The Blindside

I've been in a clay workshop for the past few days, and its mostly been a heck of a lotta fun. Each say we have worked with a different teacher, making sculptures, dinnerware, decorated tiles, and learning alternative techniques for firing clay (examples in the picture above!) It's been a whirlwind of new and exciting creative ideas for me, especially since I haven't actually worked with clay since I took a ceramics class back in college about eight years ago. Making things has been one of the most powerful ways for me to cope with my emotions since my fiance died. I was excited to start off a new year with something healing and grounding.  

Of course as happens sometimes when I take the chance to insert myself back into the world of the living, I was slapped in the face rudely with my reality, and the fact that other people have a different reality... The one I wanted to have.  Over lunch at the workshop, while sitting outside on the porch enjoying the beautiful warm weather we have in Texas this week, all the women around me started to talk about their husbands. And worse than talk... Brag. About how they fix things around the house, and cook dinners, and help with the wives' businesses. Then one of the women my age, around her early 30's, introduces her husband who happens to be dropping off these mountainous apple pies that he made from scratch and delivered to us for dinner tonight. Aaaand that did it. Cue the breakdown. 

It's quite amazing... In about three minutes they managed to reduce me from joyful and content to slinking away and finding a place to cry my eyes out. And just like that I realized - at a year and a half - I'm still not quite so good at being out in the world of the living yet.  

Aside from our friends and family, I have kept to myself a lot since he died. I have felt too vulnerable, too raw, too different to really be out in the world a lot... But I have gotten much better at it in the past few months. His death is no longer the thing I have to tell everyone. Instead, it is something I feel okay with not saying right away. I suppose this means some healing has happened.  

Today though, I was taken by surprise. Accidentally alienated. It's something I'm used to... I've spent years learning how to pause and choose how I will feel when others my age talk about their parents in front of me. Years learning how to not let my mind go to that place where I feel alienated, alone and like I have no parents. I do, even if they are dead, I still have them. The logical part of me says that I should have been able to stop and choose today in the same way about Drew when all those wives were going on.  

But my heart knows there was no graceful way out of the lunch debacle today. I am not healed enough that I can make that kind of rational choice yet... Not about him. Not when I am surrounded on all sides by happy women talking about their happy husbands.  

Sometimes I just have to fall in the pit and cry my heart out as I claw my way back out. Sometimes it can't be avoided - when people remind me so clearly of the life that I wanted to be having right now. To even have been able to call him my husband in the first place. To have begun a family. Some days, there will just need to be tears. That was today... and then I dried them, stood up tall, and walked back into the fire to finish my class. 

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.

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.

Miss Sadness

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I wrote the following just a few days ago and I'm already in a different mindset now. Reading it, I think "Whoa, this chick is DRAMATIC,", and I'm a little embarrassed now that the misery has lightened a lot. But, this is the truth of grief and depression. Here it is. The real deal. It's ugly and sad and feels endless while I'm in it, but it doesn't last forever at this volume (thank God).

I don't get true pleasure from anything lately. There have been a few moments since Dave died when I did, but it's always been muted. Experienced through a gauzy, hazy layer of numbness. Lately, though, even getting simple comfort has been hard. 

My brain seems to be on the negativity channel and I can't change the frequency like I often can. A silly comedy I'd normally lose myself in at least partially, just annoys me. I can't find relief in music. No genre seems right, songs either grate at my nerves or make me too sad. Food is a requirement, not a pleasure. Being alone doesn't feel soothing and being with others feels like I'm putting on an act.

I'm angry, bitter, sad and confused. I don't want to take a hike, or go on a little road trip, or cook, or paint or take pictures or learn to play my guitar. I don't feel like volunteering or traveling, or working on my resume or my Oregon teacher's license. I don't want to walk dogs, or work on my dog training certification. I want out of my skin. I want escape. I want to feel better. But I feel awful. Awful inside, awful outside. I feel jealous of others who don't have a dead spouse. I feel jealous of people who have kids. I feel jealous of people who have had loving parents. I am searching, searching, searching for a glimpse of the feeling of true belonging.

I keep realizing for a moment or two that that feeling died with Dave and that it might be years before I feel that way again, if I ever do. Then, I forget that fact and feel so convinced I can find the feeling again. Where is it? I think. Oh right, it's gone.

