09/05 10
I still feel very married to Clint, and I think I’ll be this way for a long time. Friends have suggested that I ask someone out. One friend actually recommended that I try an on-line dating service, the idea of which gives me a stomach ache.
I don't want to date anyone. I still want Clint. The idea of kissing lips other than his makes me shudder. His kisses were velvet, his lips soft and gentle, his tongue silken and giving, even when he was probing my mouth with it. I will never again be kissed like he did.
When we made love, his embrace was tender, sensuous and expecting. He was not a bear hug kind of man, though he was a strong lover. He always thought of my pleasure and ways to give it to me. He was never demanding in bed, because there was no need. The way he played my body brought to me great desire to please him. And so it was with this man, my man, my great love.
He was relaxed and easy to be with, a calming and empowering force in my life. It was only after he died that I came to know that I had drawn so much of my emotional strength and endurance from him. He was, indeed, my rock. (Oh, God, did I just use a worn out cliché)?
My self-confidence is coming back, but it is a slow process. I have had success at work in spite of a boss who is doing everything she can to see that I fail. The challenge has kept me sharp and determined. I love my work, but I need structure in my life, and Hospice home care is far from organized. By its very nature, it is fraught with making, then changing, appointments. There are emergencies during the day that throw off the most carefully planned timetable. I need a schedule, and I will have one when our inpatient facility opens. At that time, my job description will change, and I will work three 12-hour days a week, all in the same place. No more driving from house to house. And I’ll have a new boss, a woman I greatly admire for her knowledge and her sense of fairness. Meanwhile, I am grateful to be working. The money is good, and I have been working 40+ hour weeks, though I was hired to do part time outpatient work.
If Clint were here, I would be okay, knowing I could leave my job and come home to him, even if he were sick. I still miss him in an intense way that is hard to describe but is much like an aching hole in my core where he used to live. I’ve been weeping lately, more than usual - while driving, while writing (like now), while feeing the dogs....................
Honey and Belle are the family I come home to, and I thank God with all my heart that they are here. As I type, they are both on the bed with me, fast asleep, their presence a great comfort to me.
7 comments:
cj once you have a love like Clint, then it is hard to move on. Take as much time as you need and you may never be ready for another man. Meanwhile keep working and hold on until the more structured schedule comes. Weeping is fine, cleansing to the soul.
I know people try to help but we all need to find our own way through grief. Hopefully, when the job situation straightens out things will get better professionally and personally. Just keep hanging in there.
I just had this conversation with my best friends husband {she died a year ago August} and he just started dating someone. She spent the night last night and we talked about the feelings he is dealing with right now. The control of the desperation, actually "letting go" of Kelli, how to handle even things like pictures.
You're still in LoVe with
Your Clint.
Nothing else matters.
You and Your Heart will move on when it is ready and I have often found, that forcing it will not work. "}
I can only imagine the depth of your missing him. But what a blessing to have loved and been loved so well.
=)
CJ, I so appreciate your visceral writing. You are clearly in touch with your feelings, and that puts you ahead of the pack when it comes to processing grief. It doesn't surprise me that you feel as you do -- It hasn't been that long, and your current feelings are a reflection of a partnership that was obviously deep and incredibly strong.
I'm here from Katie's blog, and so happy to find you. Your writing is so powerful, your story compelling. I'll be back for more.
I find myself choking back the tears reading of your great love and great loss. Grief is an strange beast - sometimes luring into a sense of security and feeling as if you have made it past the worst of it and then knocking you down once more with a smell, a touch, a memory... I have not lost the love of my life, but I lost one of the great men of my life when my father died over two years ago and there are times I am quite sure the pain will never subside. But it will and I will remember nothing but the happy times. The love never dies, it is immortal and lives through, within, and beyond us.
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