Still Alive For You, Love

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I tried dating. It didn't go...in my favor...shall we say. The whole thing felt like I was being jerked around by my heart. Not that he meant to or that he was malicious. Just that my poor, aching heart felt so torn up already and the experience of allowing myself to be vulnerable and hopeful again for a moment, only to have the whole thing blow up in my face really hurt. It really, really hurt.

But what I've discovered is that when everything else falls away - the humiliation, rejection, anxiety and pain that went along with it all, even the excitement, the affection, the companionship, the glimpse at happiness and joy, when all of that was stripped away and I had to face reality once again, it's still there. The gaping hole that is Dave's absence. It's still there and was exactly what I got to avoid in a small way for a little while.

Not that there's anything wrong with a little of that. The loss that I've suffered is too huge to take in all at once and all the time. I have to live and distract and try to find a new life.
It's a part of the process and some of it is healthy and normal. I need distraction. I need to feel alive again. I need to make mistakes and try new things and feel the fear of being vulnerable again. But, there, behind all of that was this pain I haven't fully addressed - the loss of this man I miss so much, that I can't look at that pain directly very often. I have to look at it peripherally just to not be taken down by it.

The truth is, that man I lost was the love of my life. He was my best friend. He was my everything. I suffered something so horrible and painful when he died. And I'm still suffering. Sometimes I think I'm not suffering LESS as time goes on, because I miss him MORE the longer he is gone.

After a last, sad conversation with this new man I had to say goodbye to today, I went for a run in the woods. So many thoughts crowded my mind as I ran, but I felt more peaceful than I had in weeks. I blasted the Bon Iver song, Perth through my earbuds until I felt myself begin to let go of some of the tension I'd been holding onto for days. The lyric still alive for you, love* reverberating through my mind and heart again and again as my feet flew above the dusty trail.

The woods are my church. The trees, moss, spiders, pine needles and ferns my cathedral and stained class. I feel closer to Dave when I'm there. At the halfway point, I turned around to jog back to the car, and without warning, a sob tore through my guts and out of my lungs and left me gasping. I stopped and bent over at the waist, my hands on my knees, as more sobs followed, one after another.  It's just this, my heart said when it could no longer be silenced by the pounding of the jogging and the music, my husband was everything to me and he is gone. I'm lost without him and I try so hard every moment of every day to be good at this new life, but I'm terrified and I need him and I miss him. My heart is cracked wide open. 

That one truth ripped through me like an explosion and I trudged back to the parking lot, winded by the racking sobs. At a bend in the trail, the sun pierced the thick canopy of leaves and shone a ray of brilliant light through several elaborate spiderwebs. I stopped in the middle of the trail, face raised to the sky. Tears I didn't know were leaking from my eyes slowly made tracks down my cheeks to my neck, and sweat dripped down the hollow of my spine, as I let the warmth of the sun soak into me.

It was so bright that I had to partially close my eyes, narrowing my view of the trees and glowing webs to a pinhole. It was so achingly beautiful that I wanted Dave to see it. I wished and prayed for Dave to appear to me in the trail behind me. His soul, his ghost, his spirit, whatever. I wished so hard. I turned around, opened my eyes and waited to see him coming around the corner. Just a memory of him, even. I prayed to feel his hands on me. I prayed to feel him wrap his arms around me and hold me.  I prayed to hear him reassure me that I'd be okay and that he loved me. It didn't happen. He didn't appear to me. He didn't hold me. I didn't feel him.

But, I did feel my own strength resurfacing from somewhere deep inside. I turned away from the bend in the trail where I had hoped to catch a glimpse of his sweet face and I walked on. Toward the sun, the trees, the life I have to live without him. I have to keep walking toward it. Even though he can't physically walk beside me.

I know he wishes he could be here with me. I know he misses me too. But I've been waiting for him to come home and he's not going to. I've been avoiding that horrific, giant, unavoidable, black cloud of truth a little bit, nough to survive the last 15 months. Somehow, though, I'm going to have to face that truth completely. Bit by tiny bit, I will have to fully accept that he is gone and that his absence has been and continues to be shattering.

I have to allow myself to really accept that my heart is broken, I'll never be the same, and the whole thing has been unspeakably hard. I've put on a great show so many times. I've gritted my teeth and gone out in public and smiled and made words come out of my mouth when all I've wanted to do is lie in bed focusing only on breathing in and out. I've pushed myself forward when all I've wanted to do is live in the past and cling to what was. I've been hard on myself and had ridiculously high expectations for myself. I've felt ashamed of my failures and my shortcomings. I've second guessed every damn decision I've made. I've treated myself in ways I'd never treat a good friend. I've treated myself like a person who hasn't just lost her world and had to start over.