I got myself out to the nail salon today. Forced myself. As the woman was  painting my nails, I overheard another woman say "I tried to mow the lawn today...".

My eyes filled with tears as I thought,  I used to have a lawn. I used to have a life. I used to have a future. It's all gone. Sitting there with my hand cradled in a stranger's hand, I wanted to tear it away from her, run out of the place and race home to cry. I waited it out, and finished the manicure, paid and trudged home. 

I tried to eat lunch, but the only thing I could fathom putting in my mouth was ice cream. I shoved spoonfuls in while crying loudly like I've heard kids do when they don't get their way. A temper tantrum cry. A helpless, wailing, outpouring of frustration.

I tried to watch a funny movie and it made me mad and sob more. My big, warm, purring cat curled up on my chest and I felt empty. Even his sweet warmth wouldn't soak in.

What do you do when the things you normally rely on for comfort no longer work their magic?
Where do you go? Can I run from this? Can I fake it till I make it? The inertia of my misery feels irresistible.  It feels like there isn't enough love in the world to ever fill the holes in my heart. It feels like there isn't a thing I could do that wouldn't make me more miserable.

It will pass and the light will come again, I tell myself.
Hold on and wait it out. It won't last forever I say.
But I don't believe it right now. Right now it feels like I'll always feel this empty.

Sitting here, on the other side of it, I'm relieved it's over for now. I hope I'll have from now until after Camp Widow to ride this wave of feeling better.  If not, I'll be Miss Dramatic SADNESS trudging around the Marriott in San Diego with a little storm cloud over my head and a pint of mint chocolate chip in my hand.

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.

Tiny Quiet Plea

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On January 21st I found out about a man who'd lost his wife, making his daughter the same age I was when my mom died. I wrote about it here.

Since then, I reached out to him and we have found in each other something I believe is more than worth the fear it's causing me to let down my guard and care about someone again.

I have seen him father his daughter with love and deep respect. I have seen him do everything in his power to make sure she feels loved and safe. I have seen her loving him. I'm not yet sure I have words to explain how this has made me feel. I'll have to work on that. To say that this alternate ending to my childhood has been healing is an understatement but it's all I can come up with right now.

I have been able to tell him everything about myself. The grieving, deeply wounded parts of me I've hidden from others. The weakest me, that I hide from myself. It's all been out there for him to see. Instead of running from that, he's come forward through it with me. It hasn't phased him.

I don't have a clue what the future will bring. I'm terrified to hope for great even when I have it right in my arms. But I'll tell you one thing I know for sure.

I asked for this. Down deep, in the part of me I keep hidden from almost everyone, I asked to meet these two people before I knew they existed. I know that sounds woo woo. It does even to me. But I did. I said a tiny, quiet plea that I almost couldn't admit I wished for. I wanted to find them and I did.

I didn't know what they'd look like or what their names would be. I didn't know where they'd live or how I'd ever find them. But I wanted to. And I did. I hope I enrich their lives as much as they do mine.

I realized today, when he asked me to come color eggs with the two of them, that each time I get to participate in some childhood ritual that I missed out on, I'm healing a loss I never really got to claim.
I don't usually tell people that there were no birthday parties, Easter celebrations, Christmas festivities or Halloween fun at my house growing up. And because I never had kids of my own, the rest of my adult life continued the same way. This is the first time I get to be an integral part of those things I missed out on.

It's terrifying to have hope. That's the funny thing. When it's abstract hope, like the vague notion that things won't always be as bad as they can get, it's helpful and comforting. But when it's hope that something you have suddenly in front of you won't go away, it's terrifying. Unless you've been through tragedy it's hard to understand how terrifying joy can be. A fragile, mending heart doesn't feel capable of handling any more pain and when there's joy there's potential loss and pain.

