Stuck

I feel stuck. Nothing is changing, getting better, getting worse. The last few weeks are the longest I have gone with so little variation in emotion and mental state. I keep feeling like I should be pushing myself to take more baby steps back into the world, because I feel like I will never go back out there, never have any semblance of normal life, unless I make myself.

For example, I feel like I should be able to go to a bar. Just to hang out with friends or neighbors. But I am frozen at the thought. Why? Two reasons. First, I don’t want anyone to think I’m over him. The simple act of going out with friends seems loaded with meaning, seems to misinform the world that I am okay now. I hate the thought of anyone thinking I don’t miss him, that I wouldn’t rather be home with him. Also, I am consumed with the thought that people will think I am looking for a guy. It’s stupid, I know. After all, when I had Kirk and I went out with friends and he wasn’t with me, I never assumed that anyone thought I was looking for someone. I guess I feel like I now emanate aloneness, and that everyone will think I’m there looking for companionship. I know this is crazy, but it’s all I can think about, and I can’t stand that anyone might think it. I have no concern at all that anyone will actually approach me – that thought doesn’t even occur to me. I am only worried that people will think I WANT to be approached, when in fact it is absolutely the last thing I would want.

All my neighbors go to the only bar in town and they often ask me to go. There are live bands that play, which in my other life I would have enjoyed. I don’t really want to go, but I do want to WANT to go – to feel able to go. So far I haven’t said yes, because I don’t know how I will do, and don’t want to have to explain myself if I leave after 5 minutes. So when my sister was here recently, I decided that we should go - a practice run if you will. That way if I got freaked out and had to leave I could just go home and she of course would understand. We got ready to leave the house, and as I was about to get my coat, I realized I had taken my rings off to wash my hands and hadn’t put them back on. The thought that I almost left the house without my rings made me feel panicked, like I couldn't breathe. They are my armor - my signal to the world that I love someone, I belong to someone, I don’t need or want anyone else.

Then when we got there, we walked in, and standing just inside the front door was the chief of police from our town. The one who came to the house to tell me Kirk was dead. The one who has been passionate about wanting to see the person who killed Kirk held responsible. The one who was quoted in the paper saying that telling me Kirk had been killed was the hardest moment of his entire career. The last person I wanted to have see me in a bar, looking normal on the outside, only 9 months after my husband died. I think I only lasted 30 minutes before I needed to leave,and the whole time I was self-conscious, worried what he was thinking. And now I keep feeling like I need to call him and explain – tell him it was an only an experiment, tell him I am still lost, ask him to please still care. I hate that he saw me there. So much for that experiment.

I also feel like I should be making small steps toward not having Kirk’s things be just like he left them. I should try something small. Maybe get rid of his shampoo bottle in the shower. Or the sliver of his soap that is still there. Or I could clean his sink or mirror – wipe away his toothpaste spatters, the tiny hairs that fell from his electric razor. I could give some of his clothes to charity – just a jacket or some pants or something. Or even do something as small as pick up the shirts he left hanging to dry in the laundry room and just move them to our closet. But I can’t stand the thought of even these small steps. And yet I am very worried that twenty years from now I will still be here, nothing different, the house a shrine to him, frozen in time. I don’t want to be that widow – the one who gets stuck in the past forever. But how do I stop her from happening if after almost 10 months I can’t even move a shirt from the laundry room to the closet?

I guess I just don’t know if making progress will happen if I just wait long enough, or if it will only happen if I make it happen one step at a time. So here I sit – stuck.