I Can’t Believe This Is My Life Now

How is this real?
How is this my life now?

Sometimes I wake up and the first thought in my mind is this. I can’t believe this is my life now.

The house is silent. I get up and the house feels cold. I make coffee. I move through my morning routine. And somewhere inside me there is still this feeling of shock.

How is this real?
How is this my life now?

I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. Many widowed people have this thought.

You wake up and the truth hits you again. Your person is not here.

So you start your day. You go through the day doing normal things. Work. Groceries. Laundry. Dishes. But part of you is standing there thinking,

How did this become my life?

No one prepares you for this part of grief. People talk about sadness. They talk about missing your person. But they do not talk about the way grief can make life feel strange.

No, more than strange. Grief can make life feel unreal.

Staying busy doesn’t help. Grief has a way of showing back up, right in your face. You think you see their car and your heart jumps. You drive past your person’s favorite restaurant and the memories come flooding back. Later you reach for your phone to tell them something and then the truth comes back again.

Sometimes your mind even forgets for a split second. You hear a sound in the house or see something that reminds you of them and your first thought is, I need to tell them about that.

And then the reality settles in again.

They are not here.

I remember thinking this many times after Gary died.

I would wake up and think,
How is this still real?

There were days when everything felt pointless.

What is the point of folding laundry?
What is the point of making dinner for one?
What is the point of planning anything at all?

When the person you love dies, the whole shape of life changes. The future you pictured disappears. So it makes sense that the mind keeps asking the question.

What’s the point now?

I think that question is really coming from love. The life you had made sense because you were living it together. Without them, the days can feel hollow.

For a long time I did not have an answer. Then something slowly began to shift inside me. I began thinking about Gary and about the way he loved me. Gary loved me completely, with his whole heart. And one day I realized something that surprised me. I did not want Gary’s legacy to be that I was ruined by losing him. That did not feel right. The man who loved me so well did not deserve a story that ended like that.

So I started trying something new. Very slowly, and not very well at first, I began learning how to love myself the way he loved me. With patience. With kindness.

Some days I still fall apart. Some days I still cry. Some days I still feel lost. But I keep coming back to this thought... Gary loved me deeply and I still love him.

So maybe the way I honor that love is by continuing to live. Breathing. Trying. Taking one more step into this strange life I never asked for.

Over time I have come to believe some things to be true. Every grieving heart grieves perfectly for them. Your grief might not feel perfect, but it is perfect for you. And you might not feel brave. But if you are still here, still breathing, still trying to live inside this life, then you are brave.

Sometimes I think that might be the point. Not to move on from love. But to carry it forward.

And if you find yourself waking up some mornings thinking, I can’t believe this is my life now, please know you are not alone in that.

You are learning how to live inside a life that changed without your permission. And if today the only thing you can do is breathe and make it through the day, that is enough. For today, that is enough.