Before I met these two people I had little left to lose and that was liberating. It was an absence of joy and it was a loneliness, but it was also the absence of the feeling that I had so much to lose. When I met them, I felt I had two choices, to continue to be lonely but free of potential pain, or to reach out and risk pain. There is within me, some source of utter fearlessness that can be easily drowned out by the fearful part of my brain trying to protect my heart. That crazy, fearless me knows that I have to push through the fear or forever live without closeness with others. That part of me hasn't allowed me to push this potential happiness away out of fear. However, I live each moment of this with the fear.
But it's possible to feel both fearful and brave. It's possible to be scared shitless and show up anyway. So that's my plan. Show up despite the fear. Live despite the knowledge of the pain that life can bring.

It makes my heart race and chest constrict just typing this, but at least I'm showing up.
And because I am, I get to color Easter eggs with them, a ritual so many might take for granted, but I never could.

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. 

 

There's a Fine Line ......

...... between good memories and pain.

In the beginning of my grief, there was no line.  I couldn't even think about good memories.  I couldn't think about good.  Period.

But now I can dwell on my good memories ...... and not feel any pain.
Most of the time.

Thanksgiving was not one of those times.

The above picture is from my father-in-law's farm, where we spent Thanksgiving with the rest of Jim's family.
While I love visiting there, it also brings me a lot of pain.
It's difficult to be there without him.
It feels ...... unnatural.

Jim's mother died 5 months after he did.  Also too soon.
Also not expected.
It was very hard to be there without her, too.
It was painful.

I cried more tears last week than I've cried in quite a while.
And I hid while I shed them.
I'm not sure why ...... except that after 5 years I think other people don't want to see tears.
And I didn't want to depress anyone else.

I also found it hard to say goodbye.
But then ...... that's been hard for me for the past 5 years.
Goodbyes are painful, at least for me.
Because you never know when goodbye ...... really is "goodbye".

But I don't have to tell you that, do I?

It was good to be among Jim's family ...... my family.
It was good to be back on the farm.
It was good to have so many things for which to be thankful.

But sometimes there's a very fine line between what's good ...... and what's painful.

Feeling Him

 

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I went to a masseuse the other day.

When I got there, she sat down in front of me, looked me in the eye and said "So what's going on with you?"

I told her that I'd recently gone through one of the most stressful things a human could experience and that my husband died and now I was rebuilding my entire life and how I don't know what to do with myself now. I explained how the strain manifests itself in tight and painful neck muscles and headaches. 

She said she was sorry for my loss and we got on with the massage. She asked me if it was okay if she told me if she "saw things". I immediately knew what was up. I thought this woman believes she can see "beyond" and/or could see through her hands to my innermost pain and "read me". I didn't hesitate. I was hoping she'd offer this, somehow. 

"Yes. Tell me everything you see," I said. 

A few seconds into the massage, with me face down on her table, she said "What was your husband's name?” 

When the sounds that make up the word "Dave" came out of my mouth I could hear the reverence, pain and anguish in my own voice and tears instantly rushed to my eyes. I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you my heart screamed. 

Being face down, I wanted to avoid crying too much because I knew that if I did, the snot and tears would just instantly collect in my sinuses and stuff me up so much that I'd be mouth breathing for the rest of the day. 

I held it together until she said "Do you feel him around you?" 

My throat completely closed up as the sobs welled up in my gut. I couldn't answer her right away. 
The fact that I don't feel him around me is one  so painful that I can barely talk about it. There is nothing I want more than to feel his presence. Nothing. I talk to him. I beg him to visit me. I beg the Universe to give me the comfort of his presence, even for a moment. 

The fact that it doesn't happen is torturous to me. I tell myself that it's hard for energy to communicate with those of us still in bodies. I tell myself that I'm not ready. That I'm somehow subconsciously not allowing the experience. Somehow, I speculate, I might be so trained not to believe that I've discounted the subtle signs before I can even truly see them. 

All of this went through my mind as I cried on that massage table. The masseuse said "You're not sure, are you? You're conflicted about feeling him?" 

I nodded my head yes as I began to bawl in earnest. 

"Well, he's with you. Always. He's just energy. Energy doesn't die. Einstein taught us that. Once you've connected with a loved one like you did with him, they never leave you. He's right here," at this, she gently brushed her hand down the middle of my spine, from the nape of my neck to the middle of my back. 

"His head is here" she said, touching the back of my neck.

"He's very gentle" she said. "He's just so gentle with you and he wants you to do whatever makes you happy. He just wants you to be happy."

