Disclaimer: This post is depressing as hell. Ye be warned.

How is this my life? Am I allowed to be depressed? There are some times when I feel fine, good even. But then there are other times where everything feels absolutely hopeless. Like now, for instance, at 1:00 in the morning. When I should be sleeping, but I’m not. Because I feel like shit. Not physically, physically I’m fine. Technically, that’s not true either because I somehow sprained my wrist today playing baseball with my 10 year old because that’s just what happens when you reach a certain age. You try to do things with your kid and you end up hurt. And it hurts like hell. But I’d gladly feel wrist pain every day for the rest of my life if I didn’t have to feel this emotional pain that still tries to consume me.

Night time is when it always gets the best of me. Whenever everything gets quiet. When everything goes dark. When it’s just me and the sound of the stupid clock ticking in the background. When I go into the bathroom to get 1/2 a Xanax to help me shut my brain off, but open the cabinet and see my dead husband’s anti-nausea medication staring me in the face. Because my husband had anti-nausea medication for his terminal cancer that ended his life.

I suffered from postpartum depression for nearly 2 years after having Jack. At the time, I had no idea that’s what the problem was. I just knew that I felt emotionally dead inside. I’m a cryer. I’m sensitive. These are facts about me that have been true since the day I was born. But for 2 years after the birth of my first son. I didn’t cry. I didn’t feel. I was nothing. I felt like no one. I lost myself. And I had no idea.

Now, I’m well aware of how I’m feeling and that feeling is fucking broken. And guilty. And alone. Growing up, and probably well into my 20s, I used to always think how lucky I was because nothing tragic, truly tragic, had ever happened in my life. It’s like I was tempting fate. Like I decided I was untouchable from tragedy. It happened to other people. But not to me.

And then I got married. I had a child. I suffered from an unknown depression that left me empty.  I fought with my husband nonstop. I wished he would go away. I threatened to leave him. And now he’s gone. And I can’t help but feel somewhat responsible. Yes, in my rational head, I know that’s not how these things work, but we can’t always control where our thoughts lead us. How irrational our thoughts can become.

I’m having a hard time enjoying my life. Certainly, I live and breath, my heart beats for my children. They are my absolute everything. But I’m not the same. We’re not the same. Life is not the same. Which is a stupid thing to write because of course we’re not the same. How could we be? But, fuck, do I miss my husband? His friendship. His love. His advice. His support. His touch. His kiss. His humor. His passion. His ugly ass feet. His beautifully perfect eyelashes. His nonstop chatter. His awful driving. His intolerably lengthy shopping habits. His appetite. His passion. His adventure. His dreams. His irresponsibility. Just him. All of him. The perfectly imperfect man, husband, father and friend that he was.

This isn’t my finest hour. When is 1:30 am anybody’s finest hour? I just wonder how it all came to be, why it all came to be? How is this my life? It’s certainly not how I pictured it to be as a young girl who’s main dream in life was to get married and to have children. I guess I should have specified that I would prefer my husband also stay alive to help raise said children. Rookie mistake. In reality, Ash did make my dreams come true. He made me a wife and he made me a mother. Unfortunately, he also made me a widow. What a dick. That wasn’t part of the plan. We had a plan. Create successful business, raise successful children, pray said children want to take over said business, retire, move to The Villages and spend the rest of our days soaking up the sun, playing golf and making out like teenagers. But, alas, fate had other plans.

Don’t mock fate. Don’t take for granted what you have. Don’t settle for less than what you deserve. Soak it all in. Please. For all us widows wondering why the fuck, what the fuck and how the fuck?