Happy Birthday Dad

Before you give me condolences, please take time to read this.  Today is my Dad's birthday.   He would have been 84.   He died in July 2012, or as I like to call it "The Year From Hell".  I. Still not sure how I feel about his death.  I'm mostly pissed off at him and the Universe that it happened so quickly after Jim (my husband) died.   Jim died on Monday.   Dad fell down the weekend after and they discovered prostate cancer that had metastasized.   Still reeling in shock from Jim's death, I immediately booked a flight to see him; my best friend and my brother went with me as support.  I'm grateful I went, I was able to be loving with him and have no regrets.  I left thinking he'd be fine.  A week later he was in hospice and died shortly after.   I don't even know if I have any grief about his death.  He had multiple health problems and didn't take care of himself properly.  My brother and I were surprised he hadn't died sooner.   My brother said "Who would have thought Jim would die before Dad".   Which may seem insensitive, but we have an odd sense of humor and it made sense to me.  

My father was an alcoholic.  So like most children of alcoholics, my relationship with him had many contradictory feelings.  I loved him, I hated him.  I was desperate for his approval and rebelled against him at the same time.   I didn't want to be anything like him, but I was, down to the alcoholism.  I've spent years in sobriety untangling the web of feelings and the legacy he gave me.  There was a period of 5 years where I didn't talk to him - it was just too toxic for me.   But after I moved to Moab, he contacted me and we were able to have a relationship.  But it was never comfortable or easy.  My Dad could talk to almost anyone and be interesting and personable.  But with his family, he was awkward and it was difficult to talk to him, especially after he stopped being critical.  Over the years I was able to see how much his mother had damaged him, how everything he didn't like about himself he saw in me and criticized.  I realized I would never get the love and approval from him that  I had so desperately wanted as a child, as an adult.  I also saw how he did love me and did the best he knew how.  How along with the damage he gave me, he gave me so many gifts; my intelligence, my curiosity, my sensitivity (that one is a mixed blessing).  Mostly I was able to see how he had never healed from his childhood and became grateful that I was given a path where I had.  I was able to give him love, instead of trying to get his love.  Every once in awhile, I would say something to him, joke about something I had learned about myself.  I could see or hear his relief and he would say "You got that from me".  In my accepting myself, I was able to help him accept himself a little more.

I wonder - if his death wasn't mixed in with all my other losses at that time; my husband and my dog; what would my feelings be about his death?  Truthfully, I don't really miss him.  I didn't see or talk to him very much and when I did, it wasn't easy.  I'm grateful that for many years I was able to give him love with no expectations and heal not only him, but myself.   I hope he's in a place where he's found peace and love for himself.   I feel some guilt about not missing him, What will you all think?  Am I a horrible daughter, a horrible person?  But I have to be honest, because I know some of you will relate.  And here I am at 56 years old, still discovering the wounds he left in me and doing my best to heal them.  I don't blame him, I know he was wounded too.  I guess I don't miss him because every single day, I have to deal with what he left me with, good and bad.

So Happy Birthday Dad.  I'm grateful for everything you gave me, good and bad, because I am who I am today because of you.  I hope you are in a place of love, being able to be loved and feel it, to give love because you overflow with it.  I hope you are in a place of peace, that your soul has been healed.  I love you Dad.

The Final Gift

*This will be my final entry on this blog.  Although I haven't written here much lately,  what I did write helped me through the loss, the pain.  It helped me survive.  I have moved through the grief.  The losses still cause sadness, but it no longer tears me apart.  I am grateful to this blog - I always wanted to write, but was fearful.  The pain catapulted me though the fear; I had to write to save my sanity.  From the loss I have been given new gifts.  I am building a new life and finally feel excited once again about living. Peace and love to any of you reading this.

The Final Gift

The day came when the pain of remaining in his body became too great and he had to leave.  He had been ill for such a short time, but the disease had eroded his being slowly, quietly for a long time.  By the time he became seriously ill, it was too late.  But he stayed and fought.  He knew she needed him and he wanted to stay.  To love her, to protect her, to give her the safety and security he always had.  But now, he had to leave his body.

