The watershed....

5 months... it's a blink of an eye. It's an eternity.  I still swear I am living someone else's life. This is the thing you read about happening to some poor person and talk about how awful it is; but sit in your happy bubble knowing it won't be you.  Until it is.  It irrevocably changes you, deep in the most hallowed parts of your soul; in a way you can't begin to describe.  Slowly and painfully you reach places in life, in grief, in healing you never even considered having to consider.  Where do you go? How do you transition? The changes in grief are as sudden, unexpected, unplanned, and almost as heart wrenching as the event itself.  For me, I woke up one day, maybe two weeks ago... and I moved my wedding band from my left hand ring finger to my right. I sobbed like a baby for at least an hour after I did it.  Then I wiped my tears, took a deep breathe, and felt lighter.  I had been having dreams of Dave leaving me.  I then read a LOT about widows having those types of dreams.  It is very common, and usually signals a mental transition.  Some actually think it is a message from the person we lost.  Not that they don't love us, but that they are letting us go; telling us to live.  I am not ready to live in that way, and I hope Dave isn't ready to give me up just yet.  I don't want to be alone forever, but I don't have any sense of need to deliberately alter my current position.  Yet, I felt like looking down at my ring on that finger was so much pressure, suffocating almost.  I will forever be Dave's wife, never did need a ring for that. Aside from being the mommy to our three littles, it is the greatest honor and privilege I have ever been lucky enough to have.  It has become such a burden though.  I have been in stores, had people recognize me, and literally heard them behind me telling someone about me; like I am deaf or dumb.  Since I was 14, practically a baby, I have been "his" in one way or another,  We met and began dating, and then years later we got married; there wasn't any lay period in between.  Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't change so much as a second of it. My relationship with Dave defined almost half of my life, just one year shy of it actually.  Dave's accident will now define the rest of it, and not just mine but the kids too.  They will be those kids who's dad died.  Kendall will be that baby who's never had a dad.  I don't want that for them.  I also don't want to find a fill in, I just want him; which is obviously not a choice I get to make.  I want to go to dinner, and have a drink with a friend; and not feel guilty about living.  Looking down and seeing my ring on that finger, and knowing everything that goes along with it; I can't have both.  It's the smallest gestures, that are actually the biggest and most significant.  The judgments that go along with them, are some of the hardest.  I still feel like I have a million eyes on me at all times.  I remember the panic attack I had the first time I went into Acme and someone asked me how I was doing, it was about a week after his accident.  It was as if they had strangled me, or stabbed me in the gut.  This person meant well, they were kind; but I felt so judged and under a microscope.  Now as our lives transition, not just mine but the kids too; I feel that again.  There are friends you want to rediscover after having separated over the years because of nothing more then life, or other people who you crave distance from.  Meals you cook that you never would have before because the other person didn't enjoy them, TV shows you don't have to suffer through.  Everything, everyday, is a transition; some greater then others.  You feel judged in almost every single one of them.  I never imagined 5 months ago I would be where I am today.  I laugh more then I cry, but I feel guilty about it.  I know Dave doesn't want me to feel badly, that learning to live happily is what he wishes for us, but the amount of guilt it brings is what is so overbearing.  That weight and heaviness is why I switched my ring.  Not because I am less in love, or less his. Simply to lighten the load. It was one of the very first times in 9 years that I haven't had a ring on that finger.  I feel naked, vulnerable without it.  Those two feelings irk me, because the comfort I have had for so long is gone.  They are also reasons why I need this small change, because having that ring there, knowing what all goes with it; sometimes I still forget.  Subconsciously wearing my ring as I have for so long, makes me occasionally for a split second; forget.  I will go to call his name for help, or think of texting him.  Those small moments make everything come crashing down.  I don't know how a ring changes that, but it does.  It seems to have fixed me from doing those things, preventing the huge let down I would bring upon myself in a fleeting moment of forgetfulness.  I need a break from that.  In all honesty, I love my ring, and part of not wearing it there hurts, but part of it is so superficial that I am slightly ambivalent.  Simply put, things we add such huge meaning to in life, simply just are't important in death...