I started going to a grief support group. Tomorrow marks my third meeting… It\'s hard. I thought it would help, and I know it\'s still early, but it is just… difficult.

It is a spouse support group. And that\'s not what Charles and I were… yet. We hadn\'t been together in that capacity… yet. We hadn\'t gotten there. I wish we had. I wish I could\'ve made up my mind and that we would\'ve had the chance to decide what our future was to be. But he was taken from me. We were making plans to figure out who we were together… he was going to meet my family… we were trying to figure out how to get him to Minnesota permanently. He told me that he was willing to move up here despite winters and snow… because he wanted me… because he would do whatever he could to make us possible. I would\'ve done more too… My company only listed a job position in Austin a few months after he died… If he was still alive I would\'ve been seriously considering a move down there until we could move back here… until a position became available for me here with my company.

I sit at these meetings and although it was a relief to hear some of my feelings were a normal part of the grieving process… it\'s still hard to listen to everyone else in the group, all 10+ years older than me, discussing their spouses\'s passing… all from cancer. And when they talk about how some only had 10 days from diagnosis to the loss… I wish I had had that. Its horrible, but I wish I had had 10 days to put things into order… to know that we would be able to say goodbye… or if not goodbye, just know that our time was shorter. He told me so often that we had forever… it took us 10 years to get to the point of being together… in one city… even if it was short trips… but that we had the \'rest of the time we had left, which for us is forever\'… and that\'s so hard to cope with now. It\'s so hard to think that our forever wasn\'t long enough. That I was dragging my feet and not allowing us to even try to happen for at least 2 years before finally coming to a place where I went to him.

It just… sucks. I want to be ok with this grief group, but I don\'t fit. I try so very hard to talk… to not be shy… to just be a part of what this is… and here I sit… feeling so very sad because it just is one more place where I don\'t fit. One more place where I\'m judged because I didn\'t suffer the same grief as they did… one more place where I\'m lost and lonely… and wondering if by the end of the 8 weeks if I truly will feel like I\'ve accomplished something by attending.

I will never get over losing Charles. The first person I was myself with… someone I didn\'t realize as my best friend until this year… The only person I told my secrets to… that I cried to… that I felt comfortable with seeing me in the morning… sleeping next to me… just… being with.

I wish there was more… I wish I had 10 days to talk to him… I wish I had the guts to tell these people at this group, who had 5 more more years with their significant other… and who had the opportunities to say goodbye… how I envy them… how I never got the chance to have what they did… and that no matter how different my story is… it\'s meaningful… and it should be counted too… I wasn\'t married… I didn\'t live with him… but he made us… us.