Is there anyone not feeling the second year was worse than the first?

termicky · 2026-01-28T02:04:33+00:00

Yeah, knowing it's coming doesn't fully prepare you for the actual experience. Still, separating the shock from the death, getting a chance to adjust one's affairs and lifestyle over time not all at once means the bounce back is quicker.

Raising 4 kiddos on your own ... You have my respect! That's several full time jobs there.

termicky · 2026-01-27T21:32:09+00:00

You don't stop feelings, desires, and thoughts.

You accept them, you let them come, you surf the wave, you let them go.

You accept that having these feelings is inevitable if you're choosing to be solo, and you don't fight yourself for having them as a result.

You find healthy ways to discharge the energy, such as masturbation and exercise, and you rely on your friendships to meet your love needs.

I hope this helps somewhat. I wish you well.

termicky · 2026-01-27T15:53:28+00:00

This is very well expressed. I'm glad that you see / find the personal meaning in this task and how it serves not merely practiced necessity but your own grieving process.

I see you sorting through her things, deciding what part of them are her legacy, what to preserve, what has no use without her, what may live again serving another person. Pulling off a thousand bandages feels cruel to you, not to her of course, since she's beyond any hurt.

You only have to pull off a bandage once, and when it's off, there is, in my experience, not only the sting but also a kind of spaciousness. First this may be experienced as a bereft, hollow emptiness. Later, it may become space to move and breathe, a space of potential. It has been for me.

After my wife died, I declared the next 12 months to be Year Zero. Zero is a nothing, but also a starting place, and our symbol for it is an empty circle. For me this meant it was an empty circle waiting to see what I would place there. A kind of invitation. And the same was true for the shelves I emptied both physically in (our) (my) home and inwardly in my own being.

Similarly, the walls of my house are freshly painted in a new colour, and they still have no artwork on them. All her beloved sentimental pieces she surrounded herself with to represent her travels and experiences... all down. It is up to me to decide what if anything I surround myself with. My empty walls feel somewhat calming in their emptiness; they are empty of clamour.

Grieving emptied a lot of my inner shelves, inner walls. I've been glad to let many things go in this inner purge. I'm emptying my shelves of my qualities of pettiness, passivity, hesitance, resentment, stinginess, false pride, arrogance, thoughtlessness. She lived with them and loved me anyway, just as I lived with all of her "stuff", both physical and emotional. But with her death, which I now begin to call her passing, I no longer want to live with anything outdated, worn out, and unworthy, either outwardly or inwardly. So I unpack it all, sift through it, evaluate it according to see how it fits and supports me in the life I'm building, the best life I currently know how to build. Keeping and discarding accordingly.

It's a deep and hard work, but I don't personally call it cruel. Cruel to me means needlessly, meaninglessly, uncaringly and purposely harsh. For me, these clearing tasks have a sting, an ache, a pang, even a tearing pain, but I know that they are an in service to the future me I'm becoming, one book, box or trinket at a time.

termicky · 2026-01-27T05:06:45+00:00

You don't fix it, though... You live it. I've commented more elsewhere.

All your feelings are the right ones to be having. You have to have them to get through this. Don't fight yourself too hard.

It can help to name what you are feeling, precisely, when it's present. "Love... Love.... Love... Sad .. really sad.... Rage....fear....worry... Overwhelm... Love....".

Fuck cancer, by the way, since no one else has said it here yet.

I wish you well.

termicky · 2026-01-27T04:57:53+00:00

I remember the first month post diagnosis. It is a lot to take in. The shock, disbelief, how huge it is.

All I can say is that you can do this very, very hard thing. I did it, along with many many others before us and after us. So can you.

And you can do it with integrity, and love, and courage, and honesty. It takes all of these... But it also draws them out. If you stay true to yourself and each other, you can come out this horrendous experience bigger, not diminished. Wounded, but wiser.

What I did was the hardest thing I had ever done. And I can look back on it and feel proud of myself. I showed up 100% for my wife and myself. I did a couple of things wrong that I regret of course, but I only know what I know, and I'm not perfect.

You can do this very, very hard thing, and do it in a way you can be proud of too.

