The hardest part of this profile.
Nice honest, and active. I engage in life. I create my own fun. I do enjoy sharing experiences with a special person---but why wait? Now is the time to live. I can and do stop to smell the roses. I always find reasons to have graditude.
I enjoy camping, hiking, being involved in life.
PERHAPS it would help to share something I wrote for another blog recently:
I have spent the last 1+year waiting. Waiting for the day when I will recover,(be normal again).
I have cried, yelled, gave up, tried again, talked, kept quiet, looked for company, avoided company, reached out to help others, shut myself in, slept too much, not slept enough, hated God, loved God, ate too much, forgot to eat, knew I could survive, knew I could not suvive another moment....but most of all I have WAITED.
Waited for what? The return of my old life? The return of a "normal" life? A time where I would no longer hurt? Yes, yes, and yes!
I saw a man who had lost his legs, and it got me thinking. Is he waiting for his legs to re-grow? Is he waiting for life to return to normal? Well he might be. But I have met men like this who don't look at what they can no longer can do, but look at what they can do. They seek out life. They look for opportunities. What can I do, not what can't I do.
So okay, what about me? My wife is not going to return................fact.
Where does this leave me? Will I always be 1/2 of what had become "one"? Well yes and no. My best half is gone. But I still live. So far I have been a pile of grief that goes by the name of "widower" (sometimes known as Skip). I walk around and think that others see 1/2 a man, when they look at me.When I look in the mirror, I do see 1/2 a man.
But the truth is I am a man, a whole man. A man who loved his wife very much. A man who is a father and loves his sons. I am a man who has acomplished much, over the years. (The best being a husband.) A man who had so many dreams, dreams of sharing a life with my wife. But now I have been looking at all the things that I can no longer do. Of all the dreams that can never be. I haven't been looking at what I can do.(And I haven't wanted to look at the future---not by myself.) I have not been looking at dreams anymore, (because they were all gone.) And those dreams belonged to husband and wife, together. But life is going on. And I must go on. (Will my legs every grow back?) Will my wife return? NO! So now what?
Could I ever dream again, without her? Do I have any right to dream again, without her? All our dreams were together. All my dreams were about her.
Little by little, I am starting to try to enter life again. Dating?(are you kidding?) NO (at least not yet?)....later?...Smiling? (well sometimes) Meeting people and saying,"Hi, I'm Skip", (rather than Hi I'm a widower). Pursueing my hobbies...what hobbies?...I was too busy being a husband and a caretaker to have hobbies. It seems it would be easier to just wilt away....slowly just disappear....
Then I come to the question. Am I showing love for my wife and her memory, by not caring for me anymore? Would that be what would please her? No, it wouldn't.
I just finished watching the movie UP again. (Wow, does it ever make me cry.) But there is a book that his wife had, called, "My Adventures". The book goes up to a page that says. "Things I will do." The man stops reading there. (Same place where I have stopped in my life.) He feels that they never got to do the things in life that were important.....(same as me.).....then he notices that there is something else in the book, and he proceeds to look farther. She has put things that he was not thinking about of their life together. Her memories.
In my grief, I had forgotten that my wife and I had "adventures" in our lives together. Those things were (are) important. We didn't do all the things I thought we were meant to do.....On the last page this woman wrote..."Thanks for the adventures. Now go and make a new adventure." I know it is silly that a child's movie could teach me an important thing about my life now, but it did. My wife would want me to live life now. She would not want me to live my life suffering. I cannot help being sad, and missing her. She will always be a part of me. Somethings in life, I am not ready for. But I will, one day at a time, try to find life again. One moment, one day at a time.
I am already in recovery...not someday....but today. I am in my new life. There are so many questions and fears that I have, but today I will step forward. Not 1/2 a man, but a man. Perhaps scarred and scared, perhaps different than I was before, but a person name Skip...who for a time held the most wondeful treasure in my hands. I will try to remember the beauty of that treasure, rather than dwell on the lost of it. All the beauty that my wife gave to me, I still have. I am more than I once was because of her, and I will try to make her proud of me now.
