Grief, mourning, widowhood (is this a real word?)…this wasn’t supposed to be part of my world–or my blog. At all…but here I am. Exactly one month ago, my partner and soulmate of 14 years suddenly died. I’m still not in my right mind. I’m not sure I’ll ever be. My world has burned to the ground and I do not think I can ever feel happiness again. My therapist tells me I need to journal everything. So this is it. I realize grief makes people uncomfortable. I know it did so for me…but this is something we–as a society–need to get over. I’m getting vaguely touchy-feely on Facebook but will be utterly open and brutally honest here.

Welcome to my public journey as I travel through the Hellscape that my life has become. I am still working full-time with a couple of side gigs…my official bereavement time with my employer is over though. I’ve found myself again a single mother of two teens. I’ve even gained custody of another dog so life isn’t slowing down any. I’m still here and still trying pull off miracles as I navigate through this hot mess of a life.

Fourteen years. Almost a decade and a half. That’s a long time. Who leaves these kinds of notes after 14 years?? These were an every day thing.

We were still IN love. I don’t think many can say that after 14 years.

How do I go from getting these almost every day to never getting another again?

He gave this to me the day I *finally* said yes. (It took over 6 years to finally say this little word.) The day we were married, he crossed out the ‘future.’ Little did we know that we’d have less than 2 months.