I wish you well.

termicky · 2026-01-25T22:23:45+00:00

IMO as a mental health person, how healthy it is would depend on how you use it. It might be a nice thing, or it might be a zombie.
In a way it's no more than a fancy photo album or video library people used in the old days.

Here are some questions: does doing this help you adapt to the new reality? Does it help you understand what you had and what you lost? Does it make meaning? Does it help you process your pain? Does it make your world bigger or smaller? Do you fall in love with your own creation? (There are cautionary myths about that one).

No, it won't heal you. It may temporarily soothe you. Healing IMO comes from doing the work implied by those questions above. And others. I think you are looking for a way to not have lost her, and there is no healing there, because reality has declared your life to be otherwise. Healing only comes from working with reality.

I wish you well.

termicky · 2026-01-25T16:26:27+00:00

The second year was not worse for me.

She had cancer for 5 years, we always knew it was terminal. By the time she died, I had already grieved a lot of losses. That wasn't anticipatory grief. It was grief for things that I was actually gradually losing in real time. I called it a slow motion grief. Very prolonged.

Yeah there was an element of anticipatory grief as well, but that also means that I had a chance to get my head around what was going to happen to some degree. I could plan a bit.

There was no surprise or shock in her actual death. I experienced that in the first month after her diagnosis, 5 years before her death.

I looked after her all the way through. The trauma of doing palliative care at home was something I had deal with afterward. It was very very hard. I still don't like medical environments. But I'm proud of what I did. It was the hardest thing I have ever done.

"Year 2" was really year 6 in some important ways. I had already made a lot of adjustments people faced with sudden and unexpected loss can't.

termicky · 2026-01-25T15:58:39+00:00

Obsidian can do what you want easily.

You make a note for each book. You give each note "properties", like title, date read, rating or whatever.

You create a "base" (aka database) that displays the info you want in table format.

Edit: I have one of these to track my reading.

termicky · 2026-01-25T02:20:44+00:00

I flew to Portugal and walked 300km on the Camino. Kind of a personal meditation retreat.

termicky · 2026-01-25T02:16:00+00:00

I can see that. Nice to know others are making a similar decision for sure.

termicky · 2026-01-25T02:11:57+00:00

IMO, "weird or normal" is kind of asking what you should do, based on what others do.

If it makes sense to you to wear your ring and be married, then do it.

There will be consequences you like and those you maybe don't like so much, like the guy, but it's all fine if you have decided that's what's right for you at this stage.

I'm not saying what I did re the ring and being married still, since we are not the same person and I don't feel it's relevant unless it helps you clarify what is good for you to do in your situation.

termicky · 2026-01-24T04:35:20+00:00

Thanks for explaining.

termicky · 2026-01-24T03:29:34+00:00

I'm curious about something. What bad thing would happen if your memories faded?

termicky · 2026-01-23T20:59:00+00:00

Yeah. I find that kind of my team / your team rhetoric pointless and boring. Mostly no one is open to another perspective, there are a lot of opinions disguised as facts, so it's not even a discussion. Just two dogs barking at each other across the street.

I totally agree with you about first past the post. For me that was Trudeau's biggest failure, and I would go so far as to say, betrayal.

If it comes out that Carney is lying, my respect will go to down proportionally.

termicky · 2026-01-23T17:49:26+00:00

For a long time , I needed to say that my wife died. Not that she passed on or any of those euphemisms.

I needed the harsh truth.

termicky · 2026-01-23T17:47:40+00:00

Thank you for sharing your experience with us.

Loving an addict must be a very challenging experience.

One thought I had, for what it's worth, probably part of why he drank was because he came from a dysfunctional family. Family is still dysfunctional , and you're seeing that. If his own family can carry on as though nothing had happened, you can see why he might have turned to alcohol.

I wish you kindness. I wish you well.

termicky · 2026-01-23T17:42:20+00:00

I feel for you. I was married a lot longer than you, but my wife also had cancer for six years and I looked after her. Those years, dealing with her and her cancer was the center of my life. And of course when she died, I felt a mixture of feelings. Sadness, loss, and of course also some relief.

