It's been a year and I still don't understand why this happened to her and me. What I did to deserve it.
I often have sobbing moments and then they linger and think about how my life has been hijacked by going through this and I want to scream as loud as I can.
Why?
I lived my whole life, or my whole adult-life and even when I was in High School, naturally hoping to find someone who understood me. Who would "get" me and care about me and I would care about. And I met Joyce when I was 34. So I spent 20 or more years, single, a loner. I used to say "music is my girlfriend" in fact.
And then when I met Joyce, after feeling frustrated for years with dating or even lack-their-of. Feeling invisible to women. And Joyce was different. And we shared our lives, very extensively for 14 years. Being married for almost 9 years.
I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with her, like many who get married. But no, it was too good to be true, like many of my other life experiences.
Too Good to be True..it's like one of those things you seek out or hope might finally happen for you 1 day, and it sort of does, but then it doesn't fulfill that hope entirely.
I don't know. Life's not fair I guess. And now I am left a year later, trying to figure out how to live by myself most of the time. All these communities and groups I have joined, some more than likely longer-term like Mt. Zion Synagogue, and others like some of the Widow communities, which may or may not ultimately be for me to part of longterm.
And along with Joyce, the other losses. Mocha my kitty, and then the names I say to myself every week at Shabbat services. Saundra, Diana, Tim, Rosie, Anthony..and now Marie and Mike.
A lot of loss, that makes me feel like I'm in a War Zone. They are casualties, and I am a survivor, whether fair or not.
I don't know how easy the Year of 2nds will be, and especially just this continued lonely life that has been forced upon me. I hope it will get easier. I guess at least trying many new things like the Walking Group, Grief Community Ritual at Lakewood Cemtery, Bowling League, Vinyl Nights at Stereoland and going to Hifi Sound, Uptown Movie Club, and events with the Twin Cities Single Geeks and the Neurodivergent Group among others may help.
But I miss Joyce. I will likely always miss her. I have got Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which it just hit me, is more less the same thing as a grief triggeer. When I go to Target, or Cub or Walmart. And the Calendar events every year. Maybe the PTSD tears will fade and my struggles with Musical Anhedonia may not be so severe.
And being single and wanting to find a companion..someone to date that hopefully could be a long term relationship. But how I am supposed to do that while maintaining Joyce's regular presence in my mind, heart, dialog/conversation. And feeling like a woman needs to "get me" and get my obsession with music and progressive rock especially. I should feel I deserve to be selfish, even as rare as that might to find a woman whose a muso (which is not exclusively a MUSICIAN hence, JOYCE herself).
But dating..I totally suck at it. And it's a neverending frustration that I have become plagued by not too long after she died. I am not used to being alone. Eating dinner alone. Going to trivia alone. Going shopping alone even. Going to events alone while others are there with their partners or at least friends. It's an ADJUSTMENT DISORDER and an illness that I may always have, at least until i am with someone else again.
But coming to grips with, I could be alone like I have been for a long time, if not the rest of my life. And because of what? because Joyce never went to the doctor and liked candy and snacks and didn't exercise enough?..how is that fair? she wasn't dealing with any obvious physical issues until it was Stage IV?..it's so cruel to think about./ yeah, she didn't die from an accident or being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe it was her negligence and lack of awareness of non-apparent health risks?..at 49 and 50 years old?
Human beings were not all meant to live into their 70's and 80's..even if genetics suggested they could. But it just so happened to have to happen to her.
I don't know, a year ago early on after she died, the 1 thing I hoped was that others wouldn't go through this too. And now even know some who have. It makes me think back to that whole thing about human beings on this planet and universe and lifespans are just a big cosmic and evolutionary joke. Humans like other lifeforms are created and born and live and die. Nothing more. And we come back with no memory or awareness of those past lives. Past existences. Just like maybe Joyce and I were around 500 years ago or 5,000 years ago..our energy was. And we will both comeback in the year 2237 or something as humans again? with no memory of our love and married from 2011-2025.
It's fucking cruel and I don't know if I will ever escape thinking about it until I die, whenever that is.
