Yes. Often. But I don't allow myself to stay there. I've learned through some very brutal "dark nights of the soul" that "this too shall pass", and those feelings are temporary reactions to the pain, angst and overwhelming difficulty of living through intolerable situations. I've learned that there IS more to life than "this", but sometimes I have to wade through a lot of quicksand and crap to get there...and it's always worth the struggle in the end.

My husband and I figured out that in less than 10 years I've lost a lot of beloved people - Dad, Mom, my brother, all of my aunts and uncles, several close in-laws and good friends...and you have to count in the peripheral losses too: loss of the family home, cottage, traditions, family gatherings, etc, etc. It's no wonder that I've been on a very long journey through that quicksand of despair, asking "is this how's it going to be from now on???" I'm in a never-ending agony of absence, but I'm taking steps to learn how to survive and thrive beyond these losses. Therapy, meditation, seizing the day and celebrating the lives of the people who are still alive around me. It's hard, somedays I just want to curl up in a ball and never get back up. But I have to trust that there IS more to life than this and keep getting up in the morning and finding my little pleasures wherever I can - like being here, planting bright-coloured flowers in my front garden (and watching the older neighbours stop to enjoy the flowers on their morning walks) splurging on chocolate-covered macadamia nuts, feeding the birds in my backyard and watching them take baths in my new fountain...they're such little things, but they all add up so that by the time I fall into bed at night I can actually say "that was a pretty good day after all."

Long-winded. The question hits home.