It began with the new year bust I didnt realize it until around my birthday. But I actually feel happy again, as odd as that sounds. All of last year I was simply just existing day in and day out. Now I feel like I'm actually living again. I still miss Brad every day, but I know he wants me to live and move forward with my life. I've also begun to listen to joel Olsteen a lot. He is so inspirational and it really helps!
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good for your girl. it gives me hope when you said you feel happy again. i hope i get there, get to where you\'re at. i am exhausted. March 4th is the first anniversary of Andy\'s death. I try to be happy but every night I feel empty and sad. Like you said I am just only exisitng. going to work and back home. I am glad you are starting to move forward. someday I will too. take care girl.
I was married to Arlene more than 25 years. A lot of middle years were not very good, I suffered from severe Bipolar symptoms and couldn\'t work, she had to support me and our young child. A perfect storm and my sick, twisted family caused us all to be homeless for about 10 years. I started to get better in the late 90s, and made a serious effort at treatment and recovery. I started a business and the last few years were good ones, we fought much less and had fun together, and our housing was stable.
We were not \"intimate\" for the last half our marriage. Whenever we made love, a few days later she would flip out. A few times I ended up in jail. It wasn\'t worth it. But we stayed together, because we shared so much, our values, spirituality, intellectual stuff and entertainment and music. Once in a while we talked about divorce. But it didn\'t seem necessary.
We separated for a few years after I was voluntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital where I started to really get my life together. I gave her money for rent, and when she fell behind, we moved back in together. I can say the last few years were good years.
Once in a while Arlene would tell me to go out an find a younger girlfriend, she was 8 1/2 years older than me. I never \"cheated\" on her, and I am sure that she never did to me, although we both agreed that it was stupid for people to ruin everybody\'s life over a silly fling.
My friends would ask me why don\'t I find a girlfriend, and I would say, \"I have my wife and my daughter and my mom - I can\'t imagine fitting another woman in my life.\" After my mom died, then my wife, last year, they said, \"NOW you can get a girlfriend.\" Last thing on my mind Maybe eventually. Like you and Brad, I know that Arlene would say, \"Get a life.\"
I had a short consulting contract in January through mid-February. I noticed an attractive young woman sitting across from me, she was friendly. I wrote a whole post in the W&W group about it. On my last day I asked her out to lunch, and she said Yes! We talked about seeing each other again, and she asked me for my phone number, and I spent the Valentine\'s Day weekend thinking I might have a new romance, it was warm and fuzzy. Then things changed, she was busy, then she said, \"I\'m sorry, I don\'t think it\'s appropriate.\" She wasn\'t mean, one of the things I noticed about her was she was nice, and very smart, and then I found out she studied Anthropology like me!
It\'s ok. I was stunned to find out I could be smitten with the Luv Bug. She just kind of dropped into my life. It took a lot of nerve to ask her out to lunch, it was the first \"date\" I went on with anybody besides my wife in 30 years. But I knew that if I didn\'t try, I would have regrets. I have no regrets.
You\'re a lot younger than I am. My daughter tells me I come with a LOT of baggage. I think that I am pretty baggage-free. But it\'s easier, I think for someone your age than someone like me, in my mid 50s, to begin dating again.
You will know when you\'re ready. Maybe someone will drop into your life like my angel did. I think that we meet angels in our life who challenge us, teach us. I don\'t even mean celestial beings. She was an angel who gave me hope that some day I might find someone. That\'s enough for me for now.