The happiest people are often the saddest

If I can say one thing about the past (almost) 5 months, is that it's absolutely exhausting putting on a happy face all day. But I cannot walk around all day moping about, unhappy and acting like others need to feel sad or badly for me. Quite the opposite - I don't want anyone to feel that way. My pain and suffering is mine to bear, not anyone else's. So I require myself to put on a happy face, smile through the pain, and push forward day to day. When Mike's life ended, ours did not. It often feels like it did. But it didn't, and we have to go on without him.
When someone asks me how I'm doing, I'm often tempted to say 'do you want the long or the short answer'. The short answer is I'm doing OK. Some days are good, some bad, but it's one day at a time and I guess things could be a lot worse, honestly. I have to keep reminding myself of that. It could be worse. Many can't imagine what that might be - but I remind myself daily of how many things in my life that are GOOD. It's the only way you can get through a tragedy like this. I have 2 healthy kids who love me. I have a roof over our heads and I have a good job that I love. I have amazing friends and family surrounding me. I have plenty of things in life to be happy and to smile about. So I'm doing OK. That's the short answer.
The long answer would go something like this. I suck. And not just any kind of 'oh I had a bad day' kind of suck - I mean I realllllly suck. I want to tear my own hair out, drive my car off a cliff, and scream at the top of my lungs until I have no voice left. I have 2 kids who constantly remind me of my dead husband when I look at them. Who ask for their dad and tell me they miss him or want him daily. By the end of the day I'm so exhausted of dealing with everything from the kids, to the dog, to my job, to finances, to home issues that I want to fall over and go to sleep and never wake up... and then I remember the 5 loads of laundry and grocery shopping that I forgot to do (hey kids, you're alright with pizza again, right? Yeah.) I live each day having regret upon regret of things I never got to say or do with the man I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with. When something happens in my day, I go to call Mike to tell him about it - and a split second later have to remind myself that he's gone. I have a house I can't keep clean, a 'to do' list that gets longer by the minute, and kitchen counters that look like a hurricane came through. And the person who should be here for all this - to help, or even just sympathize... or laugh about it- is simply gone. And of course everyone says 'don't worry about this stuff' and that's very easy to say. But when these things bother you, it's hard (if not impossible) to ignore. It's hard to convince myself that I really don't care about the piles of laundry that aren't done, or are sitting there clean but not put away. It's stressful to not have my partner in crime here to help me with all these things. I sit alone at night and I don't want to do any of these things that need to be done. I want a moment of peace and clarity.

So if you ask me how I am, and I smile and say 'OK'... rest assured, you are getting the short answer. And that's alright, because I don't want or need to saddle everyone with the long answer. If you are married or have a long term partner, imagine them just being gone one day. Just for a second - not having them there any longer for the love, support and reliance that you come to count on them for. And now it's just you. If you can imagine that for one second, then you can imagine what my days are like now. But as I said above, life does go on. And we all have choices about how we go on. I have my moments when I dwell on the stress of being a single parent and of missing Mike. But mostly I choose to go forward with life and continue to enjoy it for the wild, crazy, unpredictable ride that it is - while always keeping Mike close to my heart.