The Grief Zone

Another storm.

Another night without Rick.

Whether cats or friends fill my house, there's a loneliness that seeps into every part of me. As my work day ends, I enter into a world of isolation and grief. I envision myself ducking underneath yellow CAUTION tape to enter my house. In my head, there's a sign out front that says: GRIEF LIVES HERE. At the front door, my mind sees another sign in the window: BEWARE OF LONELINESS.

As I leave my car, where I can now listen to music within reason, I slip into a new world where crying is a nightly affair and my cell phone is a lifeline to the world outside the Grief Zone. 

The Arielle of day gradually becomes the Arielle of night, a more subdued version with extra heaviness and fewer distractions. The Arielle I tuck in bed at night has stayed up so late she can't possibly keep her eyes open. She fears nightmares and emotional pain. The Arielle I cry to sleep is lonely and in mourning. 

When morning comes, the Arielle who wakes up in my bed gradually becomes vibrant with life, ready for challenges, and hopeful to a fault. She gets things done and is glad the night is over. The Arielle of the morning prepares to leave the Grief Zone by putting on makeup with the intention of keeping it on rather than crying it off. She makes a cup of comfort in the form of coffee. She reminds herself that she can create happiness. 

Both Arielles are there, always, part of me. One takes a backseat to the other at different times of day. 

Sometimes I want to take a roll of yellow CAUTION tape and wrap it around me. How else will anyone know what's waiting inside me? I look at myself in the mirror. My childlike face doesn't scream WIDOW. My eyes look sad in the weirdest way. I've never seen them like this before, even when I smile. It's as though all the pain of my heart had nowhere to go, so it floated up to the top of me and peers out through my blue eyes.

Grief is such a strange thing. I can't wait for the day when I can cut through the CAUTION tape, air out the Grief Zone, and look at myself in the mirror again without a pit in my stomach.

Empty Spaces

There are so many empty spaces in my life now.

There is an empty chair in my living room. Sometimes I sit in it...especially when I blog...but most of the time, it remains empty. I feel like it is mourning Rick the same way I am. Even the cats don't sit in it unless I'm in it. When I sit in Rick's chair, sometimes I pretend he's in it too. I move my body so that I only take up half of the big chair, or I lean my head to the side the way I would if I was sitting in Rick's lap. It almost feels like the chair is holding me. I want to pat it comfortingly and say, "It will be okay."

There is an empty towel rack in his bathroom. It may have a towel for guests at times, but usually it mourns Rick too. His bathroom looks stark. It's too clean and it's devoid of life. No more evidence of shaving or hair combing. No more toothbrush. There used to be a painting in Rick's bathroom. It was a painting of a ship on the sea and Rick told me it had been in his room as a child. It made me too sad to look at it, so I took it down and replaced it with something else. 

There is an empty spot in our bed...my bed. The king sized bed feels massive now. I continue to sleep on my side of the bed, even though technically the entire bed is now mine. I stay curled up on one half of it, crying, thinking, and remembering so many things. The other day I propped extra pillows on Rick's side, just so the bed would feel less empty. Sometimes, in the dark, in the middle of the night, I reach my arm out as far as it will go to the other side of the bed, just hoping against hope that my fingers will come in contact with him. It's silly, but I do it anyway, like my bed might just be the one magical place where reality will fade away.

There is even an empty spot I'm dreading in advance...

The decals on the back of my car which represent my family made me laugh the day I got them, but now every time I see them, I hurt inside. When is the right time to remove the Rick figure from the scene? Why isn't there a handbook for these things? How long do you wait to peel the "husband" decal from a windshield? 3 months? 6 months? A year? At which point does it become ridiculous that  it is still on my car? I dread that empty spot so much. The "Rick" decal is not even at the end of the family scene. The empty spot will be obvious. Painful.

In a lot of ways, it's fitting. When I peel the decal away, the empty spot next to "me" on the back of the car will represent all my pain. My missing piece. A void. 

There's a spot next to me in the chair...the bed...my life...and it is empty. There's a spot in my heart that's empty too. It feels hollow, as though I could whisper the word "Rick" and hear it echo within myself, bouncing around with nowhere to go...because there is no one next to me left to hear the name.