He knew she would be devastated.  They had been so connected, their souls entwined with every fiber of their beings.  He knew the pain it would cause her that all of those connections were abruptly, suddenly severed.   And so though he left his body, he stayed connected to the physical plane for her.

He watched helplessly as she first went through the shock, the disbelief.  And then the pain hit her like a tsunami.  He watched, incapable of providing comfort as she collapsed time and time again, pain ripping her apart.

He would take brief moments to explore the mysteries of the physical world he had always contemplated.  He traversed the Universe, time measured by her heartbeats.  He was finally able to understand gravity, that thing that had absorbed his mind.  “They can explain what gravity does, but they can’t explain why” he had said on countless occasions, wanting to know why.  He investigated black holes and saw the birth and death of stars.  He caught rides on meteors, streaking through the sky; knowing that when she saw them, she knew he was riding them like the character in Doctor Strangelove riding the bomb.

He always returned to keep an eye on her, though he was powerless to help. But he could not leave her yet.  He would leave signs.  A heart shaped rock, a feather.  She would see them and know he had left them for her to reassure her that he was still near.  Sometimes she would wander around their yard, looking at the night sky and talk to him and he wished with all his heart that he could answer her, could have stayed for her, that he could console her.

He watched helplessly as her father died and then their beloved tiny poodle died.  He watched with sorrow as the business she had started, the store he had wanted to succeed for her, failed.  He felt anguish as she was forced to sell their home, the home they had worked for together.  He lamented as she sold all they had built throughout the years, knowing how the loss would devastate her.

As she prepared to leave the town they had loved, he was unable to follow, his soul tied to the place they called home.  He still tried to send her signs, a feather here, a meteor shooting through the sky, but he could feel his connection to her stretching, thinning.   He could feel his ties to their lives loosening, but still he remained, knowing she still grieved and would need him one last time before they both would be freed.

She finally returned as he knew she would.  There were still ties left unfinished for her that she needed to release.   The first night she was there, he was able to visit her in her dream.  He knew she rarely remembered her dreams, but hoped he could give her what she needed to move on.  And so he went to her.  He took her in his arms as he had so many times throughout their years together, as he had the first night they met.  They had hugged and knew, knew they were home, knew they had found their mate.  He wrapped his arms around her and whispered in her ear “Never settle for anything less than this.  Never settle for someone who doesn’t make you feel secure and protected when he takes you in his arms.”  He kissed her gently, stroked her hair, her eyelids, her cheeks and hoped she felt him, hoped she had heard, hoped she would remember.

  

He needed to stay just a bit more, to do what he could to soothe and support her through the final stages of her accepting and finding peace.  He watched as she combined his ashes with those of their beloved pets, just as he desired.  He watched as she divided them up, some into a small urn made by an artist friend of theirs that looked like an aspen tree.  He appreciated the thoughtfulness as she honored his life as a logger, the life he had before they met.  He watched as she filled the tin can they had traveled with, the tin can that had been filled with the ashes of their coydog Misty.  They would sometimes stop, look at a spot, jest that Misty would have loved it here and leave bits of her ashes.   He had often joked that when he died, he wanted his ashes put in the tin and for her to leave bits of him here and there.  He felt joy as she did just that, feeling her heart lighten just a bit.  He watched as she took the rest of the ashes to a few of their sacred, special places.  The place where they had camped out for a month, before they settled down.  Next to a small creek, they had damned up a small spot and created a bathing hole where tiny fishes would tickle them, nibbling on their leg and arm hair as they bathed.  They had hiked with not only the dog alongside them, but the cats also following & had snickered at cats hiking.  Finally they had been forced out by the no-see-ums, almost invisible insects that bit and left uncomfortable welts.  After they had settle in town, they sometimes would drive out and visit their old spot.  She scattered some of his ashes on top of a rise, so he would be able to have a 360 degree view of the incomparable scenery.  Some were scattered by the precious creek.  They rest were put into a fire pit and she drew a heart in the ashes with a small stick.

Finally, she drove out to their favorite viewpoint, one they would always take time to stop at when driving home.  The view of the winding Colorado River, resplendent red rocks and the back drop of the majestic mountains.  She stood on the small incline made for photographers and scattered the remaining ashes, letting him float free.

