Just(in) Grief 2

I had a blog post all written out in my notebook and decided not to post it but to write off the cuff. 

Today was a good day... for most of the day. At some point I began thinking about grief and how it affects me and that completely tanked my mood for a while. I, of course, started thinking about Justin. For those of you who don't know who Justin is, he's a dear friend and a former love interest of mine who passed away July 6th, 2017.
He was so much more than a friend to me and yet he was only able to be a friend since he was engaged to someone else. I digress, this isn't about his engagement it's about the grief I felt today.

As I walked around work I found myself in a funk because of a fiction book I was reading in which someone was going through their own period of grief. It caused me to reflect and again come to the realization that I need grief counseling. I've known this for over a year now and I have yet to find a support group for grief and actually attend. Although I can talk to my current boyfriend about him I always feel uncomfortable in doing such, in some ways talking about the grief I have over Justin feels like I'm cheating on both him and Justin and it just gets awkward for me. So in my mind, I decided that next year I will spend the year honoring his memory instead of grieving it. 

Alas, that statement is a foolish one; no matter what I do there is nothing I can do to stop myself from grieving. Even in honoring his memory I will still grieve, I will still cry and ask God why. I think a lot of things when it comes to Justin and I don't know who to turn to. Unfortunately for me now that I am ready to open up to my therapist circumstances would have it that his license needs to be renewed or something and he is unable to see anyone other than addiction patients. I would go to my previous therapist but honestly, the comfort is not really there. So what do I do? How do I cope with the thoughts and feelings I have about everything? I write. Yet writing sometimes is just not enough. I have my journal and I have this blog and I still can't seem to get past a certain point in the grieving process. Everyone tells me to remember all the good memories Justin and I had and many fail to realize that when I remember him that is all I remember is good times. We never had any bad. We may have had misunderstandings, but those were few and far between and even now I'm able to laugh at them as I'm sure that he would as well. 

This man was not just another love interest for me but my soulmate and I missed the chance to be with him. I used to tell him all the time that he was the one I should have married and that my son should have been his. I never kept that secret from him. I sometimes kick myself for thinking that one day after we'd both lived our lives that we would come back together and get married eventually; eventually never comes and I'm sorry that I waited for it to. Now I'm left with an emptiness in my heart that no one can fill and it pains me, but my dilemma doesn't end there. You see when he died I was with a man that just couldn't be there for me emotionally like I needed him to be. My reaction to Justin's death was to cling to the love I'd currently had yet he just seemed to push me further away. It wouldn't be until I met my current boyfriend that I'd feel the kind of love I thought I'd only felt with Justin. 

This love, the love I have now, feels so right and wrong at the same time. I still struggle daily with not only survivors guilt but with the guilt of seemingly moving on so soon after his death. Stan and I have been together now coming up on a year in 2019 and my feelings for him are strong. Even when I find myself questioning if I ever loved Justin I know that I did and still do, but why do I have to feel guilty about it? Why do I have to feel guilty for loving someone other than Justin? Why do I have to feel guilty about still loving Justin in general? This is the part of grief over a lost love that no one talks about; the part that somehow gets overshadowed not only by anger, denial, and survivors guilt but the entire grieving process in general. I don't know how to deal with any of this. I don't know how to cope with any of this. I just know that although I want nothing more than to leave the grief over Justin behind in 2018, I know that it isn't possible. Grief will follow me into the new year; maybe it will come in spurts, maybe it will come at random times, I never truly know when it will hit me. I just hope and pray that in the new year I will find some sort of comfort and an outlet for my grief. 

See also: Just(in) Grief & Holes In The Wall