Scary

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Everything is so damn scary for me these days. Just speaking up and saying what I think feels like too much of a risk. It's as though my confidence died with Dave.

I know I'm courageous only because I can see now that I acted many times since Dave died despite nearly crippling fear. But I don't feel courageous. I feel so scared that I want to curl up in a ball and hide from the world.

It's the acting even when you're scared out of your gourd that means you're courageous. This is something that took a long time to sink in for me. It's still sinking in. In fact, it doesn't register until someone else tells me. It's as though my own brain can't do the math (Fear + Acting anyway = Courageous) unless I'm reminded by an outside source. And even then my brain goes right back to telling me all about my fear.

My therapist said that I'm holding the fear right up in front of my face so I can't see around me. Good stuff might be out there, but I don't see it because all I can see is the fear. I try to picture myself setting the fear down in my lap long enough to look around. It is NOT EASY.

In an attempt to help this sink in for me and really examine how I've been gutsy and brave lately, I'm going to start thinking and talking about my achievements more. I downplay. Always downplaying. And then I forget those accomplishments as my brain goes straight for the fears and the doubts instead.

I'll start here, knowing that you lovely people won't think of it as bragging but as a way to survive and triumph over negative thinking and paralyzing fear. Also, I'd love to hear about your accomplishments in the comments. Don't leave me hangin'!

1. Recently, while at a nearby cafe, I told the owner I could make her blackboard menu for her. I've now become a blackboard artist. A 4' x 8' blackboard is in my house while I work on it. I love working on it. I'm good at it. I was worried I wouldn't be able to do it.

2. I'm scared at a primal level to love anyone again and yet I continue to confront this fear daily by reaching out to people, including the man I'm dating, to be vulnerable. I can't do it without mouth-drying, hand-shaking, stomach-churning fear, but I'm doing it anyway because what's the point of living if you're not opening your heart, right? Sheesh.

3. I just made an appointment to talk to a career advisor at Portland State University so I can decide what I want to do when I go back to school. Which I'm going to do. I've deliberated over it for so long. Time to stop deliberating and just do it. Here we go.

I suppose the hard part about really seeing my courage is that before Dave died, I don't think these 3 accomplishments would have come with so much fear. Some part of me thought that brave equals no fear. So my brain thinks I used to be brave and now I'm not. Where did I get that? When did my brain decide that brave means no fear? I guess it's our society, isn't it?

It's cool to be confident and brazen and fearless and it's a little shameful to be terrified and shaky and blundering. But then again, how brave is it to do something you're not afraid to do? Not really brave at all.

Okay. In that case, I'm brave. And so are all of you.

Phoenix

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Last Wednesday I had a session with an amazing healer right when I thought I couldn't go another step in this life without something major happening to lighten the pain I was experiencing in my heart and soul.

I had hit a wall and wanted to be done feeling heartbroken and sorrowful, uncomfortable in my own skin and completely terrified by the future. I'd been feeling bitter and resentful, too, when I thought of how my life, when it comes to loss by death, seemed to be the reverse of what we think of as the normal progression. Instead of becoming an adult first and then seeing both parents die and then living a long life and then watching a spouse die, I'd already seen all three foundational people leave this earth in terrible ways by the age of 35. I couldn't (still can't) imagine the rest of my life suffering through more losses than that. I just felt done. I wanted to trade in my heart and soul and life for another one. A do over.

I wanted to feel happiness for others who had both loving parents and a loving life partner. I wanted to feel gratitude for a beautiful sunset, my furballs, art, music, comedy, nature and all the other things that normally make my heart happy, but nothing was getting through the veil of sadness.

The healer saw me at the point at which I could no longer hold my shit together, even in public. I was a trembling, sobbing heap of sadness.

In my sessions with him, he told me that his spirit guide knew that Dave hadn't passed all the way over into the spirit world. He was stuck in the middle void because we were connected with an energy cord, a heart cord. He said that for both of us to go on and do what we needed to do, the cord would need to be severed. He also said he'd seen my soul pattern and that it was the Phoenix. A challenging soul that had chosen a life of suffering only to rise from the ashes and heal, first the self, and then the earth herself. He said I was an Earth healer and that the pain of the earth as we abuse her was my pain as well. I was here to help her in some way.

Now, to hear this and not dismiss it immediately is a testament to how vastly I've changed since Dave died. Before he died I didn't even really understand what a chakra was, or pay one iota of attention to healing arts, or the afterlife much less soul patterns and heart cords. I would have instantly dismissed this sort of information as quackery.

I no longer dismiss anything. Especially if it brings me healing, peace, or answers of some sort. I don't even care if any or all of my healing is because of the placebo effect. The result is the same. I feel better. I don't think much beyond that.

The sessions I had with him were intended to melt away the protective shell around my heart, keeping me from truly living and severing the cord keeping Dave in that middle ground and me stuck in so much pain.

I can say that since then, I've noticed the following (and I'm feeling extremely cautious about any and all good results since it's only been a few days and I know the tumultuous nature of grief and depression so well)...
1. I feel more able to feel. Both good and bad emotions are flowing a little more through me without crippling me.
2. I can enjoy food more than ever.
3. I am, almost without thinking about it, doing chakra breathing exercises and visualizing/meditating for the first time in my life. Meditating had always been incredibly uncomfortable for me and I'd have to force myself before.
4. My voice is stronger and there is a light in my eyes.
5. I feel more present.

I'm still not sleeping really well and I still have a tremor in my arms and hands that stubbornly won't go away but I'd say for the last few days I've felt more alive than dead and that's new for me.

A discovery I've had since the healing is that I've never allowed myself to throw a really good ANGRY fit for the loss I've experienced and the pain I've felt. When faced with adversity I get small and quiet and cry. Reacting that way, I disappear into my pain. Somehow, a new righteous anger has displaced a little of that and I've been feeling that it's also replaced some anxiety. Instead of disappearing into the pain and sadness, I felt larger than it for the first time.

I've felt more powerful than I can remember feeling in a long time, if ever. Also, more than a year ago, when I first sold my house and moved to Portland I became briefly obsessed with the phoenix bird. Some of my computer passwords contain the word phoenix and I considered a phoenix tattoo for a while.

I guess maybe I really am a Phoenix. Rising from the ashes isn't for sissies.

Dark Shadow

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Depression. It's my dark shadow. I've been living with it since my late teens. Even so, it can still trick me.

For the last few weeks I've been under its spell and up until today I didn't realize it. Instead of seeing the depression as the REASON I feel as though everything is hopeless and life sucks, I have been thinking that I'm depressed BECAUSE everything is hopeless and life sucks. It's a big distinction but depression has an incredibly convincing way of telling me terrible things and getting me to believe them all.

Complicating all of this is that my sweet husband died and even after more than two years, I miss him all the time. Grief and sadness and depression are all tangled up at times, and so hard to sort out.

But what I can see now (even still in the depression - though it might be lightening a bit now) is that there have been times (even after he died) when I didn't feel that everything was hopeless and my life sucked. I never once felt as though my life wasn't hard and painful and full of grief, but it wasn't hopeless and it didn't completely suck. It contained incredible lifelong friends, nature, new wonderful people, a home, the financial freedom to not have to struggle to find work again, relatively good health, a picturesque neighborhood, the chance to start over career-wise, travel, writing, art and even the opportunity for new love.

