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You definitely take every good day and just relish them!
Yep more dark ones are ahead, but if that's not today, leave em til they come.
These good days let us know that life does go on, there is still beauty in the world, and we will find a new shape to our lives :giggle: đź’ś
Love reading how you expressed this!
 
Yesterday I was busy looking at jobs and getting set up for my sales online party and thinking on various projects and the random thought struck: “but I Don’t want anything but you”. To some extent, that will always be true I think.

It’s terrible and beautiful all at once to have a love so great that you always have that part of you, but I know that too is survivable. I still feel much more myself than I did a few months ago- it’s just a “new” self.

I still have to face some parts of my house. I am pushing myself a little on clearing and tossing and sorting because I think I’ll feel better with that done.

The big thing is making decisions about Brian’s den. I had an actual appraisal of all the things his Playboy collection and found out it has significant value. I guess I’ll sell those off first, start easy :). He has issues reaching back to the mid 70’s. A widowed friend said don’t freak yourself out, but don’t drag either. It’s your house now, make it yours. Made sense.
 
Lenore finally getting Brian’s room emptied and redone was huge for me. It does help. I won’t say that I don’t ever “see” him there, but it’s a bit more difficult with new paint on the walls and redone in a beachy theme.

Getting the laundry room together has also made an impact for me. Not like I did anything huge, painted the walls and added new shelves. Then just pulled stuff I already had around to deco. The feel in there is so uplifting now. I know it’s a laundry room LOL. Hey whatever helps.

Glad you can sell some of the things since they have significant value and use that to put toward whatever you decide is your vision for that room.

Hugs
 
I Think the time has come for me to stop posting to this particular thread.

I will still be posting around the site, and I may make another “personal” thread, but this thread has really been about that very first part of life as a “former” CALS- if we are in fact ever truly “former”...

I have thrown my hat back in the ring in the job market, I may or may not sell my house next year after all, and I am still musing on relocation in the next few years to a better climate. The ache of course remains, and to some extent always will. We know we live with it, we don’t get over it

I want to stick around and share my knowledge and help others through this experience. The “ALS Community” will always be a part of my tribe. My appreciation for the people on this site is endless. I never could have dealt with the past and three plus years without you.
 
Leonore, thanks for posting. It sure helped me with my process. Sometimes I read things that were not happening for me and then later they did - I kept thinking of your posts. Thanks for all you did.
 
Lenore, best to you as you move forward. The journey is full of ups and downs. While a bit further out, today is not a good day. Will elaborate in my thread.

I pray you find the perfect job for you and if you decided to move, the perfect house. I’m still in the throws of that decision as well.

Hugs my friend
 
I changed my mind. I’ll move in this thread another six months, let it top out at the one year anniversary of Brian’s passing.

Today marks six months. Six months since that morning of sadness and great relief. I started to reply to a VSED thread last week, not yet... I will be all over those eventually or when I can but not just yet.

My hope for myself was to move through our story being able to say something I learned in Latin class in college; “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith”. Judging myself as. CALS, I think I succeeded there, mostly. It can only be mostly. I figured out that no mere mortal is fully equal to the task of being a CALS.

I’ve been three months from my old job now. I just started looking again. I went back to work two weeks after he passed (why?!), and just about six weeks after that was written up for a loud argument that involved no bad language or insubordination. My resignation came the next day, on Brian’s 69th birthday and I still gave them thirty days notice. The whole thing was weird. I felt a definite atmosphere of regret around the whole thing, which just further proved to me how dysfunctional the working relationships had become. In the end, it’s been for the best. It was time. I have worked for some tough competitors, we are not a particularly kind industry. I remain perplexed however at the raw lack of compassion shown in that situation, in an organization of “mission, vision and values”. I don’t believe anyone else I have worked with would have done that. It was another thing to recover from.

As part of my job seeking, I’m actually getting a pro redo of my years old resume. Resumes turn into Frankensteins over the years as you add positions and the styles become outdated too. I had one in person interview already but backed out because the position was one down from what I’d had and I’d like to stay where I was title wise (and that’s pretty do-able). This weeks applications were well received, two phone screens on three resumes sent with in persons likely in the next few weeks. I’m patient, working by March or so is my goal.

Two more trips this year, maybe more. One will be just two days in Northern MN, the other my post Thanksgiving week in Hawaii. Looking forward to it.

Yesterday I bagged up and donated six bags of Brian’s clothes and tomorrow I’m going on the ALS walk. It’ll just be me and my dog. I entered late and did not attempt to form a team but I think we’ll enjoy it.

Sunday, football brunch and next week more resume tinkering, healthy eating, and working on straightening out my house. Motivation is still tough some days, but I’m getting there.
 
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Lenore by any account I think you are doing well. I also the believe the break from work and responsibilities did you good. My therapist and I were talking about how I need a break. Owning a business just doesn’t allow for that. It should, but since we are very small and I do the payroll and pay the bills.....

So happy you are doing the walk. I was going to volunteer today, my DD is there with 2 friends doing just that. Part of her Capstone project for school, but I could not go. I started getting anxious. I knew I was better to stay home.

I’m sure the right job will come at the right time for you. You do have a few nice trips planned and I’m so happy to see that. It seems you are healing well, forever changed, but taking steps forward.

I also agree with your quote and estimation of what we as mere mortal CALS can do.

Have an amazing day - Hugs,
 
To all of the above, I should add that I miss Brian so much some days I think I will explode. The trick is in not pinning, but doing and focusing on what’s here and what can be done rather than that incalculable loss and all that will never be.
 
Somewhere there is a fine balance we need to find of just allowing ourselves to grieve (and it's horrible and even frighteningly so) and keeping busy. Not an easy balance.
Your grief is still so very raw because this loss only just happened, and it feels overwhelming. I often wondered how I was going to make it through those huge waves and feeling of will I explode. đź’ś
 
I just glanced down again at the floors he laid five years ago, and a scream is stuck in my throat.

I say that not for sympathy, but to show others on this path that I am like you, not all sunshine and light six months out. It’s still real, it’s still raw, I’m still coping.

Thanks all.
 
We are all coping, as best we can. We do what we can to move forward, teeny tiny baby steps at a time, and then fall back by a giant leap sometimes.

Looking at houses online today. May go check 2 of them out that are open today, not sure.

I’ve stayed away from work stuff this weekend. Hopefully Monday may bring better answers, we will see.

Lenore I understand that scream, it’s not for sympathy, it’s life.

Hugs all
 
Yep that scream would make me stop breathing for long seconds, then it's like a heaving, jerking return to trying to the breath .... I promise you, if you just keep facing it, dealing with it, going through the horror, it does slowly lessen. But slowly is worst word in that sentence :confused:đź’”
 
Okay, thinking on this tonight: I’m six months out and I can’t keep reading posts here and there from others that say “The second year is BAD...” “The reality hits you”, etc.

Maybe I’m incredibly wrong, but I feel like reality started smacking me in the head with a two by four 3.5 years ago, and it’s already near crushed my skull.

I’m off in a mad huff, thinking on eternal grief.
 
Lenore, I tend to agree with you that reality starting smacking us around the day our DH’s were DX. I’m just shortly a head of you. Nearing 10mo out. I can say it comes in waves. I will do OK for a bit and then get smacked down again. So I have no idea what year 2 will bring.

Saying that, my MIL was fine during year one and none of it hit her until year 2 when my FIL passed. However they didn’t have the prolonged suffering that we did either.

Everyone is different and I don’t think we can base our own path on anyone else. It’s our path and we have to walk through it, just as ALS was a bit different for each of us, so will be our grief.

Hugs my friend,
 
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