He watched as she visited her old store, now an artists’ co-op.  She was able to see and accept that it was no longer her store.  He watched as she drove to look at their house, saw the changes and accepted that it was no longer their home.  He felt the bittersweetness of those moments, could see her pain transform into peace, acceptance, serenity.

On her final night before she returned to her new life, she went into the canyons.  As she sat on the edge of the ravine, absorbing the sound of the silence, the stars unmarred by ambient light, he felt her releasing her ties, letting go of her grief, preparing herself for the future, letting the past become the past.  He knew he would never fully leave her, he had become part of her,  healed her, helped create who she now was, had made her strong enough to withstand the obliteration of her life, their life.  He gave her his final gift.  As he felt the bonds that had shackled him to the physical plane diminish, he took one last ride on a meteor; generating a fireball that blazed through the dark night, leaving a trail glowing across the length of the horizon.  His job was done, she had made it through the pain to peace.  He knew love and joy would soon be hers.  He said goodbye, knowing she no longer needed him here.  It was time for each of them to be reborn into a their new lives, their new adventures.

The Quarry

Recently I started going to a meditation meeting once a week on Saturday mornings.  I’ve never been good at “Meditation”.  The formal thing where you sit and try to empty your mind or focus on just one thing.  Turns out I have been meditating in several different ways for many years, just not the formal one.  But I’m going to this group.  Time to broaden and deepen my spiritual life.  

One of my main ways of meditating was active, creative meditation.  Just letting things float through my brain as I created whatever.  But since Jim died I’ve had a big huge creative block.  I’m missing my right arm, my creative soulmate and I don’t know how to work around it.  Yet.  Eventually I will.  Just not right now.  

So I was sitting in this group.  We do a 7 minute silent meditation.  And I got a vision.  

Deep within me was a giant, empty cavern.  The walls were black and craggy.  I had been mined.  There had been drilling, explosives inserted and detonated.  The ore had been extracted.  This had happened over and over until all that was left was an  abandoned quarry.   There were still metals and gems to be found, but the chamber would collapse if anything more were removed.  So I sat in this empty cavern deep within myself.  I sat and contemplated the hollow, barren emptiness of the innermost recesses of my psyche.  As I sat, I noticed a small pool forming.  Water dripping quietly, silently down the walls, pooling at my feet.  My eyes adjusting to the darkness, searched for any beacon of light, any sign of life.  As I sat, all I could see were shades of black.  Then off to the side, I thought I detected something.  I looked, but still nothing.  And then  another faint change, again out of the corner of my eyes.   I closed my eyes for several moments and then opened them again.  And in my peripheral vision, there was a slight glow on all sides.  But wherever I looked directly, I was unable to see anything other than blackness.  It was like when I try to look at the Pleiades, the seven sisters, in the heavens.  I can never see them directly, I have to look to the side of them and there they are bright and shining adjacent to where I focus.  So I sat and focused in front of me, letting my eyes absorb what was around.  And I realized that the cave was teeming with small, dim glow worms.  

Then a soft gong sounded.  The meditation was over.  As we discussed meditation, I was quiet, somewhere between the cavern and reality.  I listened, but mostly I just let myself absorb the vision.  After the group ended, I walked home, still lost somewhere between there and here.  I continued my meditation, in the way I usually meditate.  Just letting the thoughts swirl and dance.  Arranging and rearranging themselves until they mesh into a cohesive thought.  

As I walked home, I realized that vast amounts of me had been scooped out of me and that there had been, still was, an almost unbearable darkness, an immense, echoing emptiness within.   But in the vision, were the seeds of light, the seeds of life.  The water of my tears was cleansing me, but also going within to provide sustenance for the new.  

A week ago, I watched the Lunar Eclipse.  It started opening the door to me realizing the gifts Jim left in me.  This past week, I’ve realized that yes, he is dead, but much of him lives on in me.  It’s been one of the most difficult things about the loss of him here.  We were together 24/7 for 16 years.  Everything in me had become connected to and entangled with everything in him (btw - it went both ways).  We talked and shared.  We didn’t always view everything the same way - that would have been boring.  We got to exchange our views and learn to see things together, incorporating both of our views.  Until now, I kept tripping over our connections.  There’s no one on the other end any more.  Millions of nerve ending ripped from their mate, each one screaming in pain.  But enough time has passed for them to not be so sensitive, they still hurt enough for me to cry, but it’s manageable now.  So I’m gathering up the connections and bringing them inside of myself.  Sitting with them, recognizing them, naming them.  Discovering consciously what gifts Jim left me with.  

