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Anxiety and I do everything together these days.

Last night was another sleepless night. Not because I wasn’t exhausted, but because my mind simply wouldn’t let me rest.

Something I’ve learned about widowhood is that anxiety becomes a part of your grief in ways you never could have imagined.

It’s the constant feeling of being overwhelmed, even when nothing is happening. It’s worrying about things that haven’t happened, questioning every decision, feeling guilty about things you shouldn’t, and carrying this overwhelming fear that something else could go wrong.

Because when you’ve already experienced your entire world falling apart, it’s hard to convince your mind that everything is going to be okay.

This week, Rob would have turned 45. His first birthday without him here. And as that day approaches, I can physically feel my grief changing. My body seems to recognize these milestones before my mind can even process them.

Grief is so much more than sadness. It’s the racing heart, sleepless nights, inability to concentrate, and constant feeling that something terrible is about to happen.

I miss the version of myself who didn’t have to think this way. Who could make plans without imagining everything that could go wrong. Who could enjoy a moment without feeling guilty for being happy.

But more than anything, I miss the security of knowing that no matter what happened, Rob and I would figure it out together.

That’s one of the loneliest parts of widowhood. Losing your person also means losing the sense of safety you spent years building together.

The mental exhaustion of grief is something I’m still learning to navigate. Carrying memories, fears, responsibilities, and emotions while trying to continue living a life that looks nothing like the one you imagined.

Some days I do better than others.

But lately, anxiety has been coming along for just about everything.

And sometimes the hardest part of grief isn’t just missing the person you lost.

It’s trying to recognize the person you’ve become without them.

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Today is Donuts with Dad at Ava’s school.

And I’m sitting in my car completely at a loss for words.

I’m usually someone who tries to find a solution to everything. A way to fix it, make it better, or at least make it hurt a little less. But how do you fix something like this?

The first Donuts with Dad without her dad. The father-daughter dance coming up. All these little moments that suddenly feel so incredibly heavy.

I genuinely don’t know how to navigate this part of grief.
And I think that’s what scares me the most.

Every part of me wanted to keep her home today. Not because that’s the right thing to do, but because I wanted to protect her from another reminder of what she’s lost.

I look at this little girl and my heart absolutely breaks. She’s only nine years old, carrying emotions that most adults struggle to understand.

And all I want to do right now is walk into her classroom, wrap my arms around her, and make sure she’s okay.

But I can’t protect her from every hard moment. And I can’t give her back the one person I wish more than anything could be standing beside her today.

I just feel helpless.

I’m still sitting in my car, knowing I have a million things to get done, but I can’t seem to move. It’s one of those grief days where everything feels heavier. The gloomy weather, a song on the radio, the silence after school drop off… it’s needing another 20 minutes in your car just to pull yourself together.

I wish Rob were here to tell me how to handle this. He always knew what to say. Especially when it came to our girl.
She admired him. They were each other’s best friend.
And today, more than anything, I need his advice.

I don’t have some inspiring ending to this. I’m a mom trying to figure out how to help her daughter through something I’m still trying to understand myself.

And today, I could really use some help
figuring out how to do that. 💔

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Shoot The Sh!t w/ Britt 🎙️🖤
traveling through grief
Episode: The Six-Month Mark

I don’t even know how to explain what’s been happening inside my head these last few weeks. Something about hitting six months without Rob has completely changed the way grief feels.

It’s not just emotional anymore. I physically feel it. My body, my mind, my entire being. Something has shifted, and I don’t know how to explain it.

Maybe the adrenaline finally wore off. Maybe I’ve spent so long surviving that my body is finally catching up.

But holy shit, I miss my husband.

I miss hearing him come home from work. His stupid jokes. The way he always knew exactly what to say when everything was going wrong. I miss having someone who knew me better than I knew myself.

And lately, my mind won’t stop replaying everything. Our life before cancer. His final months. The conversations, the memories, the things I wish I could ask him now.

It’s fucking exhausting living inside my own head.