Under the black veil of depression, though, at times, my mind told me that none of it mattered and it was too hard to go on. When the veil lifted I could see that the depression had been talking.

And that is what has happened to me again. I fell for it again. Which is a testament to how powerful a force depression can be.

I have to remember to take care of it like any illness. Get as much sleep as I can, eat as well as possible, surround myself with people who can love on me, take my meds, give myself compassion.

This time, again, I forgot about this momentarily. I tried hard to be happy. I tried not to be a bummer. I tried to be something I couldn't be. I thought the fake-it-till-I-make it strategy might work. I felt ashamed for being so sad. It can't be fun to be around someone this sad, right?

Then again, I am sad. I'm terribly sad. I can't fake a different mindset or push myself to be what I'm not. I'm also worthy of love and compassion from myself and others and I definitely haven't been giving those to myself. I've been hard on myself. I questioned my character and wished I could be different. Someone who can feel happiness, silliness and joy.

I am that person once the depression lifts, but right now, the depression has a hold on me and I can't blame myself for it.

It's the depression to fight, not my self. My self is still there. My funny, nerdy, loving, silly self is there. Once the veil lifts, there it will be. It's not the self from before Dave died. She died that day, too. It's a different self, but one I think is pretty great too.

I just have to remember that when my dark shadow whispers so convincingly that I'm not good enough and that everything sucks.

I Remember

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I have plunged back into the cold, dark, hopeless place I felt buried in the first few weeks/months after Dave died. I've been struggling to eat, sleep, clean up after myself, and find comfort in anything. Everything feels like sandpaper against raw nerve endings. I can't stand to be alone. I need help. I've reached out. I've especially sought out the hugs and love of the women in my life who are best at sitting with me in my pain. They make me feel safe to let go entirely. They've saved me. And they have their own lives, so I return again and again to my own empty home to try to ease my own pain. 

The other day I felt so desperate for help and healing that I booked a session with a Reiki healer/medium. As I talked with her on the phone to schedule an appointment, she said "Are you OK?" and I broke down and sobbed "No". She said "I can see you today at 4:00". 

She sat down with me and began to do her medium thing. She wasn't able to come up with Dave's name on her own or say anything about me losing my husband, but once I told her his name, she began to say things that did make some sense (I still don't know if I believe any of this stuff I just take any comfort any way I can get it).

She said she smelled hospital all around me. She said he was surprised by how fast it all happened and said he still wasn't sure what happened. He wanted to know what had happened. This makes sense. There were mistakes made by the medical professionals and he crashed so fast no one could have anticipated his dying that suddenly. 

She said he was calling me "babe". She said he kept apologizing for leaving me and that he knew how hard it'd been for me these last few years. He said he'd like for his ashes to be in the Snake River. I vaguely recollect Dave talking about this river, but it wasn't necessarily one of his favorites. 

He said he wanted his mom and me to stop crying so much over him (fat chance). 

He said he was shocked by how many people came to his memorial and he was so proud to see them there surrounding and supporting me. 

"Do you have anything to ask him?" the medium said. 

"Did I make you happy?" I asked (choked out between messy, wet sobs). 

"Oh silly, those were the best years of my life," she said he said. 

At this, I bent over at my waist and sobbed as hard as I can remember ever sobbing. It felt like I'd rip into a million pieces. She held me. 

Then she said that he wanted me to start thinking more about the happy times and less about the times when he was sick or sad times in general. This part is something I've been thinking a lot about lately. A coping strategy I've had is to turn away from happy memories because they hurt too much. Far too much. 

It doesn't make any sense to focus on the bad memories or the sadness, but it's not a logical decision. It's what my subconscious does to survive. In order to heal, though, I know I'll have to start to look back at all the joyful memories and let that love and happiness wash over me. I'm just not there yet. I find it hard to even go there in my mind. It tears me apart. But I'm moving in that direction. 

 I remember the time he pulled a camping folding chair down from a hook in the garage and a chipmunk who'd been living inside it jumped out, landed on Dave's neck and rebounded off of him with his little claws. I could hear Dave's girlish scream all the way across the yard and ran to find my manly husband running around in circles, hands flapping in terror, screaming at a pitch only certain dogs can hear. "IT WAS A BAT!" He screamed. "A BAT CLAWED MY NECK!". 

"Oh, this bat?" I asked, peering behind the woodpile to find a chipmunk cowering in fear.

I remember the time he ate a fiber one bar before bed and told me the next morning that he was amazed that I'd slept through the incredibly loud and bountiful farts he'd trumpeted all night. He never ate a fiber one bar again.

I remember our beautiful trip to Italy. Our incredible Hawaii adventure. I remember how when he was around, I slept like a baby. I remember how when he came into my life, his presence helped me be the best person I could be.

I remember that I was loved. Dearly and truly and deeply. I remember that I made his life better and he made my life lovely.

I remember Dave.

Conversation

 

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You should be grateful. You got to have love.
All the gratitude in the world wouldn't take away the pain. This pain. It doesn't go away. It doesn't get fixed by gratitude. It's because I was grateful that I feel this pain. It's because I loved that I feel this pain.

Don't worry. 
As though I can stop. As though I wouldn't have already stopped if this were a possibility. This new life is full of worry. Worry that doesn't listen to logic, or commands to stop. Worry that wraps my brain in a hot, vibrating blanket of buzzing bees, tormenting me.

Get out! Have fun! Live!
Every day I try. Every. Day. Living fully after losing him is the hardest thing I've ever done. I'm pulled back to the space inside a protective shell every time I think of him. His last moments, lying on that gurney, his last words, my last words, the way his beard felt against my cheek, the way his voice sounded, the way he looked at me and conveyed whole thoughts with his eyes.

You should organize a memorial celebration for him. Make something meaningful out of his death.
How? How can I organize anything? I can't organize my own thoughts.

You should get a job. Stay busy!
I am busy. Busy trying to reassemble a heart and soul that has been blown apart. Trying to navigate a new world. Trying to heal. If I worked at a job all day, I'd still be facing this pain. How do I function in a world that seems to move on without acknowledging what's missing? How do I put my pain aside? How do I find my motivation again?

How long is this going to last? After two years aren't you better?
It's not easier, I'm just getting more accustomed to carrying it around. I've mostly forgotten what it feels like to live without this weight on my chest, without constant exhaustion, and without anxiety and worrying.

Just because bad things have happened to you, doesn't mean more bad things will happen. 
Do you remember learning about probability in school? If you roll a die 10 times, and you roll a 1 every single time, on the 11th roll there's still the exact same chance of rolling a one again. All the ones that came before don't predispose the die to finally land on another number. I think this applies to the universe too because I don't believe there is mercy in fate. I don't think someone is keeping score for me and saying "Okay, she's had enough. Let's let her live in peace for a while". It also means, though, that there's the same chance for good to happen, too. I just no longer think that I have earned a free ride from here on out. I fight the fear of the other shoe dropping every day. I cling to what's left like it will soon be taken from me too. When I leave my house for the day, there's a part of me wondering if it will still be there for me when I get home. I know this doesn't serve me. I know this makes it harder for me to enjoy the present. I don't want to think this way and I fight it. But it is there anyway.