I laugh ironically to myself.  I would not have had that vision if not for Jim.  Or if I had, I would have had a whole different interpretation, a completely different metaphor.  Today I know about mining.  Quite a bit actually.  I know that many gemstones come from metal deposits.  I know the process of mining and extracting the metals.   But then again, Jim learned more about fashion than a mountain man logger ever thought he would.

So I’m delving into the memories.  Embracing each one, hugging it close to me.  I’m doing an inventory of the raw materials within me: there are the ones I already had, the ones I developed with Jim and the ones Jim left behind inside me.  Before I go onto the next stage of building a new life, I have to know what I’m starting with.  There’s a lot to sort through.  I grew so much, became the woman I am today because of him.  And although there are so many days where I feel like an empty shell without him, he made me strong enough to survive without him.  

Waking up Again... Dopamine, Debridement and Healing

So many feelings churning throughout me these days...looking for a new home, a new way to be.  It's all stirred up, but in a good way, a healing way.  It feels horrible, it feels painful, but I can also feel the healing happening.

I worry that I repeat myself in this blog.  I know I repeat myself constantly in my journal.  Some of the same things come up again and again.  Some of them lie quiescent for a time and then resurface.  Some I push down, not wanting to feel them, doing my best to avoid them.  But the feelings are always present.  Yesterday I was very aware that I needed to write.  Instead, I spent the whole day avoiding facing them head on.  So they wait.  And when I try to go to sleep, they pounce, leaving me sobbing and wailing.

Sometimes I have so many opposing feelings happening at once, I feel like I'm in a tornado, spinning wildly.  Metaphors race through my brain, trying to make sense of the chaos within.

Part of me, the critical, controlling, judgmental me, thinks that after almost two years I should be farther along.   I'm sure many people think so, luckily no one says it to my face.  One person did and he was quickly history.  Luckily for me, so many of the people I've been fortunate enough to surround myself with tell me "It's a process.  It's different for everyone.  There's no wrong way to grieve.  It never fully goes away." and many other loving things that I can tell critical me.  And I remind myself that I had a year and a half of major losses, compounding the grief.  Intellectually I realize that I have sustained almost every major loss one can have.   So I try to be as gentle and loving with myself as I would be with someone else.  I give myself credit for getting out of bed, getting dressed, walking to meetings, putting my hand out.  I'm taking care of myself physically - probably better than I ever have in my life.  I go to grief support groups, I go to church, I go wherever I can find what I need to keep moving through this.

I think I spent the past six months in numb despair.   I was in the same sort of zombie place after Jim and then my Dad died.  Both times it took the same thing to jolt me awake.   And I feel embarrassed about it.  But I now understand the Sleeping Beauty story.  Because both times, it was a kiss that woke me up.  I don't want to be the kind of woman that needs a kiss to wake up.  I "should" be strong and self sufficient and not need a man, blah, blah, blah..... but it is what it is.   And then I read my friend Jill Hamilton's blog post "Dopamine, the Cruel Bitch Mistress".  I have another friend Ethlie Ann Vare who writes about Love and Sex Addiction and talks about dopamine.  But the other day, it hit me when I read this quote (quoted in Jill's blog) by Sheril Kirshenbaum in The Science of Kissing. 

Spiking during a passionate kiss, dopamine is responsible for the rush of elation and craving, and can also result in obsessive thoughts that many of us experience in association with a new romance--almost like an addiction.

So the kiss woke me up and jump started me.  Since I'm totally an addict, I want to dive right in and get more.  Added bonus, the grief recedes.  I know it's still there, but the pain is gone.  I was trying my best to be a little wiser than I've been and take it slow (admittedly something I have little experience with.  The only time I took it slow was with Jim and that was because at the time we wouldn't see each other for several weeks in between dates because we were both doing art shows and in different places).   And then the man decided after 2 dates that we shouldn't see each other.  I'm still confused & unclear about the reasons.  But it was good in a masochistic, hurts so good kind of way.  Because although my addict self wants the dopamine rush, the escape from the grief;  my sober self knows I need time alone and time and space to heal.   And I know through experience that once the dopamine rush wears off,  the grief comes back, but in an unhealthy way.  God did for me what I could not do for myself.  So it is best this way.  BUT....

