3 years and 7 months out. Wife died of breast cancer. Those first two years, I wasn't present. I lived almost every waking minute in the past, in pain, in grief and in stasis. I was drinking heavily too. Put the bottle down and experience fresh tsunami waves of grief, loss and pain. Her death felt horrifically fresh. The intensity of that sort of pain is practically impossible for ME to maintain. 3 months after putting the bottle down, I started recognizing and acknowledging 'beauty' when I saw/experienced it.

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I will NEVER not miss my wife. She is still on my mind most of the day. I've gone through a fundamental shift in this past year though. Previously I was going through these spirals of deeper recognition and acknowledgement that my wife is dead. Of course intellectually I knew that, but the message took a long time to be chiseled into my heart/emotions. Once that threshold had been crossed I gained a certain freedom of..."Ok, what now?"

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Yes...what now? Now, I'm not Rebecca's husband. So, I've been moving towards doing things that I want to do, when I want to do them. Another relationship? I'm actually open to the idea now, but I'm also currently content to not be in a relationship...doing my frequent road trips, taking my telescope out to dark places to witness our universe, zipping around town on my electric skateboard, learning how to sew with my late wife's old sewing machine blah, blah, blah.