I'm not that person. I'm not okay. I had the shit kicked out of my heart and had to watch the life I knew dissolve before me like a mirage. That person doesn't function like a "normal" person who's not grieving. That person requires special treatment. That person needs extra TLC and patience and love and while my friends could always do that for me, I often couldn't do that for myself. It's time I did. It won't be easy. But I'll do it for him.

Still alive for you, love.*

*I just discovered that the lyric might actually be "still alive who you love" which bugs me because "still alive for you love" makes more sense and means more to me.  

One Year

From Here

One year ago today, I sat in a waiting room and stared blankly at a stranger as he told me my 38 year old husband was dead. Outside the hospital, the sun was shining and the sky was outrageously blue. I dimly thought that it shouldn't be a beautiful day. That it shouldn't be allowed.

After Dave died, I couldn't listen to music at all for days. There was no thinking involved in this, it was all gut-level stuff. I just couldn't bear to hear music. Previously, I couldn't make it through a day without hearing music. Actually, I am stunned to hear that there are people who don't really care about music (I've met some!). It is elemental to me, almost as important as food, water and shelter.

So, no music was a sign of the depths I'd fallen into. Eventually, though, I began to crave it again. For some reason I still don't understand, the only thing I could stand to listen to at first was Bon Iver. Anything and everything Bon Iver. I latched on to that music and didn't let go. All day long, it was Bon Iver. In the kitchen, bathroom, car, bedroom. I even listened to it through earplugs while I did yard work.

It sustained me like food. I could almost feel my strained and jangly neurons smoothing out as soon as the familiar notes began. This went on for weeks before I could listen to a broader range of music. I began to think of Bon Iver's music as a part of my recovery. Like medicine.

In September, almost 4 months after Dave's death, I saw Bon Iver live for the first time at an outdoor venue with one of my Superfriends who had survived the last four months right alongside me. It was the most emotional, spiritual musical experience of my life and I vowed within the first few minutes that I'd see Bon Iver live again in the near future.

When I discovered that they'd be performing at Red Rocks Amphitheatre just days before the one year anniversary of his death, I knew I'd be there, come hell or high water.

I optimistically bought two tickets, hoping superfriend or someone else would be able to come with me, but it was not to be. It must have been written in the stars that I'd go it alone.

Dave's death has allowed me to meet a me I never knew before. One who is scared but acts anyway. One who is stronger and more independent than I ever imagined.

This journey so far, has been a lesson in relying on myself, leaning on myself, believing in myself, and trusting myself to an extent I never experienced before.

So, it makes perfect sense that I'd go to that concert alone, even though I very much wished for a companion (ANY companion!).

Red Rocks Amphitheatre, just outside of Denver, CO, is the only acoustically perfect, naturally occurring amphitheater in the world. It looks like something from The Flinstones, or maybe a place where you wouldn't be surprised to see a dinosaur or two. It's perched at 6,450 feet above sea level and overlooks a panoramic view of Denver far below. It is like no other and stunningly beautiful.

The sky was just darkening as the first notes of the first song, Perth, began. The stars and the lights of Denver sparkled. The moon made its way over our heads to hover just above the soaring rust-colored rocks.

My eyes instantly filled with tears and I was sure my chest would burst. The altitude probably just added to the physical reaction I had to this music in this beautiful place. It felt like I my insides were carbonated.  I wanted to sit and close my eyes to better absorb every heavenly note, but I didn't want to miss one visual snapshot of the performance.

Time disappeared and before I was ready, it was over.

I had done it, I thought as I trekked back to my car. I had gone to a concert alone. I had made it one year. I had survived.

I also spent several days in Colorado alone and, while I missed having a companion to experience it all with me, the truth is I loved being alone, too. I loved not having to compromise or worry about someone else's needs.

There's a good chance Dave would never have come along with me, anyway as he didn't "get" my taste in music, nor did he have any desire to attend concerts. This somehow made the trip easier.

I'm finding that things that fit in better with my new life, rather than my old life, are easier to bear. There's too much pain wrapped up in the things we used to do together. Things we used to experience. Places we used to go. Stepping into this new life of mine, while bringing his memory along with me, feels better to me, than staying in that old life, waiting for him and the life I had with him to miraculously return to me.

It's funny, during the concert I didn't really feel Dave with me. It almost felt like he'd taken leave of the whole situation. I wonder now if he watched this unfold and thought "She's got this. I'm off to do my own thing for a while."

All I could think of was what a long way I've come, despite being heartbroken. I thought back in wonder, realizing that I often forget about my accomplishments and that they are many.

I'm a tough cookie and it's taken Dave's death for me to realize that, much less admit it.

My life goes on, and it didn't begin or end with Dave's death. I will never understand why he was taken from me. I would trade it all in to have him back, but I can't, and this means that I take what I do have and run with it. I keep experiencing life and all its beauty. I keep working on loving myself and healing. I keep moving and living.

I wouldn't have met this new woman occupying my body if Dave hadn't died. What a strange and terrible way to find out what was inside of me all long.