It triggered all of my abandonment issues.   Followed closely by Anger.  And on Anger's tails, Guilt, Regret and Remorse.  I'm fucking pissed at Jim for leaving me, for not taking better care of himself.   I'm angry that no one, myself included, thought that maybe there was a physical reason for his mood changes.  I feel guilty that I didn't know, didn't have more love and patience when he acted like an asshole.   He fucking promised me that he would never leave me and he fucking died on me and left me forever.   (I really thought that we'd split up, have some time apart and end up back together).  I'm angry at my father for falling and discovering he had cancer.  It wasn't even a week after Jim died.   I didn't even get a chance to absorb Jim's death and I had to deal with my father dying.  I'm pissed at God and myself for Athena's death.  I feel so horribly guilty that I was distracted and she died a painful death because of my negligence.   I feel like I let Jim down, one of the final things he wrote entrusted me with her care and I fucked up.   And I feel like I let Jim down because my store failed.  He wanted so much for it to be a success for me, he wanted me to be happy.  And I couldn't make it work.

AND I KNOW intellectually that I couldn't control, that I did the best I could, they did the best they could, yada, yada.  I just can't get what I know and what I feel to be in harmony.  But I do know what I need to do, more writing (privately) and share it with someone.  I've found someone I think will be able to help me with it.   I still have hope that one day I'll heal, I won't be one huge, gaping wound.  Right now I feel like a burn victim being debrided.  Dead tissue removed, exposed nerve endings, but necessary for healing.

I have so many fears and insecurities.  Jim and I had thought we were like two trees.  We began as individuals and were so close we entwined around each other, but we were still two individual trees.  Now I wonder, because without Jim here to entwine around, I've flopped over onto the ground.  I keep wondering if maybe I'm just a vine....not a tree.  But first I have to clear out he anger, guilt, the things infecting me and keeping me from healing.  Then I can move on from there.  At least now, I'm awake and I see the path directly in front of me.

A Glimmer of Hope

My therapist from grief group wanted me to write this story in my blog.  When I told it in group it didn’t seem like a big deal, but that’s why it’s good to have other people - sometimes they are able to point things out, that I would completely miss.  So here goes...

Several weeks ago my friend Katy and I went to the FIDM (Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising) Fashion Show.  It’s a showcase of the work by students from the Advanced Fashion Design and Costume Design programs.  Twenty five years ago, Katy and I were both part of the fashion show.  I could go on and on about my friendship with Katy, but we were bffs at FIDM.  Our styles were about as different as they could be - she was twin sets and pearls and I was fishnet with holes and lots of black.  But, we were both perfectionists, both graduated Summa Cum Laude and were both invited to be in the small group for the Advanced Fashion Design program.   It was a wonderful night and we got to see several people who were part of our FIDM experience.

As I watched the show, it brought back memories of school, memories of our show 25 years ago.  That night was one of the highest moments of my life.  I got to see the creations I had conceived and created showcased on a runway, modeled by professional models in a top notch fashion show at the ballroom of the Bonaventure Hotel in downtown L.A.  It was the night of my 30th birthday, my friends and family were there and to top it off, I won the top award of the show.  As I sat watching the current young designers, it brought on the flood of memories.  I remembered the excitement, the joy, the hopes for my future.  It was bitterweet.  And I am so grateful to have had that night, that experience.  

So how does this apply to my grief?  I realized that the feelings I had that night are what I someday hope to have about Jim.  Remembering with gratitude the joy that was, with a slight sadness that those days are gone.  

The therapist pointed out that I now have a vision of what life can look like for me.  So I’m visualizing a life, where I can think of Jim without the accompanying wave of grief, loss and sorrow.  With just a tinge of sadness, mixed with gratitude.  Bitterweetness.