He'd want you to be happy.
But he's not here and he's not living this life. I'd want him to be happy too, if I'd left first, but now that I'm living it, I can see how hard it is to be happy when you're heart has been torn out of your body, jaggedly reassembled and shoved back in to your chest where it flutters half-hardheartedly.

I'm doing this and I'm strong and it's hard for me to admit just how hard it is. But it is. It is the hardest thing I've ever done and I'm so very tired. There is nothing more I want or need than to be cradled like a baby and sung to, and tucked into bed and reassured. I've worked so hard to be independent and strong and positive and it's left me tired to my bones. And it's STILL up to me, as an adult without parents of my own, to perform the self-love and self-care I need when I really don't have the energy to do that all the time.

Care for me, cradle me, love me, give me a rest from doing this on my own, I beg.

But, the reality is, the people I beg this of are gone from this earth and even if they were here, I'd still have to face my demons alone. With help, but still essentially alone. We all do.  I suppose it's making me stronger than I can imagine is possible, even though I feel so weak all the time. I suppose one day I'll be able to see what a warrior I was. Am.

Now I'm just so damn tired.

Fixing the Dishwasher

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I recently found some satisfaction fixing a household problem without Dave.

My tendency (even before he died), if something went wrong with an appliance was to throw up my hands and call for a repair person to come and figure it out. Now, I've become more stubborn about trying to figure it out myself first. I'm countering the assumption I've always had that the workings of those appliances and the plumbing and any mechanical item at all was beyond me and best left to a professional.

Sometimes, it has been beyond me and I've had to call a professional, but other times, I've been able to figure it out myself. The satisfaction and the independence of that has been surprisingly gratifying. I notice I'm not falling into the pit of despair about Dave not being around to help me and instead am seeing each malfunction as a way to prove that I'm self sufficient and more than capable. It was, of course, more fun and less overwhelming to tackle these household annoyances together, but we're not together. I'm on my own and I want to learn to handle anything that might come my way.

My newest triumph was the dishwasher. It wasn't filling with water. Instead, it was making this desperate, dry, spluttering noise when it was supposed to be spraying water. It took maybe 15 minutes searching the Internet to determine what could be the problem. The overflow valve was stuck in overflow position and all I had to do was tap on the top of it a few times. The thing filled right away after I did that. I didn't have to call anyone, take anything apart or pay anyone. Also, it avoided the embarrassment of someone coming to my house, tapping on that dumb thing twice and then accepting a check from me before leaving. I really hate that kind of "repair". It makes me feel helpless and uninformed, which makes me mad.

So, Dave and I don't get to tackle household problems together anymore and that is incredibly sad, and I am resourceful and smart, powerful and independent and can handle more than I previously believed.

I believe Dave's dying worry was that he was leaving me alone. He wanted his parents to make sure I was okay. I like the idea of proving to him that I'm more than okay on my own.

I want him to know that even if one day in the future I'm married again, I will be fully capable, on my own, no matter what happens. That I'll be able to share responsibilities and take on anything I need to on my own too.

Truth is, even if we're married or partnered and expect to live out the rest of our lives with our person, we aren't always afforded that outcome. Being self sufficient is more important to me now. I don't want to depend on someone else to help me figure out solutions. Tackling life with a partner is the best, but that can't always be our reality.

Helplessness and hopelessness has, for the time being, shifted a little to let in some power and independence. I like the idea of starting out year three with this little burst of strength and I think I'm going to try to take advantage of it and tackle some other projects I've been meaning to get to.  Or at least attempt to. Sometimes, even that's a victory.

Texts

I have a file on my computer named sensitive. It contains all the texts between Dave and me on our phones right up until the night before the morning he died.

I looked at them for the first time the other day. I read every single one. I hadn't forgotten how much we loved each other, I just hadn't seen such visual proof of it in so long. He loved me so much. I loved him. We had such a comfortable, open, easy way with each other.

Seeing that felt like a ripping in my chest. I couldn't breathe and then I didn't want to breathe. Crying didn't ease the pain and I worried I'd never be able to stop crying.

I can't believe he's gone and with him, the me I used to be. I can't believe WE are gone. Our house, our life, our stories. All of it ended on June 4, 2011.

I can't believe he'll never text me again. It feels like I'll never believe it. How could I believe that all of that is gone? It feels like I blinked and when I opened my eyes, I was here, in this new life. We didn't deserve this. I hate that this happened to us.

Tomorrow will be the second anniversary of that terrible day.

I am still committed to living fully because he can't. I still know that he'd want me to be happy again and he'd rejoice in knowing that I had made the rest of my life worth living.

But, oh this pain is so big. So big that at times there isn't room for much else.

I still will wish this anniversary to be over quickly and that my thoughts won't linger too long in the dark spiral of those last moments of his life.

On the other hand, tomorrow I will celebrate not only that I've survived this but that I loved and was loved.

Motivation

Where has my motivation gone?

I don't care about anything other than people anymore. The people I love. Loving myself. That's all that matters to me right now.

A job? Who cares. My passion? I don't know. No, maybe I do know. My passion is people. My people. After losing my life with Dave, all I want is to surround myself with those I love and spend time gazing at them, listening to them talk, holding them and being held by them. So little else matters to me now. It's a phase, I know, because nothing lasts and I've been here before and I've ridden the wave back up again to a place where I felt somewhat motivated again, but motivated now is a completely different thing that it used to be.

In general, the graph looks like this:

It turns out I don't care about getting a job. I care about supporting myself, but I don't care about what it is I'm doing to support myself. I've lost my passion. Maybe that's not true. It's not lost, it's just changed form. My passion now isn't succeeding or making a good income. It's not teaching. It's transferred to a desire to be okay again. To feel at home again. To heal. To love.

Those four goals have become paramount and have proven to be so difficult now that they could easily become a full time occupation.

I didn't know how hard it would be to allow my heart to thaw out, even slightly. I didn't know how scary it would be to take a leap. I didn't realize how this new life would keep me up at night with anxiety, even after 2 years of it.

This is such a long haul. Making it back to where I used to be is impossible. I have to travel in a direction that leaves that life behind in some ways and that is hard to accept.

I find that I stare in wonder at people who have kids and a spouse and a job. It feels a little like being at the zoo, looking through the glass at a little world I can't get to, watching a species so different from my own. I examine them and wonder how they feel. I wonder if they feel lucky to have so much to live for. I wonder if they feel the sense of belonging I miss so much.

It's that sense of belonging I wish I had built into me, regardless of where I go or who I'm with.
I imagine it's in people who seem happy and relaxed and who have kids and a spouse to hug when they get home.

I know the picture I have is only in my mind and that other peoples' reality are very different than I imagine them to be.

I know everyone struggles and grieves and feels alone at times, I just sometimes wonder what it would feel like to be someone who hasn't felt so much loss.

But I'm not one of those people. I'm a part of a tribe of warriors who have battle scars and a weary heart. I'm brave and I'm strong. I've lived through some awful stuff.

