An update...
At the end of November I moved to a new house. I have bought this house outright with John's life insurance so I am now a bonafide homeowner.
Financially it is great as I no longer have a hefty rent taking a great chunk out of the only income (John's pension) I've had these past eight months.
I feel better for the move emotionally as well. Having less financial commitments is part of that (despite all the money I've spent - and still have to spend - on the house) but so too is living somewhere without constant reminders of my loss.
It is not something I intended when I bought the house but it is happening none the less. Being me though, I worry that I am forgetting John but I should give myself a break because not constantly thinking of him is not the same as forgetting him. I will never forget John.
I will never stop loving him either. I still get emotional when I think of him and miss him hugely. I don't understand how life could treat him so cruelly and it still angers me greatly when I remember how cruelly it did treat him. So I try to avoid dwelling on that. Whether that is healthy or not I'm none too sure as it remains a problem unresolved ready to poke it's way into my thoughts at any given time but, on the other hand, not constantly beating my head against an unsolvable problem seems a sensible thing to do.
I also feel guilty (even though I know I shouldn't and feel others would probably agree that I shouldn't) that I am now a homeowner at John's expense (in the worst possible way). I have achieved one of my life's ambitions but it has only been made possible because my husband died and had life insurance.
I'm sure most people when told that they're about to be given a cheque for thousands of pounds would be happy but I burst into tears when I was told how much John's life insurance was worth. It is not what I want. I don't want money. I want John. No amount of compensation is worth the life of the man I love.
I was tempted to never claim that money or to simply give it away but sense got the better of me. Having been born with deformities, having transitioned from pretending to be male to openly living as female, having watched the man I love get ill with an incurable disease and then not even being there when he died, I know life is not something I can control. That the only thing I can do with the life I have is to make the best of it. Thus, whilst I would much rather have John in my life than thousands of pounds in the bank, I can only make the most of the reality. So I claimed the money and spent the vast majority of it on a house, thus making my life comfortable for the foreseeable future.
I also feel that John would approve of me making the best of my circumstances. Even though he faced his illness and death with great acceptance, he worried greatly about how it affected me (and to think I was his first concern, even when faced with his own death, is hugely humbling). Thus he went to great lengths to ensure I was as comfortable as could be and instructed me that I was always to make the best of my life.
However, I was hugely reliant on John. Whenever anything went wrong, John was the person I asked to fix it. Now John is no longer here to ask. My support network of one person has disappeared. So who do I ask now? Who can I rely on to be there for me at any given time? Everyone has their own lives to live. So I manage as best I can and of that I'm sure John would approve but, being wet behind the ears, not everything works out as I hoped. And, again, I would've gone to John to comfort me but now he is no longer here so, again, I have no one to comfort me when things go wrong. So I'm struggling with life.
But that is the important thing - I am struggling; I'm not giving up. Even though I have been tempted more times this year to do just that than I have in the entire 40 years before it. However, as well as not wanting to let John down or create two tragedies out of one, I quickly realised that I didn't so much as want to end the misery as rediscover happiness. There is no happiness - or much of anything! - in death. I want desperately to be happy and I am far more happier now than I've been for the previous 8 months (The worst has happened. As miserable as I get, I can never be as miserable as I was on April 5th 2013 when my world caved in) but I do not believe I will ever be as happy as I was when I shared my life with John. I also feel that I can never be in a relationship with anyone else ever again as to do so would mean pushing John out of the space in my heart he currently occupies and I do not believe I can ever do that.
So if I'm never to be as happy as I once was and am destined to remain without someone to hug and comfort me for the rest of my days, what is the point in continuing with life?
The answer I've come up with is: Life is unpredictable so why not strive for the possibility of what I desire instead of responding to certainties I do not have? And, besides, if I give up on life I am and have nothing and that is to lose everything, not just past glories.