My new life has started.... today..........
Nice honest, and active. I engage in life. I create my own fun. I do enjoy sharing experiences with a special person---but why wait? Now is the time to live. I can and do stop to smell the roses. I always find reasons to have graditude.
I enjoy camping, hiking, being involved in life.
PERHAPS it would help to share something I wrote for another blog recently:
I have spent the last 1+year waiting. Waiting for the day when I will recover,(be normal again).
I have cried, yelled, gave up, tried again, talked, kept quiet, looked for company, avoided company, reached out to help others, shut myself in, slept too much, not slept enough, hated God, loved God, ate too much, forgot to eat, knew I could survive, knew I could not suvive another moment....but most of all I have WAITED.
Waited for what? The return of my old life? The return of a "normal" life? A time where I would no longer hurt? Yes, yes, and yes!
I saw a man who had lost his legs, and it got me thinking. Is he waiting for his legs to re-grow? Is he waiting for life to return to normal? Well he might be. But I have met men like this who don't look at what they can no longer can do, but look at what they can do. They seek out life. They look for opportunities. What can I do, not what can't I do.
So okay, what about me? My wife is not going to return................fact.
Where does this leave me? Will I always be 1/2 of what had become "one"? Well yes and no. My best half is gone. But I still live. So far I have been a pile of grief that goes by the name of "widower" (sometimes known as Skip). I walk around and think that others see 1/2 a man, when they look at me.When I look in the mirror, I do see 1/2 a man.
But the truth is I am a man, a whole man. A man who loved his wife very much. A man who is a father and loves his sons. I am a man who has acomplished much, over the years. (The best being a husband.) A man who had so many dreams, dreams of sharing a life with my wife. But now I have been looking at all the things that I can no longer do. Of all the dreams that can never be. I haven't been looking at what I can do.(And I haven't wanted to look at the future---not by myself.) I have not been looking at dreams anymore, (because they were all gone.) And those dreams belonged to husband and wife, together. But life is going on. And I must go on. (Will my legs every grow back?) Will my wife return? NO! So now what?
Could I ever dream again, without her? Do I have any right to dream again, without her? All our dreams were together. All my dreams were about her.
Little by little, I am starting to try to enter life again. Dating?(are you kidding?) NO (at least not yet?)....later?...Smiling? (well sometimes) Meeting people and saying,"Hi, I'm Skip", (rather than Hi I'm a widower). Pursueing my hobbies...what hobbies?...I was too busy being a husband and a caretaker to have hobbies. It seems it would be easier to just wilt away....slowly just disappear....
Then I come to the question. Am I showing love for my wife and her memory, by not caring for me anymore? Would that be what would please her? No, it wouldn't.
I just finished watching the movie UP again. (Wow, does it ever make me cry.) But there is a book that his wife had, called, "My Adventures". The book goes up to a page that says. "Things I will do." The man stops reading there. (Same place where I have stopped in my life.) He feels that they never got to do the things in life that were important.....(same as me.).....then he notices that there is something else in the book, and he proceeds to look farther. She has put things that he was not thinking about of their life together. Her memories.
In my grief, I had forgotten that my wife and I had "adventures" in our lives together. Those things were (are) important. We didn't do all the things I thought we were meant to do.....On the last page this woman wrote..."Thanks for the adventures. Now go and make a new adventure." I know it is silly that a child's movie could teach me an important thing about my life now, but it did. My wife would want me to live life now. She would not want me to live my life suffering. I cannot help being sad, and missing her. She will always be a part of me. Somethings in life, I am not ready for. But I will, one day at a time, try to find life again. One moment, one day at a time.
I am already in recovery...not someday....but today. I am in my new life. There are so many questions and fears that I have, but today I will step forward. Not 1/2 a man, but a man. Perhaps scarred and scared, perhaps different than I was before, but a person name Skip...who for a time held the most wondeful treasure in my hands. I will try to remember the beauty of that treasure, rather than dwell on the lost of it. All the beauty that my wife gave to me, I still have. I am more than I once was because of her, and I will try to make her proud of me now.
My new life has started.... today..........