I can survive. I can feel a sense of belonging. It won't be the same as before, but it will come. And with it, maybe the sense that there's something I want to do with my life.

One Thought at a Time

my momma and me

My brain works so hard. Every  minute of every day, even when I'm sleeping, it's chugging away. Its main responsibility is to keep me safe. It does this by worrying. Some of the worrying is useful. It can result in my actual physical safety and it can result in problem-solving.

Some (and I'd venture to say most) of it is useless worrying. Seems like my brain has a tough time distinguishing the difference.

And it seems like it's always had this problem.  I've been realizing that the trauma I've experienced even before Dave died has wired my brain for this. When you're a little girl and your world is turned upside down when your momma is taken by cancer and your dad is taken by alcoholism, you learn to be vigilant. Your mind becomes ever-alert for more danger. You don't necessarily learn to relax and let others worry about you when you're still small.

And this is my brain. This was my brain before Dave died. That brain warned me that every fever Dave spiked and ever pain he had was the end to that love too. I was just starting to process this in therapy when he actually did die.

Can you imagine a better way to program my brain that the worrying was legit?

It didn't prepare me for widowhood. It didn't make it less shocking that he was Dave one minute and then a body the next. But try explaining that to my protective worrying subconscious mind.

The useless worrying doesn't help me, but knowing that is never enough to make it stop.
For those who've never been through complicated grief or trauma or who don't suffer from PTSD, I bet this is a really hard fact to grasp.

Letting go of it all will not only mean a reprogramming of a brain that has been programmed this way for 30+ years, but will also mean letting go of what my subconscious perceives as protective.

Why would it want to let go of that easily? It won't. It's not going out without a fight.

I suppose the vigilance of my efforts to overcome this have to be at least equal to the vigilance of my worrying mind. 

If my mind suggests something to worry about every few minutes than I've gotta counteract that with some sort of new neural pathway thought every few minutes too.

I'm tired just thinking about that, much less carrying it out.

Some days, 2 years out, are still challenging enough without adding the element of this reprogramming project.

But each day I get to try again. Each day is another chance. And the scientist in me likes the challenge. It's my own little research project. Can a brain this intensely programmed be rewired? Can PTSD, if that's what I have, be conquered in some way? In what ways can I heal my mind? I like the task of gathering information and trying out different strategies, noting the results each time.

I'm pissed though. I'm really pissed off that I didn't get to feel protected and safe as a kid. I'm unspeakably sad that I don't get to celebrate mother's day with my mom. And of course, I'm gutted by the fact that my husband is no longer here.

And all those facts are still just facts. I was dealt this hand for reasons unknown and it's my job to make my dad's, my momma's and Dave's existence worth it by making mine worth it. One day, one hour, one minute at a time. One thought at a time.

Heavy

Dave fishing in Yellowstone

When I spread Dave's ashes it will be the third time I've spread someone's ashes. The first time, my dad and I emptied a paper bag of what used to be my mother's body into a stream she loved. The second time I numbly shook a box of my father's remains around the base of one of the trees he'd planted in his garden.

This time around will be the hardest. I dread releasing Dave's ashes and yet I want to have it over with. I want his ashes to be a part of nature and not trapped in this box that has me somehow trapped as well. I feel trapped under the weight of it. The weight of the decision.

Ocean? River? Woods? What would he want? I suppose the only thing he'd want would be for me to make it easiest on me. He wouldn't want me worrying and debating over what to do or how to do it.

But I keep thinking of other people who might want to be there and how to accommodate them when all I can picture is being alone when I finally do it. The idea of carrying my own weight of sadness is almost unbearable. Adding the weight of others' feels impossible. It's the selfish truth of it all.

I'm a little annoyed with Dave, to be honest. I asked him several times where he'd want to be scattered after he died and he wouldn't answer me. I believe he was afraid to even talk about it, much less plan for it. He preferred to avoid talking about things he didn't want to think about. I made sure he knew where I'd want to be scattered. I wish he'd told me too. On the other hand, maybe making the decision myself was yet another way he is teaching me to trust myself.

Now, I decide. And if I pick somewhere I love, will it forever be tinged with sadness or will it be a special place I'll feel comforted in? Do I scatter them where we were married, in Mt. Rainier State Park? Do I dump them in a river he liked to fish from? Do I scatter them in the surf (which somehow comforts me the most, maybe because the ocean itself has always comforted me)?

Do I continue to cling to them and avoid the decision indefinitely? This one question feels like the easiest to answer. I don't want to carry that weight around forever and I want his remains to be a part of nature. It's just the decision in the way.

Make the decision and let go of that particular worry, a part of me says, while another part of me is paralyzed. 

The two year anniversary of his death is coming up and I feel as though that would be as good a time as any to finally do this, but planning it seems beyond me. As I have all along, I will have to surrender to this process and wait for the day when it becomes clear what I should do. Forcing it has never worked. I will one day be sure, but until then I don't have to do anything I don't want to do.

But those ashes are heavy on my heart and mind.

Collision

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I was driving down the road in my neighborhood when I felt and heard a collision on the right side of my car. I immediately knew I'd clipped someone's car door which was parked along the side of the road and nearly left my car running to race out and make sure I hadn't hurt anyone.

I apologized profusely, even though I hadn't seen her open the door. I felt that since mine was the moving vehicle, I was to blame. Also, this apologizing mode is very automatic for me. Not to blame my childhood for everything, but it has child of an alcoholic all over it, I think.

It wasn't until I was driving away later that I realized that she was the one who'd opened her door into moving traffic and that it wasn't necessarily all my fault. I also realized that while I wish I weren't so quick to blame myself for everything, I'm glad I'm me. I'm glad I reacted the way I did instead of the opposite. I'm glad I got out of that car ready to take responsibility instead of ready to assign all the blame on others. I'm glad my first concern was for everyone's safety, NOT the state of my vehicle or how expensive repairs would be or why that woman opened her car door into traffic. I'm glad I was my true self, instead of hiding my vulnerability under a cloak of anger or righteousness.

So, whether my reaction was because of childhood programming, or my own neuroses, or the alignment of the planets, what I realized was that I'm ok. Seems like such a simple awareness to have. That all of me, faults, weaknesses, vulnerabilities and broken bits included, is good and worthy of love. This is something I've struggled with since I can remember being able to think. The fact that it took maybe 5 minutes for this to sink in is a victory. There was a time when this would NEVER have sunk in. I would have spent a lot of time thinking about how I was faulty and therefore it was my fault. I was a bad driver, a bad person, simply unworthy in every way. My hitting her car was my fault and my blaming myself was a symptom of how screwed up I was, and I was hopeless.

But not now. Now, I'm directing my thoughts elsewhere long enough to see a different perspective. Long enough to find value in myself as I am. I don't need to change to be worthy. I don't need to be better, smarter, prettier, nicer. I need to be me. The real me. And that's all I need to do.

Easier said than done, of course, but I'm getting there and I can see the progress.

What does this have to do with being widowed? Everything. In that moment of collision ALL I cared about was human life. I prayed a million prayers in the 5 seconds it took to run back to her car that no one's precious family member had been injured.

