How do you get passed the days when the same boring routine of having to do do double the boring tasks when you feel weary after losing your spouse? Yes you might say pull your socks up and get and do something.
All the platitudes you hear over and over but you just find it so so tedious without him. You have tried it and. Left thinking that didn’t work. You have read the books, Ben busy and there just is this blanket over everything.
8 Likes
It’s not easy, can be boring, and many of the plans I make for myself to occupy my time I find I can’t be bothered with when I go to do them. Reading is my salvation, I can get lost in a book.
As with everything on this lonely journey we all have to find our own way through it and that will be different for each and every one of us.
We all have a shared grief but how it presents and what we can do to help ourselves is just as individual as the partner we lost and the life we have led with them.
1 Like
Yes you are right
Today I forced myself to go where we used to go and I saw the squirrels and. I just went back again after no motivation to go very far. Glad I went and took nice photos. No one else was there. But at least it was a nice day and my feet didn’t hurt. Yes reading is good.
2 Likes
Enorac I’m glad you managed to go and visit the squirrels. 
. It made me smile as Chris often used to call me Squirrel, it was one of the nicer nicknames he gave me 
. I think the first time of doing something special like that is the hardest, every positive step helps you move forward, we will never forget but if we can take joy from remembering the good times I think it will help with acceptance of what is a devastating loss x
Yes I shared photos and friend said where is photo of squirrels? Reply they too quick for me to photo. By time I get sorted it is all over.
They do get tame sometimes. Funny to watch. Can see them in winter from my kitchen window running up and down. I recall in hospital they are so lovely outside windows. Have a video of my husband’s voice talking about squirrels years ago.
So they are special.
Yes funny you should say nick name. Kids in my class at school as teacher years ago called me Mrs Squirrel because it rhymes with my name. But it was affectionate as at that age they did that. Went to a bereavement group and we lit candles. Reminds me Elton John’s song when Princess Di died. So like them too.
1 Like
I agree that life does often seem mundane. In part I think because of a lack of a sense of purpose, or getting through the monotony of the weeks because these doesn’t seem the there is something to look forward to.
I don’t have any squirrels to look at, though there are lots of sea birds. I’ve never been much of a bird watcher, but in the last few months of my wife’s life she took to walking when she could and looking at the various birds and writing about them. I think it gave her solace when she was reflecting on the inevitably of what she was facing.
I’ve taken to watching the birds too.
My dog on the other hand just thinks they look like something to chace, though she’s so slow and clumsy and would struggle to catch up to snail.
1 Like
Yes I love the birds as well especially a robin as it is a kind of messenger in the snow. Friendly and looking for some crumbs. Kid myself that it is a messenger from him but it is only that but kinda part of nature and birds dont have long lives and make the most of it. Like butterflies. The image of changing from an ugly dead thing and reemerging. It would be nice to think that is what happens in some sort of way. How they are brave. Do a lot of thinking on your own. Like today it is a lovely blue clear day and freezing cold. I want to go for a walk but know my feet will freeze and be painful however many pairs sox i put on. I saw something online that is supposed to help but everything I try doesnt seem to work.
I have these pink ski books with thick felt lining from years ago that I use. Look odd but who cares? Cover them with baggy trousers and thermals under. Guess I will go and pick up cones and enjoy the woody smell. I brougt in two wilted looking geraniums I forgot yesterday. Perhaps I should stop moaning about being bored.
Of course there are these xmas fayres but I have no excitement at all. I was going to go to the allotment with my son but he tel and said it is too cold for me even him. We are struggling to keep it going after my husband passed as he did half of it. But my son loves doing it but it is hard on his own. The kids like messing about but they dont like getting old either.
My wife told me when she was walking on the beach she liked to imagine that the birds were the spirits of people who had died checking in on her through her last 6 months (her mother died of breast cancer as well, only a year younger when she died compared to my wife).
I try to picture that too now, though I can’t quite convince myself. - birds are just birds and don’t really seem to pay me much notice as i stroll by. Though I can just about picture her there with me watching them when I try.
I feel quite blessed that I live right by a beach that I can walk on each day.
I would like to live by a beach. It is too far where I live.
This I am finding to be one of the toughest parts to deal with. As emotions go, simply being bored seems like the least of issues to deal with, but it isn’t at all.
When you have been so close to your partner for a while, sharing experiences becomes a huge part of the relationship. Without the share, the experiences become 2-D and monochrome.
Learning to appreciate life without the sharing is a lesson, I for one am struggling with.
2 Likes
@Derek1966 i totally agree, the boredom is unbelievable. It’s now nearly 10am and I’m still in bed dreading another long and lonely day with no one to talk to. Yes I speak to the occasional person on the phone but that’s not the same as having someone around to chat with.
I’ve just had Covid and the isolation was a hundred times worse as there was no one around
I have things to do but they don’t stop me being bored and 4.5 months down the line it seems to be getting worse rather than better. I dread the thought that this is going to be my life from now on.
2 Likes
I have an idea the time of year has an impact too, the long dark nights when the day is effectively over by 4pm.
Reading is an escape. I am or rather have been, mid way through an open learning degree in photography. I have been on a sabbatical for a year as I looked after Marie during her final months and been trying to recover since. Just last week I picked this up again, so hopefully this will help - my favourite thing in the world though was to show Marie a photograph and have her say “love it print it please”