lunch rush, and sit down at 2pm. Walk out of work at 3 and I could go sit on my deck, my chair, fall apart. Get to bed by 8 or 9 and I just did another day.
I consciously thought about not living any more. I could go crawl into my parents basement and drink myself to death. Yes, it’s questionable whether they would’ve let me, but it was a comforting thought. Unfortunately - or fortunately - my nephews were 6 and 7-years-old. They knew me. They would process I wasn’t around anymore. I chose to not do that to them. It was a difficult, conscious choice.
So I got on the how-to-live-a-day plan and for 7 years knocked down issues as they came up. I couldn’t think about the long term.
Then - not exactly that way, but right now it feels like that - I turned around and I’m 40. I did restaurants because it’s what I did, it was fun, then more fun, then crap what am I doing, then this is my last one. And it was. And that’s good.
I went into something professionally I would’ve done if he’d been alive. All I ever wanted was a quiet life, an easy life. Well, guess what.
But God knows, if you’d asked me 9 years ago, I never could’ve told you any of this.
All I did was wake up, morning break, afternoon break, sleep, repeat.
