The Day I lost My Identity

I feel incomplete.

October 10Th, 2009, was the day I lost my identity. I was talking to someone last Friday night about how I haven't felt like myself ever since Barry died.

I feel like I am missing my other half, which I am, like part of me has been cut off. I want the old me back! The new Joanna is very different from the Joanna that was 7 weeks ago. Barry completed me, he made me whole, and now he's gone. Has anyone has read The Golden Compass by Bill Pullman ("His Dark Materials" series) ? Do you remember how the children felt when they were cut off from their Daemons? That is how I feel without Barry.

Ever since I was a little girl, I have wanted to be a wife and a mother. I did dream about becoming a nurse, a doctor, a veterinarian, a lawyer etc etc, but I've always felt my true calling was to be a Wife and a Mother. I accomplished those both, but now that one has been taken away from me, I don't know what to do with myself.

So now that I'm just a mom, how do I feel complete again? How do I move on from this feeling that I am floundering, just barely treading water, and feel like myself again?

I started up my hair clip business ("The Mane Attraction" on facebook), which takes up a lot of my time, and gives me a creative outlet. I blog here, and write about anything and everything. I go out with my friends, I go shopping, I pay bills, I clean, I fold laundry, I kiss owies, I give hugs and Kisses, I run errands, I do everything that a mom does.

But I miss being a Wife! I so desperately miss that aspect of my life. I miss caring for my husband, doing things for him, washing his laundry, everything that being a wife encompasses. Even having a conversation with him, and we talked for HOURS every day. I want that back, I want to be a wife again.

I know a lot of people don't understand how I am feeling, and that's ok. I'm not asking for sympathy, or understanding, or anything for that matter. I just want to know what to do with myself to make the ache go away. I physically ache for Barry, I just want to be with him again, and I can't, and it tears me apart.

I know I have been forced to become a new person, and like it or not, I have to accept it. Do you think I enjoy writing about my grief? No. But it's the new me, and it's what I am good at. I am also dreading the thought of what I am going to be responsible for when I finally buy a house. I'm going to have to learn how to hang shelving and learn how to use a drill! The old Joanna didn't even care about using a drill, and now she has to.

I'm struggling with learning how to accept my new identity of Widow, and learning how to just remember what it was like to be a Wife. I don't have to forget it, just remember.