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.

Worth

None of them are me. This isn't even Portland. GOTCHA!!! :)

Source

Dave's death has opened up a vein of long-buried hurts for me that I've been gently and not-so-gently forced to deal with in the past year.

The biggest is my negative self-image. I always go big with my neuroses, so this is the kind of low self-esteem that covers every aspect of me. My mind, my body, my heart, all of it has never been good enough for my biggest critic. Myself.

Something switched in my brain, when Dave died, though. Something about seeing myself as if from a distance, accomplishing each task before me that  previously I would have believed impossible. Watching Dave die in front of me and not being able to help. Surviving his memorial and actually taking and receiving love and affection during it. Getting up each day after he died and finding things and people to live for. Going to Camp Widow and writing on this blog.

If someone told me a year ago that I'd be able to survive those events and accomplish those tasks, I'd have said, unequivocally, no possible way.

But there I was, surviving and accomplishing. It couldn't be denied anymore that I had strength and courage.

Add that to the outpouring of love that I received from my community and I had to face facts. There must be some reason for it all. There must be something redeemable about me.

I've spent 36 years convinced there wasn't. Those neural pathways are carved deeply.

So, as life went on and the grieving wasn't always the glaring focus of every waking moment anymore, this self image issue of mine began to rear it's frustrating, energy-wasting head again. For some reason, the brunt of the negative messages I tell myself involve body image.

One night, though, while watching a burlesque show (really up close to the performers), I had a little epiphany that felt a little like a zap to my brain. Those women were confidently shaking their stuff for an audience of strangers.

Whether they were tall and skinny, short and chubby, round, jiggly, muscular, dimply, smooth, pale, tan, big busted, tiny busted, flat, bumpy, junk in the trunk, or no trunk to speak of...it didn't matter.

They each displayed such confidence that the specifics of their bodies and how well they fit in with our society's  definition of beauty just faded away in my mind's eye. What was left to witness was the beauty of bodies themselves, and what they can accomplish. And humor. The brash humor of women too confident to give a shit what anyone thinks.

I left that night thinking that the next chance I had to shed my inhibitions, I would do it. I knew that accepting my body was only part of the process of accepting myself as a whole,  but I felt like it was a big barrier.

So...along comes Portland's Naked Bike Ride.

Each summer, around 10,000 Portlanders get naked (variations of naked, but lots of 100% naked too) and ride their bikes through the city together.

A friend and I decided to do it and last night (I'm writing this on Sunday)...we did! My version of naked was bikini bottoms and pasties, but it felt pretty naked!

After the ride was over (this post would become very long very fast if I described the incredible hour or so of naked cycling that I experienced), and I was dressed again, and at a bar amongst strangers, I felt very different.

 A weight was lifted off of me somehow. The terrible weight of shyness and insecurity.

Sadly, I don't think that it lasted into today.

I'm looking at pictures of me riding with almost nothing on and already starting to pick apart my flaws again, but for last night, I felt like I was more than good enough, and not just physically. I felt brave and confident, and brash. I felt like my burlesque heroines must feel when they get up on stage and say "F*ck feeling shy about my body and my true, naked self! This is me. Take it or leave it. I'm taking it."

It felt good, and it's one little step on the way to feeling that way more often. Okay, maybe it was a big step. A big, naked step.

Home

from here

I have suddenly gotten it in my head that I want to settle here in Portland and buy a house. It feels right in my body like no other decision has since Dave died.

The other decisions - sell the house, take a leave of absence, resign, rent an apartment in Portland - have felt right, but incredibly sad and wrenching.

They were moving forward, which was good, but they were letting go of aspects of my old life, which felt like, well, loss.

This decision isn't tinged with the sadness of loosening my grip on something. It feels like moving forward and gaining. Gaining a foothold in this new life. Gaining a safe harbor all my own. Gaining a new beginning to build on (literally and figuratively).

I have a picture in my mind of a bungalow in a beautiful, quiet neighborhood. I can see my small garden glowing in the sunlight, hummingbirds buzzing at the throats of the flowers. I can see people walking and biking past, waving hello. I can see my friends visiting, filling the house with joy and laughter. I can see pictures of new memories lining my walls next to pictures of "the life before". I can see a studio space filled with my art supplies and a place to write.  I can see myself walking and biking to the grocery, yoga, the library, the coffee shop.

There is something comforting about knowing that I can make this new, beautiful city my home if I choose to. I feel lucky to say that I can. I know I'm biased and that I haven't seen ALL the other cities in the world, but I really think Portland is prettiest and most wonderful of them all.

I meet with a realtor soon to go over my needs and desires for a new home and start the search.

 I can feel Dave smiling because I'm smiling.

Blessing

From here

I'm sitting in my new apartment while I type this. Soon, I'll have to go get ready to leave. Today I have to drive back to the house and work on clearing what I want out of the place before I can have an estate sale. I don't want to leave my new place, and this surprises me. I've lived here a week and already it feels like home. It's amazing how adaptable we humans are.

That's not to say that I don't still feel a bit lost here. I think there's actually a bit of shock, too. I feel an "out of body" sensation quite often. As though I'm seeing myself from outside of myself and I just shake my head in surprise. Wasn't I married, living in the country and teaching only 9 months ago?

But I'm here now. This is my home for the at least the next 6 months. I'm meeting people and the cats are settling in nicely. And to be honest, wherever they are feels like home, anyway.  I'm sleeping through the night, something that has always been a gauge of my emotional state. It's easier to go to the grocery store because there's less danger of running into dangerous memory traps.

I don't think longingly of that house itself all the time, like I worried I might.

I'm mourning the loss of an entire life and a person I'll never be again in addition to the love of my life, and that's the hard work, but actually transitioning to living here wasn't as bad as I thought SO FAR. As we all know, in the grieving process, we can always expect the triggers to be coming for us.

I think the move itself and selling the house was a good thing. I think I needed to be in a space that was all mine. I needed to see what was possible outside of my safety zone. I think most of all, I needed to prove to myself that I could do this on my own.

Best of all, I like Portland. It's fitting that I moved to a place with the only city wilderness in the United States. There are 29 different hikes for me to try in Forest Park. If you live in Portland, come join me. I'm going to check each one off until I've hiked 'em all.

And the other day, I spotted two hummingbirds soaring up and over my apartment building. It felt like a blessing.