How Am I Supposed To Feel?

I stood staring at the tree. The wind was blowing. It wasn’t one of those sweeping gusting blow your important papers out of your hands while you stare helplessly as they fly down the street kind of winds. It was one of those slight breezes that reminds you summer is only steps away with spring in full retreat. The leaves trickled back and forth as if being kissed by the warm wind and the setting sun peeked its light through the massive branches. It was beautiful… at least I knew it was probably beautiful.

This is the most accurate description I can think of that describes what it’s like to do daily life through the lens of heartbreak and grief. I know what beautiful is and I can certainly recognize what people would say it is… but I don’t feel it.

It’s hard to explain to people what my particular brand of heartbreak feels like. It’s a moving and flowing sway of emotions that takes me on a daily journey through ups and downs. Sometimes even hourly. I think I’m doing fine and perhaps I’m even smiling when suddenly I’m struck with a memory of her beautifully smiling while she sings to me as we drive. It breaks me on the spot and sends me spiralling back down as if no progress has been made.

Grieving someone who is alive that has taken themselves out of your life is an odd thing. You still see them, hear them, and know that they are alive and existing… They are just existing without you. In my mind I try to explore the reasons she left as if making sense of the reasons will make the heartache hurt any less. Heartache doesn’t need to make sense it doesn’t give you a reason, it just is.

I’ve been trying to understand myself a bit more since it happened. I’m making myself do things. Most days I am genuinely happy but I don’t see beauty in things. It’s almost like an apathetic wall that keeps the things I love on the other side. When they try to crash through they just hit the wall full stop. So I keep on living. I have to. I just exist as normal and go through motions. Fill up the car, eat breakfast, drive kids to school, make lunches… normal things.

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I think the best description of how I feel was penned by Timothy Seth Avett from The Avett Brothers in the song Divorce Seperation Blues:

I’m gonna keep on living
Even though I sometimes do
Fantasize about disappearing
Down in the ocean blue
Just to get some peace and quiet
From the warfare inside my heart

Well I’ve been under ear-splitting fire
Ever since we’ve been apart
Well I’m gonna wash the dishes
Pay the bills and watch the news
I’ve got the tough education
No celebration
Divorce separation blues

Well I’m gonna keep on waking
And rising up before the sun
And lying in the dark wide awake
When everybody else is done

And sleeping in their beds so peaceful
Dreaming with the love they choose
I’ve got the tough education
No celebration
Divorce separation blues

Grief has a funny way of showing itself and it doesn’t quite make sense. It’s a feeling in the middle of your chest that burns. It keeps you up. It makes you ask the “what ifs”. It shows up at inconvenient times. It’s never welcome. It doesn’t care.

It’s also not just a matter of grieving her. Of course she was my world but I’m grieving more than just her. I’m grieving the times we spent laughing and singing on road trips, quick trips to houlton, finding hole in the wall restaurants in new cities, our trips to Disney, how her hair was cute in the mornings when she first woke up, the way her eyes looked at me when she used to love me, waking up every morning in the same house as my kids, her amazing homecooked meals, Being a Stay at Home Dad, our past, our future, our plans once the kids grew up, our life. My family. I Loved my family

.
That’s what grief looks like.
I have no idea how I am supposed to feel or what I should feel. Am I supposed to be angry? Do I come across as a pushover if I smile when I see her? Is it bad to? Should I feel guilty if I miss her? Should I have angry thoughts?

I don’t know.

I have to stop asking myself questions I will never have a fully satisfied answer to. Grief and heartbreak are not logical. They don’t go away by reasoning them to death or by exploring every inch of what happened. No amount of logic makes the feeling change or lessen.

So I have to concentrate on me. I have two beautiful souls that need their Dad. I am not strong right now but how are they feeling? They are definitly different kids than they were two weeks ago. So where do I fit with helping them regain their new sense of normal? I just have to be their Dad. Love them and trust that things will get better.

I look away from the tree with no emotion. I know that it is probably beautiful. I start to walk away but then take a pause and I tell myself that someday I will know it is definitly beautiful.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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