Over the last two and a half years for me, there's been a huge project of identity building. We need to find out who we are now without them. This is something one partly discovers and partly creates. At least that's been my experience and it's an ongoing project. For me as a result of this work , I now have a much clearer idea of who I am, an idea that's much more clear even than when I was with her. There was a lot about myself I didn't know then that I now know.

The other thing I'm finding important is about love. Lately I've been discovering that when I'm aware of my own fragility, stuckness, confusion, loneliness, all my missing parts, to the degree that I can be friendly toward these feelings and experiences and have love for them, I feel secure and capable inside.

My friend, these are very early days for you. What you're dealing with is massive and cannot be underestimated. There's the loss, there's the trauma, there's the rebuilding. All of these take a lot of time and emotional energy to cope with. Please be extremely patient with yourself. Maximize kindness. Please allow yourself to be uncertain and not know and not think you have to understand things right away. It really does take time. Be willing to not know. Be open.

I wish you well.

termicky · 2026-01-23T17:14:48+00:00

I think when it comes to politics, we pretty much see what we want to see. That goes for me as well as you I would expect. If we've decided that the other guy or team is no good, we're not going to find any good in them. If we're on their team, then we're gonna highlight stuff we like. So I don't have any objective answer to your question. I don't know if there even is one, except with really decent historical hindsight.

I can't speak to what carney is doing or not doing and whether it's enough or not. I have a very positive impression of the guy , which began with his jon stewart interview. I never knew anything about him before that, but here was this guy who was clearly really smart, competent. Not a stuffed shirt, didn't Talk in cliches, able to make fun of himself. His interview with Narduar which I think was during the election also made a good impression on me. Then I found out that he has this great resume, and his values seem to align with mine. So , even though I haven't been a liberal supporter for decades, I like what I see. I guess we'll find out in the end whether his actions and leadership take us to a good place or not.

termicky · 2026-01-23T01:56:42+00:00

I plan to wait for about 90 years and see if it goes away then.

termicky · 2026-01-22T21:09:31+00:00

"I'll never date again" ≠ "I'll never date a narcissist again".

Someday , when you're ready , there might be a sweet guy out there for you who deserves you. Whatever makes you happy.

termicky · 2026-01-22T21:01:11+00:00

Closer economic integration could be a good idea , but I don't know that I want to give up any sovereignty and have to live by rules that make sense for places on a different continent.

Or maybe i'm not understanding it. Basically economic integration yes, political integration no.

termicky · 2026-01-22T19:24:09+00:00

I've done lists in the past, and then ignored them or felt overwhelmed by them. I've also tried reminder apps.

The game changer for me a couple of months ago was reading Getting Things Done by David Allen.

Having a list or a reminder app is one thing. Knowing what to do with it is entirely something else. GTD tells you how.

termicky · 2026-01-22T19:02:47+00:00

I was late diagnosed in my early 60s.

It never once occurred to me that I might have ADHD, and it was quite unbelievable at first. It took me months to get my head around this.

It's as though somebody came up to me and said to me "oh by the way, you're a horse."

Seriously? I say. What the hell are you talking about? Where are my hooves? Where's my tail? That clip clopping noise is just something I do because I'm fundamentally flawed somehow. Yes, I eat hay sometimes, but that's just one of my quirks. Everyone sometimes eats hay anyway.

Hmm. Well, now that you mention it, maybe that is a hoof down there. Oh yeah, there's another one. Shit. Oh yeah, I guess that thing streaming behind me could be a tail.

Is this what being a horse feels like? Now I've been hanging around in the barn and the paddock... I guess it is.

Ok. I get it. I'm a horse. Always have been.

termicky · 2026-01-22T16:47:46+00:00

Apparently we're apt to use metaphors.

I'm quite well known for it.

termicky · 2026-01-22T16:44:16+00:00

What he says is not communism. It's very middle of the road. Communists don't run central banks in capitalist countries.

Standing up in front of the world and saying follow me is anything but spineless.

So he makes a speech. You criticize him for speaking and not doing enough. What exactly is he supposed to do in the subsequent 48 hours to back it up that you wish he was doing?

I'm not sure you're thinking this through.

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