On depression, an ending, and a starting over on the South Jetty

This is the South Jetty Beach in my town.  Isn't it beautiful?  I love living here so much, partially because of all of the different ocean vistas and walks.  This is healing my heart.
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I had an entire post written out a few weeks ago about loneliness v. being alone.  I am alone right now.  My sweet, sweet husband died tragically and by his own hand.  He'd struggled with some significant depression and thoughts of ending for over thirty years before he left.  He told me about his depression five years into our marriage.  It was just after his 30th birthday, when he told me that he never expected to live that long.  I asked for ten more years, in hopes that some kind of help would be found, and then, the optimist that I am, I let myself forget. 

 

A few years later, both in hopes that it would secure his life or leave me with a piece of him, and because we had a desire to parent, we started trying to have a child.  After years and years of no such blessing and multiple early miscarriages and one pregnancy that lasted for just over 9 weeks, we gave up trying.  There was no medical reason given to our inability to complete a pregnancy, and I know it was crushing to both of us.  I believe that our decision to stop our quest for a child is when he started his exit strategy. 

 I, again, chose to ignore - or didn't see the signs of this.  I think that's easy - especially if you don't want to see them, especially if you don't want to be left behind.  We did adore each other, and that's not just post-death reasoning.  We were actually devoted, affectionate, adoring, and committed. 

If I could have done anything to help him survive, I would have done it.  As it is/was, you can't make someone live, no matter how much you stand in the doorway, no matter how much you love them, no matter how much you wish you could take away their pain.  That kind of love just does not exist.

 I tried to expand myself into the doorway of life so he couldn't get out and I thought that we had a pretty great system, but the sad days got to be more, and the pain got deeper.  No matter what I did, who I was, how much I loved him, his heart was not in life.  So, he made a plan and found a way for me to be safe.  He helped me start my business, and he would push me to expand past my natural limitations.  He cheer led, he found a home for me, made me think through different scenarios in business life, had me set reasonable minimum expectations of income so I could pay my own way and wouldn't need him anymore.  The sadness got deeper, so deep that when he'd talk about it,

I wanted to go with him. 

One day, he looked at me and told me he expected me to marry again.  The thought of that terrified more than any other he'd posed.  He started talking about not feeling physically well, but he'd do nothing to feel better.  He started giving his things away, but I didn't see it.  I could talk him into taking St John's Wort (a natural anti-depressant) for a few weeks and things would get better.  Better meant that I wouldn't come home from work or errands and find him crying.  Worse meant I was afraid to go grocery shopping, or work, or visiting a neighbor.  I told people afterwards that I didn't know, but denial isn't just a river, is it?  You can see things a whole lot better if you aren't sitting with your nose pressed on them.  Next week will be 8 months since his death.  I have a little perspective now, I suppose.

So today, on my walk I was having a hard conversation with myself.  Appreciating the love, the affection and adoration that he and I shared.  He saw me for who I was, and I saw him, and we worked at bringing the best out in each other.  The week he died was not a good week.  We'd made a plan to move back to the lovely small town on the Oregon Coast and things were progressing toward that move, albeit slowly.  He was exceptionally depressed and more and more resolute that the only way to make things work for me was for him to not be here.  He made sure I knew where all of the paperwork was, should something happen.  Later in the week he worried aloud that his depression was killing me.  I told him that I was his person and that this was how it worked.  I adored him absolutely, and I would have done anything for him to continue breathing.

Today, I sat down on this log.  Today I told him, for the first time since I met him, I didn't want him anymore.  Today I told him that I didn't want him back.  For as much as I had loved him, and as much as I still love him, I didn't want him back, that I was ready for something new, for someone new to love - for someone to love me.  I sat there and I wept.  I have stopped trying to fill the gap and have been expanding into the me of me.  He is no longer the person I have to stand in the gap for, that I have to let him go as someone for who I need to consider going forward.  I need to live for me.

I feel selfish in saying this, and maybe I am...but I have had epic love and I want more.  Is it spoiled and greedy to want another love like that?  If it is, then I am, both; spoiled and greedy.  From my vantage point, it appears that there might be love out there for me again.  The good kind too, the kind that sees you and who you see for who they are... potential.

 Perhaps I don't deserve that kind of love again.  I guess, I don't really care if I deserve it again... but I am smart enough to know that if there is love for you that feeds you, and if you feel like you can give back in the same fashion, you go for it.  Heartbreak is not the worst thing a person can experience.  The heart heals and the heart builds rooms for new love, and I am experiencing renovations.

 I don't know if this someday man will ever see this post, and really it does not matter to me if he does or does not.  Should he be someone with potential, we will have the conversations that such a relationship will require.  If he is not that man, then I have a nice new room and a hope for the future of me - for love too, and a good idea of what I want when I do get there.

 There is hope for the future for me.  I hope, dear reader that you see that there is hope in the future for you.

 ...And to think that I saw it on Mulberry Street.