I’ve left my phone on Do Not Disturb for days. I’ve pulled away from people. Not because I don’t care, but because I genuinely don’t have the energy to explain something I don’t even understand myself.

And I think part of why I share so much is because I desperately want people to understand how incredible Rob was.

The husband I had. The father Ava had. The man who could make the worst day feel manageable just by being there.

I want people to understand how much I miss him because somehow I feel like he deserves that. He deserves to be remembered for the incredible man he was.

But how do you explain missing someone who was part of absolutely everything?

I wish I had some beautiful lesson to share about this stage of grief, but I don’t.

I’m struggling. I’m lonely. I’m mentally exhausted. And some days I’m just trying to make it through without falling apart.

Six months later, the world keeps moving, and I’m still trying to figure out how to live without my favorite person.

I just really fucking miss Rob Bohacik. 💔

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I want to be the best mom I can possibly be for Ava.

I want to give her the right advice. Say the right things. Make the right decisions. Protect her while still teaching her how to navigate this life.

But the truth is… I’m fucking terrified sometimes.

Because I’m her mom, but now I’m also trying to carry the pieces of being her dad too.

And when your daughter had a dad like Rob, those are some pretty fucking impossible shoes to fill.

He just knew.

He knew what to say and when to say it. He knew what I was thinking before I could even get the words out. He could tell when I was struggling before I even realized it myself, or before I was willing to admit it.

There was never supposed to be a world where I had to make all of these decisions without turning to him and saying, “What do you think?”

Before we lost him, we recorded so many conversations. We talked about Ava. About life. About the future. About the things he wanted her to know and the things he wanted me to remember.

Words for years from now.

Words for the days when I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.

And listening to his voice is still one of the hardest things for me.

Because the second I hear it, I can almost forget.

For just a second, he’s still here.

Then it stops.

There are days I feel confident that I can do this. And there are days I would give absolutely anything to sit next to him for five minutes and ask him what the hell I’m supposed to do.

Today was one of those days.

So I went back to his words.

And as hard as they are to hear, I’m so fucking grateful we have them.

Because even though Ava and I have to keep figuring out this life without him physically here…

her dad still has something to say.

And these are his words. ❤️‍🩹

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Loving him through cancer changed me.

Becoming his caregiver changed me.

Watching our normal life turn into scans, hospitals, medications and waiting for the next piece of bad news changed me.

Watching him die changed me.

And then waking up the next morning and realizing the world was still moving changed me.

I think that’s the part of grief I never understood before.

You don’t just lose your person. You lose the version of yourself that existed with them.

I miss having a partner.
I miss being someone’s person.
I miss having someone who already knows the entire story without needing an explanation.
I miss parenting beside him.
I miss ordinary.

And lately, I don’t recognize myself some days.

I’m quieter. More guarded. Things I used to care about don’t matter anymore. Even my favorite time of year feels different.

I spent so much time trying to save Rob that I never stopped to wonder who I would be if we couldn’t.

Now I’m finding out.

I’m still a mom. I still work. I still laugh.
I still show up. I still make plans.

But I’m different.

Loving him changed me.
Fighting beside him changed me.
Losing him changed me.

And learning how to live without him is still changing me.

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26.5 fucking thousand. 🥹

I don’t even know how to explain what that number means to me.

When we started sharing our journey after the diagnosis, I wasn’t trying to “build a platform.” I was trying to survive. I was looking for answers, advice, treatment options, possible care, people who understood—and sometimes just somewhere that made what we were living through feel a little more normal.

I shared almost every day. The good. The horrible. The hopeful. The shit nobody prepares you for.

And somewhere along the way, 26,500 of you showed up.

You’ve taken me exactly as I am. From my F-bombs to disappearing into my Bible for days. From being loud as hell to completely quiet. You’ve seen some of my absolute best days and the worst days of my life.

And you stayed.

That means more than a follower count ever could.

I’m so proud of what we’ve built here. I hope our story has helped someone ask another question, advocate harder, find an option they didn’t know existed, or simply feel a little less alone.

And now we’re entering a new chapter.

Which requires something I’m historically terrible at… giving up control.

