You're so eloquent! I'm aspy too, so I feel so much of what you are posting. For me, it's Mondays (for Tarifa. There are so many other days, might as well be every day of the years.) It never stops. Functioning and going through the motions can be done. They have to be done. Even feeling happy, comfortable, etc., can be done. And they are done. But more and more, with COVID, the fires, and personal losses, they are farther apart.No, grief is not linear. Very frustrating for someone like me who thinks, "if I just learn the rules, the tools, the research, produce good maps, and show up to do the work, I can more effectively traverse this terrain than someone simply muddling through it." Grief don't care how proactive and prepared you are. It's going to take as long as it takes. I feel like the head or the heart holds back the grief and feeds it in small bites, only as much as it believes we can take in one sitting. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Fourteen years total and three very intense final years together produced quite a grief elephant to digest.
I'm in the same position, only I'm in a house. I couldn't live more cheaply, in CA anyway. Keep up the taxes and keep up maintenance, and it's mine. No one can tell me what I can and can't do, as long as I maintain basic expectations of society, which are falling farther and farther down. And I'll be here for the duration, too, as far as I know. Where else is there to go? That won't change, I don't think.
I haven't read David Kessler but I LIKE his response. No, not too blunt. REALISTIC. That's all I'm interested in. Hold the fantasy for Disneyland. As far as traversing the terrain of grief, I guess for me it's minute by minute. Every. Single. Day. It would help if there was no virus and no fires. And more of my friends/family/loved ones were alive. And, and, and. But dealing with this life, as it is, yeah, it's minute by minute. Baby Su and Elvis help a LOT, even though they're grieving as well, which I see basically in their continuing lessened appetites. The thrill is pretty much gone as far as my roomie situation is concerned. But I just take every day and every moment as they come.
For me, having some time to myself to just remember Tarifa and the magic she brought to our lives is the good part. Sometimes it can lead to bad parts, too -- soggy parts. But that's the best I can do right now.
Your fourteen years are probably full of that magic, with Krista. I have had things like memorial plants, photo albums, donations in better times to cat rescues/advocacy organizations, and songs. I don't have a special song for each lost loved one, but for those I do, those are instant triggers, first of cherished memories and then, all too often, more sogginess.