I'm not sure that would have been my reaction before I lost Dave. Now, a day is considered a success when no one dies, my loved ones are all safe in their beds and I can have a moment of peace and tranquility to balance out the little hardships of a day in the life of a human.

And somehow, through all the pain of the past two years, my heart has been broken open and somehow softened. Not dramatically, and not suddenly, but over time and so slowly that I can't always tell until I look back and compare the before and after.

I'm proud of who I am and I'm stronger than I ever thought possible, even when I feel as weak and as scared as ever. Realizing that is a victory in itself. 

Fear of Loss

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Fate handed me the early death of both my parents. These traumas have given my brain a pattern. The pattern is to assume that more bad things will happen. It's a brain that's attuned to signs of more death and loss. Eventually I realized that this trait held me apart from those I loved and caused me a ridiculous amount of anxiety, so I got to work on it.

I was working diligently on that facet of my brain with my therapist when Dave got sick and died, so my brain REALLY latched on to that pattern then. It was as if fate proved my progress a waste of time. I was learning to believe that not every illness led to death and then Dave's illness led to death. SEE! My brain said. I told you!

At this point now, alone, meaning without a life partner or a kid, I am free of such fear. I'll be scared shitless if one of my friends gets very sick, sure, but the person I was most bound to on this planet already got sick and died, so I don't have to fear that happening again. But that is predicated on the fact that I'll always be alone and that doesn't seem acceptable either. One is terrifying and the other is incredibly sad.

I understand now that the rest of my life will be a series of decisions. Each time I decide I can choose based on fear or love. Choosing based on fear means my life becomes small. Safe from more pain, but also devoid of love, adventure and meaning. Choosing love means I will have much to fear. I will think that my (imagined) beloved’s headache is a tumor and that he will not recover every time he gets the flu. If I were to one day have a child of my own, I will worry that every cough, sneeze, barf, or fever means that the end is near. But when I look at my two choices, how can I choose to forego getting and giving love? That would be another sort of death. My own. I’d be alive but not living.

Lately my mantra has been “fear makes terrible decisions”. I chant it to myself every time I feel my defenses slide down over my heart to protect me from imagined pain.When those defenses begin to shield me, I close up my life, smaller and smaller, until I'm very safe and very alone. So I fight it. If I even think fear is involved in a decision, I try to do the opposite it's telling me to do. I don't always succeed and sometimes the fear is overwhelming, but I try.

I remind myself of the regrets of the dying as often as possible. Fear based decisions seem to lead a person right to a list of those exact regrets. I don't want to regret.

But, there’s a very tired, broken, raw part of me that wants so desperately to stop being afraid. To have nothing left to lose. It wants to not let love in so that it’s free of potential loss. It wants a break from feeling anything at all. It wants someone to hold her and rock her and tell her she's okay, she's okay, she's okay.

Symbiotic Comforting

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I turned 37 on the 2nd and simply didn't care or want to give my birthday a bit of acknowledgment.

My life right now feels a bit unsteady. It's as though it's on the cusp of something. What, I don't know. The unsteady feeling is rough on me and my anxiety levels have been high lately. The weather is all weird and I'm restless and anxious and irritated.  I'm infinitely sad that Dave isn't here and lately reminders of him abound.

I saw an Ellen episode tonight that featured a scientist. The guy did some fun and flashy science experiments that I know just over 21 months ago, Dave would have gotten so thrilled about and would have doggedly gone to work creating those demonstrations for his middle school science students. He then would have come home and shown me a million pictures of his students lit up over science because of the hard work he had put into the lesson.

I sat on the couch watching this guy and wanted so badly to turn to Dave and start discussing how we could make the demonstration work in his classroom. I wanted to cry and I couldn't. I can't quite freely cry right now as I type this, though I want to. It feels like I need a good cry but it's stuck within me.

Replacing the crying is worrying. I worry about so much these days. I don't quite know where the worrying has come from. I haven't felt this consumed by anxiety since the days Dave was in the hospital and right after he died. It is beginning to get even harder to be alone for so long. I've been longing for someone to just come over and stay the night with me. Just to know another human is in the house with me. I'm suddenly afraid to be alone and I haven't felt that since right after Dave died.

And yet, I still have much to be grateful for. I did get to have someone stay the night last night, my beloved girlfriend who was also there for me right after Dave died. I slept better because she was there. The other girlfriend who was my constant companion after Dave died got me a beautiful rose for my birthday to plant in a big planter for my balcony. The name of the rose is New Year. A new year of hope. I can't wait to watch it grow.

There is someone very new in my life, who was also widowed, who feels like a special gift I was lucky enough to find.

I have choir which lifts me up like nothing else and I have these sweet cats who shadow me everywhere I go, even more so when I'm feeling bad. I have a big trip to look forward to. I have life to live.

I just can't wait for this fog of worry and anxiety to pass so I can once again breathe deeply and enjoy the little things again. I can't wait to feel at peace again. 

I guess more than anything I wish I had someone with me right now to hold me and let me be really weak for a few hours. To cry while supported by loving arms. To hear reassurances from a voice other than my own. I get so tired of reassuring myself. It feels better to hear it from another source, somehow. I feel like maybe I've been so strong for long and I've simply run out of strength.

If anything, the last week or two has shown me so clearly, once again, how I have to reach out for help, earlier on rather than once it's reached a level of complete breakdown.

I need to allow myself to take a break from holding myself up and ask for someone else to do it for me just for a while. It's also shown me that at times, I still have to retreat to a deep grieving place where I simply need to treat myself like I'm in intensive care again. All but my most basic needs have to be put aside until my strength returns and I must get used to claiming that rather than pushing it away as something that is weak. It's damn strong to admit you've run out of strength. It's brave to say "help me because I can't help myself right now". I just forget that sometimes.

If you get to the point where you feel as though you don't have any strength left and even the normal little things that usually bring you comfort don't, I know. I know how hard it is. I know how scary it is. It won't always be. Things never stay the same.

I suppose I'm reassuring myself as much as I'm attempting to reassure you right now, but that's the great thing about this blog. It's symbiotic comforting.

Rope Ladder

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I've struggled to explain how it feels to be a widow of 19 months. Describing it tests my verbal abilities. I imagine anyone who hasn't experienced it must wonder what it's like.

It was never simple to put to words, but now it seems even harder. To an outsider I go about my business, I'm sure, in a way that wouldn't alert anyone to the pain inside. I smile without reservation (most days), carry on conversations, eat, sleep, laugh, work, and play. My inner landscape, though, is much more complex and harder to explain, especially because it's not out there for everyone to see.

I have always loved analogies for explaining difficult concepts and while driving home the other night, I thought of an analogy that could help describe my current existence.

The analogy starts with water, like so many of my thoughts and dreams do.

My life now feels like I'm treading water in the ocean. Death by drowning or hypothermia or shark munching is not a pressing concern. I'm holding my own while I'm treading, but I'm SO DAMN TIRED because I've been treading for a long time now. Ages.

I'm very aware that no one is going to come by and scoop me out of the water, wrap me up in a warm blanket and speed boat me back to the shore.

I do, however have a rope ladder dangling in front of me. I can climb out of the water, one rung at a time, but I'm already tired and weak. On the other hand, climbing the ladder seems marginally better than treading water, so I try.