At this point I was crying so hard that all I could do was nod as snot ran out of my nose to the floor. 
I didn't tell her what I instantly thought of. I didn't tell her that when Dave was alive, one of his favorite things to do was to find me lying on my stomach and lie down on top of me, face down. I'd always affectionately complain that he was suffocating me, but really, it was soothing to be pressed down by the weight of him and completely warmed by his body, head to toe. Once we even fell asleep like this, and woke up much later, stiff and with multiple limbs that had fallen asleep too.

So I felt comforted and sure of his presence and skipped off to enjoy the rest of the day knowing my Dave can still make himself known to me. Yay!

Um. No. Didn't happen that way. It's not that it didn't feel good to hear the things she said. It's not that I don't believe. It's more like I don't feel much of anything either way.  I'm not disbelieving her or the experience. I feel like it's absolutely possible to feel him again, somehow. I feel like it's possible she really sensed something. I just don't FEEL it inside me to be absolutely true. Nothing felt assured or doubt-free. I don't feel much of anything other than the loss, the missing, the Dave-shaped hole in me, and the utter frustration that we were pulled apart so early. 

I’m glad I went. I’m glad she told me what she did. I’ll take it all in and allow myself to get whatever comfort from it that I can. It was a beautiful moment and an amazing sentiment. 

Maybe I’m just impossible to satisfy because what I want, what I need, is HIM. Not his memory or a sense of him. I want HIM and everything else is a pale and unsatisfying substitute.
Maybe it’s the fact that even with his energy around me, I’m still alone. He’s not here to do the practical things a partner does, or provide the emotional support he provided, or be my one and only, my Most Important Person. He’s not here to text me how smart he thinks I am or that he can’t wait until I get home. 

He’s not here to chauffeur me around because I get so sleepy when I drive, or to surprise me with elaborate and thoughtful gifts. He’s not here to lie next to me in bed, his solid presence allowing me to fully relax and sleep through anything. He’s not here to tell me that the coffee I make him every morning is the best he’s ever had. He’s not here to tell me that he was so lucky to have found me, or wrap me up in his arms when I get home.

 He’s not here. And that is a frustration that hasn’t eased much yet. If anything it’s more obvious now that I’m spending more and more time alone and have to make more and more decisions without him as I venture farther down the road of this journey without him.

Of course, he wants me to be happy. Of that I have no doubt. But I’m not yet sure how to be happy when he’s not on this planet with me. I’m not yet sure how to make a life without him. I never thought I’d be doing this and I don’t know how. 

And there you have it. No one knows how to do it and no one knows what the future will bring them. In the same way that I never imagined I’d be here, today, I can’t imagine where I’ll be in the next few years, what joys are out there for me, what tragedies. We just don’t know. And we all have to learn things the hard way. I’ve just had a lot of learning to do and I’m really, really tired from all the learning. 

I still will work hard at being happy because it’s what he’d want. I’ll do it for him, of course. But damn it’s hard.

Still Alive For You, Love

source

                                                                         

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.  

The Guest House

source

In my new condo (I've lived here a week), I have painted a large section of one wall with chalkboard paint. Once the paint has 3 days to cure, I will be able to write on it. I plan to cover it in the quotes that remind me of the things I need to hold in my mind.

The first thing I want on that wall is the Rumi poem The Guest House:

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

-- Jelaluddin Rumi,
    translation by Coleman Barks

It seems to me as though this Rumi guy summarized the biggest lesson of my life in this one short piece.

When I try to judge each event in my life as good or bad or wrong or right, I lose touch with reality and get lost in worrying. I miss out on what's happening now as I try to categorize, judge and second guess.

Instead of meeting the dark thoughts at the door with a laugh and inviting them in, I shame myself for having them and try to push them away. This makes everything so much harder than it has to be.

It's making me think that there's a chance that when I dwell on Dave's death as this terrible thing that happened to me (and it IS, objectively a terrible thing), I push it away, rather than accepting it and letting myself feel it. When I do this, I might be prolonging my pain unnecessarily.

This is MUCH easier said than done, but I notice that when I do, for one split second, allow myself to think, "Yes, he died. Now what?", I can see my future opening up in front of me. It terrifies me, but it fills me with hope.

