78 weeks today

It’s 78 weeks today since Nigel died, but, technically, not 18 months until tomorrow. Dates move, but weeks are static, so for the first year it was only the number of weeks that I really paid attention to. Now, it’s only times like this where I pay attention to the weeks.

I knew this particular time marker was coming up, of course, and I was aware that some widows/widowers have found the 18 month mark to be difficult—maybe because it’s halfway between the first and second anniversary of their loss? At any rate, I knew I might be keenly aware of the 18 month mark, but what I didn’t expect was the ferocity with which it took over my conscious mind and derailed my entire week.

Today (by weeks, tomorrow by date…) is also the first anniversary of the final settlement of the sale of the last house Nigel and I shared. I knew that was coming up, too. A year ago this week, I drove up to Auckland several times to get ready for settlement, and took several carloads of stuff to our storage unit there (and took several more carloads back to Hamilton, too).

This week I drove up to the storage unit to take photos of something I sold, and to take a carload of stuff home—this time, stuff Nigel and I put in there. The remaining stuff is mainly too big for my car. The unit is nearly empty now, which is great—after many delays caused by Covid lockdowns. But going there this week helped bring back everything—the stress of this week last year, and the bigger stress of why I had to endure this week last year at all.

Maybe I was naive. Maybe I should have anticipated how awful this week at least could be, but I didn’t. I know that it would upset Nigel to see me in so much pain this week, but he’d also understand, having gone through it himself. He’d, once again, tell me to “just breathe”, and I have. In fact, it’s what kept this week from being even worse. I guess maybe I’ve learned a thing or two over these past 78 weeks/18 months/1.5 years.

But I still miss my soulmate Nigel, every bit as much as I have all along, and I still have no idea how I’ll manage without him, or what doing so might even look like. But, yet again, I made it through a very (unexpectedly) difficult time, and that’s the main thing.

Breathe—just breathe.

The graphic above is what I shared on my personal Facebook earlier this morning. This blog post is a comment I left there, because it's the closest I can get to the "Notes" feature that Facebook discontinued.