Each rung I grasp is something worth living for. My loving friends, my choir, animals, Camp Widow, hope, travel, learning, meeting new people, lessons learned that have made me stronger, smarter, better, my cats, the promise of good things to come.

As I grab onto one and puuuuuullll myself up, I feel a momentary jolt of victory. "I'm going to be okay!" I think. But then my arm muscles turn to mush and I run out of power. My legs weigh a thousand pounds and I slip down a notch or two.

The heaviness pulling me back toward the water is the pain...the idea of Dave in the hospital room without me as he died, the guilt that I get to live and he doesn't, the horror of the sound of the doctor saying "We did all we could...", the unbelievable force of missing him, the impossibility of his "gone-ness", the end of a life we'd planned on, the sight and sound of an ambulance shrieking by, the idea of possibly losing like this again one day.

Sometimes I get up pretty high and I look down and think that I'm pretty bad-ass. I feel lighter and I dry out in the sun just a little. I just start to warm up and then the weight overtakes me again, and I slip down a few notches. Sometimes I slip down far enough that I have to tread water once again.

Sometimes I'm just clinging in between, straining to maintain the height I've earned, but not yet able to relax and feel light again. Even when I'm up high I can still see the water below and I know that I'll be back down there again, treading, at some point.  The exhaustion never fully goes away because even when I'm resting I'm still clinging to that ladder.

None of that sounds especially reassuring, but there is good news. I swear there's good news!

The times spent treading are fewer and shorter. I'm developing stronger climbing muscles so the climb back out again isn't as laborious and those hard-earned muscles make me proud. I'm so much more empathetic to anyone else who might also be climbing up out of the sea, now that I know how it feels. Those rungs keep appearing, too, as long as I keep looking for them. I can much more easily focus on the rungs now, so I spend less time staring at the dark and treacherous waters below. Because I've been down there, I appreciate NOT being down there so much more. I take advantage of every moment I spend up in the air and sun.

Yes, I'd love to be done climbing. I'd love to let go of that rope ladder, and be able to fully relax, but that is not my fate now. Maybe one day. Maybe one day I'll be so strong that I'll be able to climb right back out of the waves without a second thought and I'll climb so high no one will be able to keep up. I'll be a goddamn gold metal rope-ladder-climbing champion. Maybe then I'll be able to really, really rest. 

Right now, though, this is what it feels like to be me.

C Dave

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This is the license plate I see frequently when I walk a client's dog.

I might not get visits from his actual ghostly spirit, but I see reminders of him everywhere. Every single one stabs at my heart. That's a cliche way to say it, but it feels like a blow to my actual, physical heart. It knocks the wind out of me for just a second and I wince from the impact.

The worst is reminders of our "things". Shows we used to watch, foods we used to make into rituals, our nightly "feed the cats their special treats" routine that I do alone now, moments I can't BELIEVE he's missing.

Today I discovered that I'd have a chance to accompany wildlife biologists on some field work for which I'd need waders and boots. I realized I'd have to borrow a pair from some friends.

Dave was a fisherman extraordinaire. We had 2 fishing boats, multiples pairs of waders, both chest and hip, boots, several tackle boxes, countless fishing rods and reels, nets, float tubes...

I sold it all.

And now I need a pair of waders and boots. I wanted to tell him how ridiculous that was. It was easy to imagine him teasing me for selling all his things. I couldn't believe, even after 19 months of living with the fact of his death, that I couldn't tell him that I'd be experiencing this now. I couldn't believe that he wouldn't get a chance to do it with me.

At some point this will finally stop surprising me, right? One day I won't shake my head in stunned disbelief when I see the box his ashes are in, sitting next to my jeans in my closet. One day I won't hear the words "my husband died" come out of my mouth and feel so surreal that I almost split into two - one me who goes numb and carries on and another inner me who crumples to the ground screaming a frustrated silent scream. I can't remain surprised by this forever. Right?

The other day I organized and cleaned out my closet. As I was pulling a messy pile of jeans off a high shelf to refold, a social security card drifted out of the folds of denim and fluttered to the floor. Before it landed, I knew it was Dave's. I reached down and flipped it over and looked at it.

His sweet, young boy, left-handed scrawl of a signature.

The stab to the heart, the woosh of my breath as I gasped, the shock that even though the feeling is now familiar, it doesn't seem to lessen. The disturbing way I have to just continue with my silly daily activities while carrying this giant gaping absence around with me.

I don't have a good explanation for how his social security card ended up in my jeans. I don't understand it all. I also don't understand how it can take the human brain so long to fully grasp a fact as blindingly obvious as "he's gone". I don't understand how I just keep going on with things as though I'm not breaking apart.

But, the thing is, I do keep going on. Sometimes it feels like I'm swimming smoothly through the seas, with an awareness of which direction to head. Sometimes it feels like I'm drowning. Sometimes I just tread water, completely lost. For some reason, though, I'm here now. I'm supposed to be, though I don't know why.

I can't see the bigger picture because I'm too close to it. I'll only see it when I can look at it from the distance of time passed. Which is annoying, but unavoidably true.








I think a part of me has been waiting for his approval of how I'm living my life now. I keep asking him if I'm doing okay. AND HE DOESN'T ANSWER. I don't see him or hear him. Which means that I have only myself to answer to and that might be the hardest thing to come to terms with. I think I've been lost from time to time because I've been waiting for his guidance. If I'm going to sail off into my own life, I'm going to have to stop waiting for that, as much as it breaks my heart.

My own guidance is worthy. Whew, it was hard to admit that, but now that it's out there, I can feel it.

I can handle this. I have been and I will continue to. I will make mistakes but I will handle this, even if I can't see Dave.

Another Anniversary

Last year on February 4, on a cool gray morning, I was moving from my big, beloved house in the country into a small apartment in the middle of Portland. I had left my house and almost all it contained, packed up my cats, clothes and a few belongings and let go.

I let go of a life I thought I wouldn't survive without.
 
When I think of those days just before leaving, I remember things in flashes. Everything felt raw and harsh, yet hazy with shock and grief. That strange detached sense of being submerged in the depths. I can see these flashes of memory, but they seem like they happened to someone else.

The last few heart breaking minutes I spent in my old house. My sweet friend tearfully and gently  telling me that it was time to leave as I sobbed and fought with reality. Closing the door behind me and feeling completely numb and empty. The cats yowling for the entire 90 minute drive as I shifted between crying and feeling numb again, wondering if yowling like them would release a little of the pain that was choking me.

But I wasn't alone and that saved me.

There were many people who loved me so much that they managed to make these days less terrible and lonely. They helped me take care of details I simply couldn't bring myself to. They unpacked for me, stayed with me that first night in the new apartment, they brought me food and took good care of me. They even went through some of Dave's things for me because I had reached a point where the pain was overwhelming and all I could manage were the basics. Eat, try to sleep, and cry.

I took notes about the entire process, I tried to stay present. I made the requisite phone calls, but I was barely hanging on. Since then, though, I have felt stronger and stronger even though it didn't seem like it most days. I've made a life for myself here and found ways to settle in. I've fallen in love with this city and gradually grown to love myself and even appreciate the potential of my new path too.

