Ah. The holidays are here...

I read through my last few blogs (which no one else read, which is fine...) and thought, how sad. I love the holidays, and I know that even though I am sad that he's not here, I am going to have a good Christmas for my daughter.  I owe her.

So we're going to my parents this holiday, and I have mixed feelings about it.  When we were there for Thanksgiving, my mom intentionally invited the local 68+ jet set group over for desserts and drinks after dinner.

Me: Mom, you said this was going to be just a small gathering...
Mom: Well, I thought it would be good to have some people over... Just the Bonds... and the Pattersons.  And then we were going to have the Yarusses over, and we had to have the Paulsons.  If you have the Paulsons, we needed to have Pat and Margaret...

You get the picture. What she was really saying was, "I am terrified that the melancholy will over take you and you will begin crying again, so I am going to make sure that there are a ton of people around to engage you.

Nothing like being in a room with like 14 people who are literally twice your age, and you're the only widow.  It's awesome.

I wish I was the moon...

Last night I dreamt I had forgotten my name
 'Cause I had sold my soul but awoke just the same
 I'm so lonely
 I wish I was the moon tonight

God blessed me, I'm a free man
 With no place free to go
 I'm paralyzed and collared-tight
 No pills for what I fear

This is crazy
 I wish I was the moon tonight

I feel so heartbroken. It's like every night I dread when everyone falls asleep. Thoughtful friends and colleagues say things like, "How are you doing?" and  "Be strong."  I just want to yell at them. All of them... Do you not understand? My heart has been cleaved in half like a rock with some archaic pick-axe.  It cannot be mended. It just lays in my mfucking chest like two rocks that have been cracked in half by a hammer. When it gets quiet, when I lay in my bed, all I feel is pain. The thump.thump.thump of the damaged heart that rests in my body.  I want to ask: Do you know my husband is dead? Do you know what it feels like to have your soulmate torn from you? He's not on a trip. We're not in a fight.  He's just not coming back. Ever.

I thought he would be my partner in this life, the father of my child. We would carry on through all of life's hardships, good and bad, and we would celebrate all of the obstacles we'd overcome at the end.

It's not fair. It's not fair he lived 39 years. It's not fair we only had 14 years together, 8 as man and wife. It's not fair that she only had 2 and a half years with her daddy.  I regret so much, and remember not enough.  I know I will always be sad.  I don't think that my heart will mend. I don't think that I can ever find love again. I am not sure I want to.

This hurts. I hurt. It's not going away. I am so lonely, I could cry. I want him back. Every day.

Jersey boys and 'merican girls

My husband was from North Jersey. He was an Italian-American, born and raised in Essex County, NJ. His family is Italian. I mean his whole family.  There wasn't a speck of non-Italian in the man.  I, however, am not Italian; in the words of his family, a 'merican (pronounced meh-di-gan).  That means regular, plain ol' white kid, not blessed with the napoleatan genes.  We are a special group of people that apparently always wish we could be Italian. 

Tony and I were together for 14 years.  In these 14 years, I have learned so much about the Italian-American community in N. Jersey; enough to know that no matter how good I become at pronouncing moppine, Maddon' and schahl macaron' (you've got to forgvie the spelling... it's not like  I can google these words, and they're not in an Italian-English dictionary) I know that I will never be part of that community.

My family is Scottish-Irish-French-German; in his words, a mutt.  We came from a family that had only a few cousins here and there, and everyone lived out of state.  Tony's family, however, all lived within 30 minutes of one another in North Jersey.  And there were dozens of them... literally.  There was Big Sal and Little Sal, Big Joe and Little Joey, Vinnie, Nicky, Mario, Mikey, Paulie, big Domenick, Little Domenick, you get the picture.  Every holiday, when we would visit, it was like a train station. It was so busy, with a million people, talking, laughing and yelling and everyone kisses you (it doesn't really matter if they knew you, you were getting kissed- no doubt).  And it's so loud.  I remember thinking the first time I was there, "Holy cow, these are the loudest people I have ever met..."...  I didn't know what to think.

I knew that my love for him would forever tether me to these people, but I never thought I would be tied to them alone.  Now, I go back, and it is without him, it's just me trying to teach his daughter the importance of the healthy parts of the NJ Italian heritage while dodging the negative bullshit that goes along with it. 

We just got back from there.  I have discovered that I need to work on becoming a more artful dodger.

Alone...

This is my first blog ever.  Wow. So original.   I am supposed to journal, and this is supposed to be therapeutic for me.  Everyone tells me that it will help me begin to heal from the loss of my husband.  Right.

My husband died 12 days ago.  He died here in my home, my bed; I did chest compressions, but to no avail.  There was a blood clot in his lungs that became lodged in his coronary artery.  The paramedics could do nothing, and he died. 

He left me, and our two-year old daughter, and I feel lost.

Ugh.