And it’s been 596 days since I have become a widow.

596 days since my daughter lost her father.

596 days since the world I knew ended and my future was taken away from me.

596 days where I have felt lost and broken.

596 days of wondering what I was going to do with the rest of my life.

596 days of guilt.  Even though my head knows I have nothing to feel guilty about, I still feel it.

596 days of wondering “what if…?”

596 days of guarding my emotions because other people can’t handle them.  Because making sure someone doesn’t feel discomfort for a short period of time is more important than the emotions of a person who deals with or had to deal with this hell every day.

596 days of rolling my eyes when people make insensitive comments knowing that they mean well.  I envy their naivety.

596 days of missing what I had and wondering if I will ever be loved again.  Though my love for Bryon was unique (as every love is) I wonder if I will ever feel that way again.

596 days of feeling like I am on a deserted island.  I know people try to understand but sometimes I really wish I could just be “normal” like everyone else.

596 days of having to work at being happy.  I will avoid anyone that makes me feel worse about my current state of life.

596 days since I have changed but people don’t see the real you.  They want you to be whatever version of you that they previously knew.  Or thought they had. Or they just see you as a broken widow, not the stronger person that you are really are.  The old me is dead or on sabbatical until I decide where those old versions of myself fit into my new life.

596 days of protecting my boundaries.  People will try to manipulate you.  Even people who you thought were friends.  People will pretend they are helping you in a public forum but never pick up the phone or text.  There are people who think that your private life is their business just because Bryon was popular and I have a blog.  But I choose what I write about on my blog and I choose what is private and will continue to enforce that boundary.

596 days of sadness.  And while my sadness rarely breaks me down anymore, it still runs in the background, kind of like an app you forget to close on your cell phone.  Once in awhile, it builds up and you have to deal with it.

I remember being told that it gets easier.  And it has gotten easier.  But I still miss him.

Sometimes I wonder if it the grief is subsiding or if I am just getting used to Bryon being gone.  When Bryon first died, my whole world was rocked and I was in the “widow fog” for about a year.  Now I have gotten some of my footing back and the fog has lifted but I am more likely to miss the little things.  I don’t have my fog to protect me from reality anymore.

I am so over this whole widowed thing.