But on this anniversary, I can't stop thinking about the love of those friends. They each took away some of the darkness and fear and pain in their own wonderful way. Next to the days right after Dave died, it was the hardest days of my life. The most draining and scary. But there they were, offering their love and kindness. I grabbed onto their support like a drowning person and felt the gratitude flood through me.

I sit here in the living room of my cozy new home in the new city I already miss the second I leave it and I realize how far I've come. I had to let go to know what I was capable of. I had to loosen my grip on what I thought was my life's plan and find out what the actual plan was. I had to participate in that plan by being open and following the paths that presented themselves to me. I had to go out and FIND some of those paths. I had to enlist the help of so many. I had to learn to lean on others and accept help. I had to trust myself. None of it was easy, but that's what makes it so precious to me now. It was hard-won.

All that hard work came from the fuel of those first few days I thought I wouldn't survive. Once I saw that I did survive, I could move forward. Before I was able to see the possibility of a better time ahead of me, I had those incredible people who cared about me, holding me up when I could barely stand on my own.

Dave's parents have told me a few times that some of his last words to them were "Make sure Cassie's OK". I don't think he had to worry. I made it on my own but I made it surrounded the entire time by the energy of those who love me, including him.

I am so grateful to have found this feeling of peace and joy again. There was a long period of time when I thought I'd never feel it again. I'm able to see now, how strong I really was, even when I felt completely broken. I was so low and scared in those days that I couldn't rely on my own hope. I had to borrow it from those who had faith in me.

I know that the universe doesn't deal me a better hand now just because I've been through hell, but there's just as much chance that the future holds amazing things, too. I know sad times will come again and little things will set me back. I know big bad things can and will happen. I know I have an incredibly long way to go, but now that I've crested the hill of the one year mark since that pivotal move,  I can look behind me, at the distance I've come and marvel. I guess I really am strong. There is no denying that now. And so is the love that helped me get here.

Read, Breathe, Repeat

My sweetie

Thursday was Dave's birthday. He would've turned 40, an event we would talk about so often. We completely took for granted that he'd be around and for some reason, this thought keeps circling me lately.

We believed (of course) in full faith that he'd turn 40. We had no reason not to. And yet, he is gone and will never be older than 38.

This is so unbelievable to me that I can't make it fit in any compartment in my brain. It sort of hovers there above it all, unable to click fully into place, like a puzzle piece that almost but not quite fits in an empty space.

On Wednesday night I stared for a solid hour at his face in picture after picture.

I tried to will his picture to come alive. I suddenly (for the first time) needed to see video of him. Previously the idea of seeing videos of him made me feel seconds away from a full meltdown. It terrified me.

But on the eve of his birthday, I felt almost as though I needed concrete proof that I didn't make him up in my mind. Sadly, I don't have a single video with him in it. I have video he took of the Colosseum in Rome, but he didn't even talk. I have a video he took of me when he did talk but I can't figure out where it is.

I realized, with a sudden stab of pure remorse that we didn't take enough pictures or videos. Why didn't we?

The time I spent staring at his pictures felt holy. I stared at his face with fresh eyes. His deep, dark brown eyes and handsome beard, his smirk, his incredibly perfect white teeth, the smile I believe he reserved for me alone.

I tried to turn the images into a three dimensional memory. I tried to smell him and feel the texture of his arm once again, run my fingers through his hair. It was beyond frustrating and I cried myself to sleep.

The day of his birthday I felt numb or distant or on auto-pilot, or a mixture of the three. I had some things I needed to do and I did them, staying relatively alert and present, but when I got home, there were 20 facebook notifications and they were full of bad news. So much sadness had descended on several people I love all on the day Dave should have turned 40 but is instead ashes in a box. The tidal wave of sadness crested and I finally lost it.

So much pain, and why? I don't believe in a merciful universe or god. I suppose there might be a greater power I can't fully understand, but it's not merciful. It's not evenly doling out the pain.

There's no reason behind any of it, only the chance to dig yourself out of the pits of despair and find something to get up for. It's finding silver linings and not shutting down completely, but how much can a person take, I wonder? And are we sometimes fooling ourselves with our silver linings and positivity?

I am so furious that there has to be so many broken hearts. I'm so tired of pain, my own and others'. I'm working so damn hard to remain hopeful but I'm also going to give myself a break for feeling hopeless, or deliriously angry, or brokenhearted and I'm not trying to push the feelings away, but god dammit this is hard. It's scary to feel the hope for better things slip away even temporarily.

I keep thinking of the videos of Dave I could be looking at now, if we had thought to make them. It reminds me to continue to try not to take for granted what I'm lucky enough to have now. I don't care if I'm filming my cat purring on my lap or my friend talking to me from across the couch. I'm making a record of the people and furballs I adore and I'm going to remember how incredibly lucky I am to have them at all.

What else can we do, really, when the truth is, nothing lives forever and nothing stays the same?
Isn't that the lesson death teaches us? Cherish when you can. Don't be afraid to love just because your heart will be broken if you do.

Makes me think of my favorite C.S. Lewis quote...

 “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”

Read, breathe, repeat. 

 

Recipe

Seems like there is almost always some new revelation or event that sparks a Monday post idea for me. This time, Sunday night snuck up on me and I realized I didn't have anything that seemed to want to be written.

Then, I was making dinner when I realized I was out of lemons for squeezing over steamed asparagus and broccoli. Trying to improvise, I mentally scanned the contents of the kitchen for something that would work for the tangy part of the dressing. Suddenly, I remembered a dressing I'd make all the time before Dave died and happily pulled out the ingredients and began to whisk them together. As I stood there, tasting it to check for the proper ratio of flavors, I realized this was the first time I'd even thought of this stuff, much less made it since Dave died. I used to make it all the time. It wasn't a favorite of Dave's, so it's not as though I just hadn't had him here to remind me. It was one of many recipes I made for me alone because I liked it. Somehow it got stuck in that life and didn't make it over into the new life until that moment, almost 19 months later.

And it got me thinking. How many other parts of that life are just left behind that I don't even know are gone? What else is missing?

I've lost so much, and to think of what's been left behind causes panic to hover just nearby. How much has fallen through the cracks? Inside jokes, favorite meals, facial expressions that translated into complete sentences, a whole new language born of our relationship of 15 years, moments we had together? All are in danger of slipping away forever to be stuck in that old life. They might be gone forever. They might come back (like my dressing recipe). I don't know. Not knowing is scary and losing what little I have left of that old life feels like another tragedy.

So, to counteract the sucking power of grief, I did a little self coaching out loud to make it really sink in and told myself that it's okay that some things were left behind because nothing stays the same and starting over doesn't have to be all about loss. There are many good things, and not just recipes, that I've incorporated in my second life. I may have lost both the irreplaceable and the relatively unimportant in this explosion, but I've picked up what I could from the remains and added to it.

I've added even healthier eating habits. Dave was never really comfortable going as healthy as I wanted when it came to our pantry and refrigerator. I shed an emotionally stressful job for the opportunity to pursue zoology. I picked up crossfit, Bar Method and hot yoga, and ran a 5K. I started a blog or two and I've traveled. I've made new friends I can't imagine not knowing now.

