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What now?
I lost my girlfriend Jana in a tragic sensless car accident three months ago today. She was driving to the airport to visit me over the weekend in Germany where I was studying. It's even more tragic because I planed to return home for good 17 days after her unfortunate death. We were together for almost 3 years, not living together yet, but planed to move in together by the end of this year and even planed to have the first child by the end of 2005. She was 25 and I am 27, we both finished Universities and were employed (I only took a 6 months leave to study again), lived in Slovenia, a country in Central Europe.
I think I have accepted all the "big" things I have lost: living with her, having children with her, growing old with her..., what I miss the most are the small things, not being able to tell her about the little things in everyday life that no one else is even interested in and she was always so interested to hear. To put it differently, I have somehow faced and worked through the loss of my girlfriend but can not stand the fact that I have also lost my best friend.
Life is slowly getting back to normal. I have been functioning quite normally for the last month or so, still with hard days, sometimes several in a row, but I always was aware that the "down" feeling will not last forever. I do my bit at work and I have the last exam of my postgraduate degree left (that I'll start studying for over this weekend). The thing is, the "new life" is sooooooo boring. I am happy with the fact that the hardest parts of my grief are (hopefully) over or at least I have learned how to deal with grief, but I am wondering about "WHAT NOW"?
It's not that I have no one to socialize with, my family (that I will live with until the end of this year) is OK, I have a few good friends that I can cry and/or talk or even party with, have no financial problems, a solid job... So - apart from losing the love of my life and my best friend - I don't really have any problems, at least not such that I couldn't be able to at least help to solve myself. It just doesn't make any sense: I have fought for so long, but for what??? I saw a psychiatrist 3 times, the last time was about a month ago and he told me that he thought I have dealt with Jana's death (though didn't tell my I was over the grief) since I was already complaining about "normal" problems. He actually said: "Welcome back to the boring life!" He said that through our youth we were always used to constant advancements (finished stages of school), a lot of first time experiences, purest loves etc. whereas after certain age life does get more boring, with less "victories" and the before so visible constant progress is blurred.
Huh, I don't even know what my question was going to be anymore
The thing is, I am not realy ready to date yet, though I do look arround and notice beautiful girls and women more and more. I just have no motivation to throw myself back into the everyday life, simply because I don't see any point in it anymore... Why on earth fight for anything, so that than you make one tiniest mistake and your life and all you have fought for is gone...?
All the best, take care, thanx
Aljosa
Response
I have read and re-read your words with a deep appreciation for the questions. One of my favorite teachings is from the poet Rilke where he says "Live the questions.... for the answers, if they were given to you, could not be lived now." I pass that on to you. While linear time (3 months) is totally subjective, most spiritual traditions teach us that profound grief asks that we surrender to the full lunar cycle of one year - to go through a year of "firsts"; the first holiday, the first birthday, the first anniversary. Give yourself and your girlfriend/best friend the time to become whole again, to heal. Keep asking the questions and listen for the many answers. Your path and your truth are being fashioned out of your willingness to wrestle with your grief.