I noticed I haven't posted anything here in awhile, so figured I'd at least put something up...

I got a cremation jewelry necklace ordered today.  It's a titanium cylinder that'll hold a little bit of Ariel's ashes in it.  I'd been thinking I wanted to keep some of her ashes, though most will be getting scattered.  Nothing I had here seemed like it'd do the job.  A friend told me that cremation jewelry's gotten more popular, I guess as cremation's gotten more popular in the last years.  It seemed to make sense.  I'm not much one for bracelets, and rings are a little too obvious for my taste, so a necklace seemed like the way to go.  Glad I got it ordered, though it's also kind of bittersweet, as it seems like it's moving me one step closer to when I'll finally be scattering her ashes and letting her mortal remains go.

I was asked if I'd write up my story for a website for survivors of a loved one's suicide.  I wasn't sure about it, but the more I'd thought about it the more it seems like a good idea.  If nothing else, if it'd help someone else deal with the suicide of their spouse, that'd be worthwhile.  Oddly, the part that was harder to write was the one about what I've been going through rather than her last days.  I showed the draft to a couple people and they overall like it.  One person said my story seemed to end kind of abruptly and suggested that I put in a final paragraph to put some optimism at the end of it.  I thought about that, too, but it doesn't seem to fit with why I'd be sharing it.  Sometimes, it just helps to know that someone else has been in the same (or a similar) place and that it just sucks to be there.  There's comfort in that, a comfort that sometimes seems to get lost when they try to put a happy or optimistic spin on it at the end.  I know sometimes I just let myself go into the sadness and grief and loss, not looking for the ray of sunshine or light at the end of the tunnel.  When I do that without worrying about the outcome, it usually seems to work out OK.  There's only so long that the downer stuff like that will hang around, especially if I'm trying to be honest and open to it and not caught up in making up some kind of tragic hero story in my head about myself.

I've been trying to do some other work on myself to help through this, too.  The person I'm working with first suggested I write out what I'd done well and what I'd done badly, both in my relationship with Ariel and in the aftermath.  It made sense, though it was hard to do.  The strange part of it for me was that it was harder realizing that there's a lot more stuff I'd done well than done badly.  Those were the things that it was harder and more painful to face.  The other piece that was suggested to list out is all the things that're lost, the things we now won't get to have and the good things that we had at one time that now we won't ever be able to get back.  The point to that is not to just sit and wallow in it, but to be able to acknowledge that loss, to face it and to ultimately let those things go.  I got a start on it, but I think that's one that will take time and several sessions to get done.  The first 30 minutes got a lot written, but also felt like they were taking me apart.  I guess that's part of the process of working through this kind of stuf, though.  It's taking apart the old beliefs and hopes and dreams and resentments....hopefully to allow something at least more functional (if not better) to come in.

There's still no map.  I'm still not sure what I'm headed to or when I'll "get there" (whatever that means).  It's often still just putting one foot in front of the other and remembering to breathe.