As much as I want to cling to those little bits of my previous life, the more I do, the less I'm able to let the new in. I don't want to spend so much time looking back and trying to preserve the details of a  life I had to part with that I miss out on now.

So, it's being grateful for those pieces of the old life that can work their way into this new one. It's being thankful for having that old life at all. It's making room for my new life to unfold and bring with it the newness, the unknown. It's getting the chance to run everything that comes my way through a new filter: Do I alone think that will enhance my life or diminish it?

I have the bittersweet opportunity to be selfish and single-minded. When the focus is entirely on my needs and development, I get to sculpt my second chance as much as humanly possible. Of course, this is no easy task, but it's my second chance and I don't want to squander it trying to make that old life work when it's missing its center. I'm the center, now.

Comfort Zone

Two widows in a convertible

I just got home from a fun widow's trip to California. Just two young widowed women on the road, balancing carefree silliness with conversations about things most people our age never have to consider.

I can never fully prepare myself for the onslaught of sadness that is waiting for me back home.

As is true every time, arriving home after being away is a minefield of grief triggers for me. It's back to reality and a vivid reminder of who is missing in the crowd, waiting to greet me when I walk off the plane.

On the drive home, I was so lost in thought I missed my exit and had to drive nearly a half hour out of my way to get home.

I thought about why it feels so good to come back home after even the most wonderful trips.

It feels good because you're back in your comfort zone. That's your car with all your junk (in my case) scattered in the passenger seat. That's your route home you can (usually) drive with your eyes closed. That's your neighborhood, with the familiar people strolling down the sidewalks under those trees you have memorized from walking under them a million times. That's your pet greeting you, your bed that smells like you, your night sounds that settle into you and make you feel at ease enough to drift off.

What made me start to cry on the way home was that it dawned on me that although I did feel this way about my new home, it's Dave who was the person I felt that way about.

I had known him nearly half my life and stared into his eyes millions of times. I'd heard his voice over the phone and across the room so many times I knew it better than my own. I'd pressed my cheek against his chest so many times that I was sure there was a dent there shaped just like my profile. The shape of his hand in mine was something my skin had memorized. I'd known him intimately for so many years that no matter where I was, if he was near, I was home.

There is no one else on earth for whom I feel that way. I have known this all along, but it's almost as though I rediscover it every few months and it is able to sink into my psyche a little more each time.

I've learned that in order to keep myself from slowly drowning in the suction of a grief whirlpool I need to comfort myself, even if at first it feels hollow to do so.

So, I tell myself things. I tell myself that I will feel that way again. Maybe not that exact way, but I will, some day, feel at peace. I will feel a level of comfort and intimacy with another human being again. Maybe, if all my hard work pays off, I'll feel that way with myself, too.

So, after I took my little grief detour (literally and figuratively) I began to quell the tears and think of the life spread before me.

While on the trip I had a moment, overlooking elephant seals sprawled out in the sand in Big Sur, when I realigned with what I knew to be my greatest passion - wildlife. I told myself right then that I'd go back to school to get a degree in zoology. I told myself I'd do it even though I wasn't yet sure of anything else.

Elephant seals on the beach at Big Sur, California

All I know is I want to find a way to learn as much as I can about, and to be surrounded by, wildlife. Since I can remember it's the one thing that has lit me up from the inside out.

So, I have that to plot and dream about. I have today. Every day I wake up is a good day, because I can try again.

I'll always grieve the loss of my comfort zone in the form of a quiet, steadfast man named Dave who loved me till the ends of this world, but every day I get to be here, I get to make my new dreams come true. Hopefully, one of them will be a career in wildlife and the other will be a new but different comfort zone.

The Choice

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I was telling my therapist all about the process I went through to decide to sell our house, quit my job and move to Portland after Dave died.

I told her about the epic snowstorm that buried me in 2 feet of snow on Dave's birthday and left me without power for two days and without contact with another human for four days.

I told her about putting the house on the market and getting an offer and selling it in less than a month. I told her about the day I woke up and had the thought "I'm going to move to Portland!"

Then I told her about finding my current home. I told her that the realtor didn't have my condo on her radar at all. We happened to drive by and I saw a for sale sign. I bought it days later.

I am in unit 1. My next door neighbor in unit 2 was widowed in her 50s. The professor who lives in unit 3 was widowed in September after his wife's battle with cancer. Three widowed people in a row.

When I told her this part, her eyes filled with tears. She said she was suddenly struck by what I'd been through and overcome. She said it gave her hope for herself and all her patients. I've never thought of it that way. That makes it sound heroic. It hasn't felt heroic. It's felt desperate.

All this time, I've felt desperate. I've made decisions I had to make to do the best I could for myself even though my compass was gone. I've leaped into the unknown with what I can see now was nothing but hope.

It was hard to see it as hope then because I was terrorized by fear and doubt. Other than having one clear moment when I formulated my plan to move to Portland, I didn't once feel absolutely certain or at peace about any of these decisions. They were all terrifying for me. I had doubts that kept me up at night, and turned my stomach. I deliberated and tortured myself over ever single decision I've had to make since my partner in life died.

I had to finally get a little more comfortable with the idea that the world wouldn't end if I screwed up. The worst had already happened so from that point on, I could get through selling our house, moving and starting a new life. Even if it all turned out to be a mistake, it wouldn't have been as bad as hearing the doctors tell me that they'd done all they could but hadn't been able to save my soul mate.

And yet...It's probably a product of my combined losses, not just Dave's, but I still expect more to go wrong, even as I grow more comfortable with change and making decisions on my own. I still expect what I have left (my cats, my home, my friends) to be simply gone if I don't keep my eye on them. I halfway expect a fire to take it all away from me if I'm not looking, or tragedy of another sort I haven't even thought of yet to come my way.

Logically I understand that nothing could be as bad as Dave's death, but my heart feels precariously patched together right now. I could survive more loss, yes, but would I want to? Would all hope be lost at that point? Would I have anything left in me with which to soldier on?

I have had hope all along. It's what drove me to jump into a new life when I was terrified to leave the old one behind. It's what keeps me going now. My wish is that hope is strong enough to withstand anything that comes its way.

Life isn't extra gentle with me now just because my husband died. The universe doesn't give a shit. It just keeps churning away, with its joy and sorrow, good and evil. I hope (ha!) like hell I have enough in me to sustain whatever else comes my way.

I'm not naive enough to say things (even to myself) like "everything will be okay," anymore. I have to learn to live with the light of hope and the darkness of potential tragedy. Holding them both together takes work. It's like trying to process things like school shootings. How does life go on after something that horrific? I don't know, but it does.

I suppose it's what we do in the face of all the horror. We reach out because we don't give up hope DESPITE the sorrow. It's all we can do. We make things better when we can. We hold onto each other when we can't. We breathe. We take leaps of faith. We don't give up.

I can't close up shop yet and hide away from everything because it might hurt more. That would be the real tragedy. Tragedy on top of tragedy. Dave couldn't help leaving. He would have stayed if he could have. I have a choice though. I can give up or I can keep hoping and fully living with all the risks it entails.

I'd better not squander that choice.