Life keeps moving forward and I am trying to go with it.  This month has been one of ups and downs as usual but the time in between is more spread out which is helping the healing.  The in between time is giving me the clarity in my head to be able to make some financial decisions that I have been putting off.  I am glad that I did that and waited until I could be more rational and less emotional. The times I hate the most are when that ache of pain hits you out of nowhere just when you thought everything was going along.  I am noticing as well that the in bewteen times of the ups and downs are creating times that allow me to find a way to cope and process but it is also demanding that I deal with and try to let go of the abuse that happened during his active addiction.  That is hard because when someone dies I think it is only natural to want to create something that they weren't or worse to create the person you wanted them to be because they are not here to refute it.I thought too that having support and being part of a therapy group was only necessary when I was feeling really low.  It helped to get me back to the normal and even ups but the lows come because life can just be hard at times.  I found this month that when they hit and had started to let go of some of the support that they were harder to bounce back from.  So here I am trying to release some of it and put it somewhere I don't have to carry it.  It does help to write and I haven't been doing that.  Some of it is me wanting to hide from the reality of what has happened and not feel like I have to wear it as a badge on my sleeve.  This new normal is so hard to define and I guess that is the hardest part.  Having to define who I am now that I am not a wife or a caretaker to an addict.  That was such a large part of who I was for the last 18 years.I have been told that I get to define things now and there are days I am okay with that and days that I hate to do that because that involves work and focus on me.  Being a wife and mother meant I had others to focus on and care for and I never put me first.  I am still a Mom and my kids are and always have been a priority but now I find that when I can and do put myself and my care first that I am better at being a Mom.  It isn't always easy to do but small steps here and there such as buying healthy food to eat, exercising by putting the kids in an exercise class at the Y or asking for a family or friend to watch them for a few hours does help.  Strict bed time makes a difference too then they get sleep they need and I get a break at night.I miss having my best friend be by my side but my reality was that he was gone long before he passed away and while he was living under the same roof.  The addiction took him away almost two years ago and he only passed this past May.