Grief & A New Normal

Death comes to us all.  Some of us are prepared when it arrives.  Sometimes, it comes “like a thief in the night.”  No matter when or how, death can leave a mammoth hole in place of the person that was taken.  Waking daily and walking through the commitments can become a mundane experience if there aren’t those commitments to hold on to.

I never thought that taking a shower would feel so less than ordinary.  I never thought that holidays would come to feel so empty.  So…hollow.  But, without them I wouldn’t know what day it was.  I would wake up and lay in bed.  That can’t be an inspiring normal.  It can’t be a normal that I would want to experience day in and day out for the rest of my life.

But, lately…it has become the normal I have.  A normal with limited direction.  A normal that, quite honestly, I haven’t adjusted to very well.  It feels like I’m trapped in a world that has very limited resources at the moment to resolve the sorrow, and instant aimlessness this new life has to offer.  A transition into a life that is far less evolutionary than life with my wife.  

A life where I was always made aware of what needed to change, or where I needed to grow.  My constant gauge of how I am growing is no longer here.  How do I move forward with so much of the old life still unresolved.  Bills that have piled up.  Debts that have overwhelmed.  A family business that imploded.  A new normal with so many struggles.

While life continues for others, life for me seems to have slowed to a crawl.  It hasn’t stopped because I’m still breathing and moving.  But, it certainly has slowed down considerably.  Which leaves me with questions!  Loads of questions.