Hello to all. I've arrived into my 4th holiday season since Juani's terminal cancer diagnosis, my 3rd spent without her. I've managed to survive it somehow, despite my best efforts otherwise. I'm coping with regrets now. Not regrets regarding my old happy life. No, my regrets are about my extreme behavior coupled with poor decisions I made while in grief/depression in the first 2 1/2 years after she died. Looking back on it all now, I realize that a lot of stupid stuff I've did was the direct result of 1) a subconscious need to try most anything to escape an indescribable inner-pain, understood only by those that have traveled this same road; and 2) being left truly alone without my anchor by my side to reel me in. A character flaw I have is that I do not like to be told what to do. Honestly, I don't know how Juani kept pulling me out of my self-created ditches I gravitated to during our 30 years of our marriage. She never told me what to do, and that would have done no good because I'm really good at digging in and not listening to reason. I don't know, somehow she got me to listen to reason and I'd find my way where I needed to be. When I lost her, I lost my ballast, my anchor, my guiding light. Talk about stumbling in the dark after she was gone. No one to guide me. No one to steer me. No one. Eventually, I found myself all alone. That lonliness is beyond torture. And as my grief enveloped me, I became mentally incapacitated, at first unable to think clearly, and eventually, unable to think period. Day by day is all I could do. Going through the motions of what I had to do to somehow survive, circling the wagons in an ever tightening circle, hoping against hope I would eventually find a way to return to happiness. I tried to create happiness, tried to create a new life, but nothing I tried gave me anything but a temporary reprieve via distraction. There eventually comes acceptance. Acceptance of death is the easy part. Acceptance of the life you now have, that's the hard one. And we fight it. For me, I just grew used to it. Nothing I tried to escape it did me any good except did myself deeper into a hole. Eventually, I became comfortable being alone. Now, I need to be alone with controled social interaction. Dating? That's a whole different trip than what I knew in my youth. Relationships are difficult. I've been in one now for over a year, and we see each other maybe twice a week if the planets align, but seems once a week is more common. It works for both of us. She has a full life of family, long-time friends coupled with a nurse's insane work-schedule. She needs her space as much as I need mine. When you live long enough doing things alone or in established routines, it becomes difficult to merge lives into the 24/7 marital bliss practically all of us knew so well before the unthinkable happened. Different person, whole different kind of love. I find I need my alone time now to think, process, cope, and just plain chill. Still working at a snail's pace on my 2 year plus remodel project from hell. Came to realize why I was so good at demolition and so lousy at making progress on the remodel. The demolition was all about getting rid of all the reminders of a life no-more, a house full of memories of a happy life with Juani. The actual remodel, well that is about making this house my own, doing all the things I wanted to do to the house that Juani refused to let me do. One more regret. I bit off way more than I should have with a lack of knowledge, time and energy. So I leave you with this thought: it is far easier to destroy than to rebuild. Kinda like life, huh? ~~~ Scottie