But I finally found someone I trust with it.

Lauren isn’t just my new content manager. I’ve known her and her family for years. I did her hair for prom, watched her go off to college, build her life, get married, and become this incredible woman I’m ridiculously proud of.

And now we get to work together.

This has been in the works for a while. We’ve built one hell of a vision board, and for the first time I’m allowing someone else to help me carry something that has become much bigger than I ever imagined.

We’re going to keep talking about cancer. Keep advocating. Keep talking about grief—the pretty parts and the ugly ones. Faith. Motherhood. Widowhood. Life after the unimaginable. And probably some wildly inappropriate shit in between.

Most importantly, this will always be a place where you can show up exactly as you are.

26.5K.

I’m emotional. I’m grateful. I’m proud.

And I’m really fucking excited about what comes next.

🫶

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May you heal so hard that you decorate your home again. 🖤

If you know me, you know my house would’ve been decorated for fall by September 1st. No ifs, ands or buts.

But this year looked different.

My guy who would roll his eyes while I pulled out another bin, then patiently stand there for every picture, every video, every “wait, I need to move this one thing.” 😂

Decorating made me think about everything. The first holiday we decorated together. The first Thanksgiving we hosted. All the years of turning four walls into our home.

And I realized I never loved decorating just because I loved decorating.

I loved who I was doing it with.

Yesterday, we decorated.
We cried.
But we fucking did it. 🖤

Maybe this is what healing looks like right now.

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It’s a random Tuesday and it hits you.

It actually fucking happened.

He died.

And somehow, even after all these months, there are moments when that still feels impossible to say.

Maybe today feels heavier because we just came off a long Labor Day weekend, and Rob loved nothing more than a three-day weekend with his girls.

He didn’t need some huge plan. He just wanted us.

A slow morning. Something on the grill. Ava running around. Me probably ordering shit we absolutely did not need. And him just… there.

That’s the part of grief I never understood before.

It’s not always the anniversaries, birthdays, or big days you know are going to hurt.

Sometimes it’s a random fucking Tuesday.

You wake up. Get your kid ready. Answer texts. Laugh. Make plans. Keep moving.

And then your brain goes…

Wait. Rob is really dead.

Not gone for work.
Not at the store.
Not coming home later.

And for a second, it feels like I’m finding out all over again.

Because this isn’t just some sad story I tell on Instagram.

This actually happened to us.

Cancer came into our home. I watched the person I planned my entire life with get sick. I lost my husband. Ava lost her dad.

And somehow the world just kept going.

We still had a beautiful weekend. We laughed. We made memories. We lived.

Because I refuse to let grief take every beautiful thing we still have.

But sometimes even the beautiful moments hurt because there’s always this little voice in the back of my head saying…

He should be here.

For the long weekends.
For Ava growing up.
For the boring ordinary days I never knew I’d someday give anything to have back.

Grief has fundamentally changed who I am.

I can laugh and grieve in the same hour. I can have the best weekend with my daughter and wake up Tuesday morning completely broken.

I’m building a life I never fucking asked to build.

And every once in a while, on some completely ordinary Tuesday, my brain reminds my heart:

It really happened.

And I miss him like it’s day one all over again.

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National Grief Awareness Day was yesterday.

But for so many of us, grief awareness isn’t a day.
It’s every single fucking day.

It’s waking up and remembering all over again.
It’s reaching for your phone because for half a second you forgot.
It’s walking into a room and immediately seeing who isn’t there.
It’s having something funny happen and knowing exactly who you would call.
It’s watching life continue while a part of you is still standing in the life you had before.

“The old normal no longer exists.”

That one hurts because it’s true.

There is no going back to normal for us. There is only learning how to live inside a life we never asked for.

Five months without Rob, and I still catch myself thinking, he should be here.

He should be here for the ordinary days.
He should be here for the big moments.
He should be here driving me crazy.
He should be here making us laugh.
He should be here raising our girl with me.
He should just fucking be here.

And maybe that’s the part of grief people don’t understand until they live it.

You don’t only miss the person.