I can get lost for days in "Why did he die?" and "How could this have happened?" and I lose sight of hope. But when I face it head on and then ask myself what I want for the rest of my life, I find a little balance again. I find myself in a place of hope once more, even if it's for one dizzy second. I also know with certainty that he'd want me to be in that state of mind as much as possible.

So, that quote is going on my wall, as big as I can make it, so that every few minutes when I forget to treat each guest honorably by letting go of the past and focusing on the future, I will hopefully be lovingly smacked in the face by Rumi's beautiful words.

I'll let you know how that goes.

Heart Vacation

source

After puppy-sitting for friends for the last week and moving into my new place yesterday, I am sleep-deprived and stressed out. This has led to clumsiness, grief set-backs and general screwedupness.

But I'm in my new home and my incredible girlfriends stayed with me for my first night in my new condo last night. This turned out to be a lifesaver because while moving in I received an ominous sounding text from someone I've recently begun to date. It sounded like impending rejection and that was a little too much for the end of an already momentous day.

As always, in this journey, small losses (even half-imagined ones) open my heart up to re-experience all the pain I hold at arm's length every day. The pain of losing Dave.

The floodgates opened and all sorrow was traced back to the hamster wheel thought "he's dead he's dead he's dead he's dead".

I need to settle into my place, catch up on sleep, take care of myself and enjoy my new home, but right now, I'm also battling a little grief resurgence that unfortunately takes up all my energy.

 Every time I'm caught up in a wave of it, it feels the same. It's as though I have concrete in my limbs and the thought of moving is exhausting. Everything takes a concerted effort to accomplish. Small, everyday irritations, like getting lost while trying to drive to a new location, or locking myself out of my place become so overwhelming that I retreat to a place of numbness in my brain. I go through the motions, but no one's home.

Eating and sleeping become tasks that require a skill set I suddenly lose. Food loses its taste and good, deep sleep eludes me.

Last night I finally did sleep, but woke up every few hours with the unsettled feeling of being in a new place.

Somewhere in the early morning hours, I finally dropped into a dream stage and dreamed of rejection. In the dream, a beloved childhood friend and an ex-boyfriend snuck away from me to go dancing together to escape my sadness and reveled in being away from my black cloud of misery, followed closely by two of my girlfriends heading out to dinner without inviting me. 

It occurs to me now, as it does frequently, (this is a lesson I work on EVERY SINGLE DAY) that what I really fear is being alone. It's as though a part of me is waiting for those I love to come to their senses and flee.

I know how loved I am. I see it. I feel it. I logically understand that I have worth and that there must be some reason people I love haven't dumped me already. But that little inner girl who's about 5 years old, has her arms wrapped around her mother's and father's legs and is begging them not to leave her while they pull away anyway, firmly uncurling her hands from their  pants legs and slipping away into nothingness. And then there's the 36 year old me who is clinging to her husband, willing his heart to start again, willing him to come back to her while he gently floats away anyway.

How the hell will this heart of mine survive any more loss? In order to love and LIVE, I have to subject my heart to all kinds of pain. But, oh how I'd love a break from the endless pain. A vacation for my battered heart.

I'd like to send my heart to a beautiful tropical beach, where all day and all night, it's bathed with love and warmth and safety. Where it's filled back up again and thoroughly patched up. When it returns, it will be better fortified to withstand the inevitable pain of living fully.

I want to wrap it up in layers of insulation and a fortress of barbed wire so just for a little while, no one and nothing can get to it.

Then again, there are many beautiful things I'd miss out on if my heart is inaccessible.

For now, though, I've done enough. I've pushed forward again. A new place. The dating world. Those two additions to my life are more than enough for now. It's time to give my poor heart a little break for a while.

Not to say no to life, but to renew my ability to cope.

And it won't be long until I'm wrapped up in the embrace of Camp Widow, which in its own way, is a little vacation for my heart. 

Black Hole

from here

I didn't see this one coming at all, so I couldn't prepare myself (which is a sensation I'm getting familiar with now).

I was nothing but excited to look at potential houses to buy. I didn't think of the trigger it would be to go house shopping without Dave for the first time. I'm glad I didn't know ahead of time what it would do to me, or I'd never have gone. Blind, naive enthusiasm - thanks for getting me out of the house in the first place!

