I can't sleep.  It's 3:15 am in the morning here and I am mired in my thoughts.  I made the mistake of falling asleep on the sofa in the early evening and I think that brief nap is causing me problems now.

Today was spent going through more of my wife's things with my sister and nephew.  It was difficult.  One of the boxes we opened had some old photos of my wife from before she met me.  My wife had been briefly married before we met for about a year, and the photos I found were from that time period.  It gave me weird feelings, I had never seen these photos before.  I felt jealous looking at them, seeing my wife smiling in them with her ex husband, odd that I should feel jealous since they were married so briefly yet Cheryl and I were together for 31 years.  But, I still felt that way.  They made me miss her more, because in all the photos she was so young and beautiful and it brought back all the memories of when we were young and passionately in love.

I still can't believe she is gone and I must continue alone.

My 25 year old nephew was over today helping as well, he's a very insightful young man.  His father is an alcoholic and we have had many talks about how alcohol destroys good people and relationships.  But today he was trying to cheer me up, basically saying the world is my oyster, that I am now free.  I know he meant well but it just made the hurt more.  I never wanted to be "free".  I feel abandoned not free.  

My sister then told some things that I guess she thought would change my perspective.  That she found in one of my wifes purses a bar napkin with a guys name and phone number on it.  And another incident from years ago when she was out with my wife and I was out of town that my wife was overly friendly with some strange men after she had several drinks.  I guess my sister was trying to change my self pity into anger.  It to just made me feel betrayed and hurt.  I then asked my sister if she thought my wife ever cheated on me, and she could not say no, she said what has come to light recently makes her wonder that too.  

So here I am laying in bed at 4:00 am feeling lonely, abandoned, and stewing on thoughts of betrayal.  But I am "free".  

At some point I hope to write, "I had a good day", but it was not today.