You miss your life with them.
Your routines. Your conversations. Your future. The stupid little things nobody else would ever understand. You miss the version of yourself that existed when they were still here.

I don’t need one day on a calendar to remind me that grief exists.

I carry the proof of it every day.

Because I loved him every day.

And I will miss him every day for the rest of my life.

Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow.

🎥: @emptybedpodcast

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August is National Grief Awareness Month.

Grief has been part of my life much longer than these last five months.

I lost my brother, Michael, years ago. I learned what it meant to lose someone who was part of my childhood, my family, my history. I thought because of that, I understood grief.

Then I lost Rob.

And I learned grief can break your heart in completely different places.

Losing my brother taught me grief never really leaves. Losing my husband taught me what happens when grief walks into your home and changes almost every part of your everyday life.

It’s waking up and remembering.

Reaching for your phone because he’s still the first person you want to tell.

Making decisions alone that were always made together.

Raising our daughter without my teammate.

It’s being jealous of people living the normal, boring life I would give anything to have back. It’s hearing someone complain about their spouse and thinking, God, I wish mine were here to annoy me.

It’s laughing and then feeling that punch because Rob should be laughing too.

Grief doesn’t replace grief. It piles onto a heart that already knows loss.

And grief doesn’t always look sad.

Sometimes I’m working, traveling, sitting at a softball field, making memories with Ava, laughing with friends or posting a picture where I genuinely look happy.

Because I can be happy and still be grieving.

I can love the life in front of me while being devastated by the people missing from it.

Eventually the flowers stop coming. The messages slow down. Everyone goes back to their lives.

But we still wake up missing them.

So during Grief Awareness Month, check on the strong one.

Say their person’s name.

Tell the story. Send the picture.

Don’t be afraid you’ll remind us they died.

We never forgot.

You’re reminding us they lived. That they mattered. That someone else remembers them too.

I don’t think grief is something we “get over.” I think we learn how to carry it.

Some days I carry Michael and Rob beautifully.

Some days missing them brings me to my knees.

But I will keep carrying them.

I’m moving forward. I’m just bringing them with me. 💜

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Five months.

I don’t even know how to say that without it feeling wrong.

Five months without Rob.

We could barely go two hours without talking to each other. A phone call. A text. A picture. Something completely pointless that absolutely could’ve waited until we got home.

And now somehow I’ve gone five months without hearing his voice.

That sentence fucks with my head.

Because five months ago, I didn’t know how I was going to survive five days.

And yet, here I am.

I have.

There’s a strange sadness in realizing that life keeps moving even when you desperately want it to stop.

Things have happened that I haven’t gotten to tell him. Decisions I’ve made without asking what he thinks. Moments I know would’ve made him laugh.

There are now five whole months of my life that he wasn’t physically here for.

And I think that’s what hurts tonight.

Not that I’m angry.
Not that I’m stuck.
Not that I haven’t “healed enough.”

Just that I fucking miss my husband.

I miss my person.

Five months, babe.

We could barely go two hours.

I still don’t know how I’m doing this without you. 💜

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A prayer for the first week of school… for anyone learning how to do these ordinary moments without someone they love. 🤍

God,

As a new school year begins, please hold close every family experiencing a “first” they never wanted to face.

The first week of school without them.
The first morning routine without them.
The first school drop-off, first picture, first story about the new teacher that they aren’t here to hear.

It’s strange how something as simple as going back to school can remind us of everything that has changed.

Grief has a way of showing up in the most ordinary places.

In the car on the way to school.
Walking through those doors.
Packing lunches.
Signing papers.
Coming home after a long day.

Lord, be especially close to the parents doing all of this without the person they thought would always be beside them.

Be close to the children missing someone who should be watching them grow.

Give us strength as we find new routines in lives that look so different now.

Protect our children this school year. Give them confidence, kindness, good friends, patient teachers, and safe places to land.

And remind us that moving forward into a new school year doesn’t mean we are leaving anyone behind.

We carry them with us.

Into the new routines.
Into the new memories.
And even through those school doors.

Amen. 🤍

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