While a dear friend, the realtor and I drove around, I began to feel a little unease. I couldn't put a finger on it. There was just something "off". My enthusiasm and optimism drained out of me a drop at a time. It wasn't a black hole, or a sob session (yet). It was just a little discomfort and the sensation of detaching from the moment and hovering above. Not quite present in my body.

Each house was nice, but not the "one". Each neighborhood was okay, but not the "one". I didn't feel true enthusiasm for much at all and just couldn't access a feeling of excitement.

I began to worry about being a homeowner again. Each house I looked at was a potential money pit and neon sign screaming "Lady - YOU NEED A JOB!". Each house was situated in neighborhoods full of families and couples and smugly whispered "You're alone again at 36! These are houses for couples and families!".

By the time I got home, I still hadn't realized what was headed my way, grief-wise. I was a little mopey when I set down my purse and keys. I picked up my gigantic cat, Rosco, to snuggle him for comfort and turned to my right. Staring back at me were two pictures of Dave and me on our travels. My tribute tiles from camp.

In a rush, an ocean wave of gigantic proportions, I fell down the black hole. I held Rosco and cried into his fur for a while. I could hear echoes of my old life all around me. Our sunny, beautiful home-of-our-dreams, now inhabited by strangers, materialized around me, my current life falling away. I was transported back to that life of married security, sharing our love for those silly cats of ours, making plans and splitting life up equally so that neither one of us had to take it all on alone. I felt the loss of it all wash over me, amplified by the stark contrast of the experience that day - searching for a house for a single woman. Attempting to take on my next big life event without my best friend and partner in everything.

I felt my insides shredding apart. I felt the black hole in my gut open up. I cried until my head pounded and I could no longer breath through my nose.

So I filled the bath with extra hot water and slipped into that comforting place where I somehow feel secure enough to do my most gut-wrenching crying. I begged for comfort. I asked Dave to help me. I talked to him for a long time and felt nothing but the black hole within. I curled my body up around the terrible emptiness that I feel there. I writhed in that bathtub with a pain too large to contain in one body.

I cried until the headache reached a new height, and got out of the bath like an elderly person, popped 3 Advil and curled up in bed to watch 30 Rock until I could numb myself enough to fall asleep.

No house I look at could ever measure up and it's not because of the physical house I had to give up (although my old house is so unique, that might just be the case!), it's because it was our house.

My bathtub conversation with Dave ended with me telling him that I now have him integrated into my being and that there's no way anyone could be any closer to me than that. I told him that whatever house I live in will be home because I will take him with me into that new dwelling. I told him that I'd continue to work hard to take good care of myself since he is no longer here to do so. I told him that I'd survive to make sure I honor his life. I told him that I'd do it all for him until I could do it for myself, too. I told him I loved him and always would.

Only part of me felt the courage to say those hopeful things and the other part went along with it just in case the power of positive thinking would pull me along with it.

I have definitely lost some of my enthusiasm around house shopping. Some of my courage has evaporated when I think of taking it all on without him.  The whole process has forced me to think even more of how damn vulnerable I am. I am sole caretaker of me. If I don't find a way to support myself, no one will. There is no back-up like there was in my former life.

What that means though, is that I will emerge stronger because of it. I already have and I need to remember that.

I have to remember that losing him has given me a terrible but beautiful gift.

The chance to be truly self-sufficient for the first time in my life, the ability to help others who are walking this path, and the opportunity to choose life.

Just because you're breathing, it doesn't necessarily mean you're living. And I want to be living. Which means that I can't give up.

So, tomorrow I will be looking at houses again. I can do this.

MIP

from here

I drove home from the apartment yesterday having spent the day waiting for the new furniture to be delivered and coming to terms with the fact that there was suddenly an offer on my house and I accepted. The loss I've suffered suddenly felt brand new again.

