What makes it different?

Fourteen months and the pervasive feeling I am having is not one of sadness, loss, pity, or helplessness. It is anger. Not over my current situation, but what is out there. Or, more specifically, the lack of what is out there. The common thread I hear in most of my online support groups and even from what I see in my community is no continued support. In the beginning, all sorts of people come out of the woodwork. Taking you out, listening to your rants, taking the kids off your hands for a few hours so you have time to breathe. And grieve. Then, little by little, it starts to fade away.

Fewer phone calls.
Fewer visits.
Fewer offers.
More declined invitations.
More pity parties.
More self destructive behavior.

At first, I thought it was me. Then I blamed in on social leprosy. Then I realized that although his death had blown my world apart and stopped my life in its tracks, everyone else's life kept right on trucking. They all still had husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, kids, pets, jobs, school. Other tragedies happened. Time marched on. So I tried to find support in my community. Someone else who might, just might, understand even a fraction of what I was going through. Unfortunately, there are no local groups for widows under the age of 50 who lost their spouse. Even harder to find are groups where spouses die suddenly and not of a horrible lingering disease.

Nothing.
Nada.
Zip.

So here I go, back to trying to deal with this on my own, in my own way. Forging a path to who-knows-where. I don't even know if I'm doing it right. So many questions run through my head daily.

Am I making the right choice to go back to school?
Am I parenting the boys OK?
Am I yelling too much?
Am I yelling not enough?
Am I behaving appropriately to my friends?
Am I drinking too much?
Am I drinking not enough?
Am I too broken to ever find someone who will love me?

I could go crazy if I listened to all of these questions all of the time. Sometimes the questions make it even more real that I don't have anyone to bounce my daily life off of. Someone who really knows me and understands me and wants to hang around me, even when I am intolerable. For those of you that do, don't take it for granted, because not having it?

 Well it just sucks.