On the ride home, I was on maybe the fourth hour of steady crying and trying to breathe with a chest turned tight and claustrophobic with fear. I remember coming to a rolling stop somewhere south of Longview and looking over at the traffic speeding easily by in the other direction. Only a small strip of grassy median separated me from that traffic and the thought crossed my mind that ending this kind of pain would require a quick left turn, a bump or two over the median and to launch the car into the oncoming traffic.* There was even a big semi coming. The thought did not recur and did not last long (and hasn't recurred since, I swear). Maybe a few seconds. But it was there. And it scared me. I knew at that moment that it was time to be honest about how much help I needed. I began to send out requests for help.

I continued to cry and a recurring thought I battled the rest of the way home was "I am no one's most important person". I am no living person's mommy, kid or wife or daughter.

I thought for the millionth time about chosen family then. About how maybe I don't have a living mom, dad, or husband, but I do have sisters and brothers. Maybe not siblings by blood, but I have them. And though they have Most Important People (their kids, spouses, parents) who am I to say where I rank on their list of MIP's?

I thought of the actual blood family I haven't had the chance to become close with over the years but who love me still. From afar. Without reservation. I am someone's cousin, someone's "auntie", someone's niece. 

I thought of how even when Dave was alive, there were other people on the planet I loved almost as fiercely. I couldn't really rank them with Dave. There's no ranking when it comes to love.

The next day, today, has been hard too. But I sat down in the midst of my darkest feelings and thoughts and wrote up a help request to my closest friends. I wrote them a list of tasks that I have to complete before the house closes and asked them to let me know which ones they could help with. All the while, I was battling the fear that my needs are so numerous right now that they will overtax my loved ones' energy and get in the way of their needs. But then a sister reminded me of the way that they can each pick and choose from the list I'd made to suit their needs and that asking for help was so important.

And the help came flooding in. Along with the help came relief and a glimmer of hope, a reminder that although I am no one's mom or daughter or wife, I am loved and cared for. And I'm not alone.

Then, I cried some more but the tears and sobs came from a place of utter gratitude and relief.

 * I urgently wished to be with Dave again and for my old life to come back. I urgently wished for a little break from the seemingly unbearable pain I feel when the grief monster strikes. I think this is very different from actual suicidal thinking. Suicidal thinking is believing that dying is the only way to solve your problems or end your pain. My beliefs about life after death aren't even enough to convince me I'd be with Dave if I died, anyway, so dying isn't something I think will solve my problems and I would NEVER put my loved ones through such an ordeal. Especially, now, knowing exactly what it feels like to be left behind by your MIP. In addition, losing Dave has made me ultra aware of the gift of life. I get to live and experience things and Dave doesn't. I will not waste that gift. Dave would KILL me if he knew I did (ha ha). I just needed to be honest about the depths of the pain I experienced so that others can feel connected to my experience. If I'm not honest, I don't honor how hard this is or how real this is. Forgive me in advance for making anyone worry about me more than they already do. I wouldn't have mentioned it if I didn't think it was important to.

I am not alone (why I am glad I blog)

I'm sitting here, calmly typing this and it's been 622 days since my husband died.
I know exactly how many days because of my regular blog.
But to think that I can type this without tears would have been unthinkable a year ago.

I began writing about my pain just over a month after the accident.

I blogged everything because I knew I'd always be able to find it ... the internet being forever and all.

Now I read those posts back and tears stream down my face.
Was that me?
How did I ever survive such pain?
How did I keep my kids functioning and how on earth did they get from those first jagged, razor-sharp days to these days of a duller, aching pain?
(Pain which still flares up both rapidly and unexpectedly but the jagged edges are not quite so sharp).

and the short answer is that I don't really know how we got here.

... but I do know that time has helped.
I do know that friends and family have helped.
I do know that routine has helped.
and I do know that blogging has helped.

My blog helped (and continues to help) me pour out the hurt, anger, fear, rage, devastation, worry and horror of this journey.
...and *this* blog helped me see that I am not alone in these feelings.

Widow's Voice was one of the first blogs I read in The After.

I've cried and nodded along to more posts than I can count.
I've marvelled at how brave other widows and widowers are.
I've recognised similarities and differences between my journey and the varying journeys we are all on (for our spouses were unique ... as we are ... so no two of us are on the exact same path).
I've laughed at the dark humour.
I've rejoiced at the finding of new love, but seen that it's not a magic bullet that takes away this pain.

But most of all, I've realised that

I
Am
Not
Alone.

...and nor are you.