I actually experienced a tiny bit of that last night.  It was the Lunar eclipse.  Jim was my science guy, my mountain man.  He taught me how to sit with nature, how to observe the subtle changes.  I remember early on, watching the Perseid meteor shower together.  I remember sitting by the window in our house during a lightning storm.  We’d turn off all of the lights and watch as if watching tv.  When we first met and were camping out full time, we would watch what Jim called “Pet TV” and just watch Misty, the coyote/husky and the cats do their thing.  He taught me how to pay attention to the solstices and equinoxes.  He taught a city girl how to slow down and be.  Just be.  

Whenever I look at the sky, I picture Jim’s energy zipping around our Universe, exploring all the things he wanted to know about when he was here.  Gravity, black holes, anti-matter.  He would often come out of his workroom with “I’ve been thinking” and we’d end up in some weird discussion about gravity.... It’s weird the things you miss when someone is gone.  

So last night as I sat there with my Mom, watching the wonder of nature, the beautiful Blood Moon.  Mars nearby and bright.  I missed Jim.  I was sad he wasn’t there to share it with.  But I was grateful that we had so many times like that together and grateful that I cared about watching the Lunar eclipse.  Jim’s gift to me.

Journey Through the Wasteland

This one's a little different.  But it's been floating around the past several nights as I tried to go to sleep.  So I wrote it.  And today rewrote it.  There's probably a few more rewrites, but I thought I'd just put it out there and not obsess too much.

JOURNEY THROUGH THE WASTELAND

Lost in a fog, unable to see anything, wrapped in a murky cloak of grief.  The cloak was simultaneously a cloud swirling around her, blocking out any light, and heavy as lead, weighting her down so that it was difficult to move.  It squeezed her tight, she was only able to take shallow breaths.  She struggled to take deep breaths, the voices outside kept telling her to breathe.  Sometimes she would manage a deep breath and the grief would pour in, a mist of fine black cinders burning into her bringing her to her knees from the shock and pain.   She was unable to loosen the cloak, it had its job to do.  It protected her from the miasma of despair, the pain reminded her she was still alive as she blindly wandered through the dense, gray fog, unable to see any light, any way out.  She often stumbled and fell, the breath knocked out of her, all she could do was lie there sobbing.  Eventually she would get back to her feet, weighted down by her mantle,  and begin to walk again.  She walked and she walked, unable to see, no landmarks to refer to, she often was not sure if she was going anywhere or just walking circles.  In the distance she heard the voices of those who loved her, calling to her.  Muffled by the fog, she was unsure where they were, where to go.  But she continued to move, because even if she was going in circles, there was still hope that she could find her way out.

Eventually, the cloak began to loosen.  Just a bit, but enough for her to breathe normally again.  Sometimes she would still inhale a cloud of burning cinders and still it would bring her to her knees, sobbing from the pain.  But it happened less and she had become accustomed to it.  She would rest a bit and then struggle back to her feet to continue walking.  And either the cloak had become lighter, or she had become stronger, or maybe a combination of the two, but she no longer felt like she was being crushed.  She tired easily and had to frequently rest, but getting up and moving was no longer such a struggle.  

The fog began to lift, just a bit.  At first she felt relieved.  At last there was something she could see.  Then despair set in, all she saw was a colorless, desolate wasteland, as if a volcano had erupted, burning away all life.  Tree stumps stood eerily throughout and everything was covered in a fine gray ashen dust.   Disconsolate, she collapsed.  Hope for sunshine and life had kept her moving, she had thought if only the fog could lift, she could find her way out.  Grief blanketed her as she lie there, curled up crying, the gut wrenching sobs of heartbreak and anguish, of hopelessness.  She remained there for a very long time, sapped of hope, sapped of strength, exhausted to the core of her being.  She rested and slept dreamlessly.  One day she heard faint calls, once again the voices of those that loved her.  They had not given up on her, they called to her, doing what they could to guide her back into the sunshine.  

Once again, she rose to her feet, something inside her would not let her quit, would not let her give up.  So she stood, her legs shaky.  She began a slow walk.  This time, without the fog distorting the sounds, she could hear the voices a little more clearly.  She was able to see the obstacles and walk around them or climb over them.  She left footprints in the ashes and knew she was not walking in circles, although sometimes she had to double back and circle around to find her way out.  And little by little, her inner guide came back to life, whispering in her head where to go.  She walked.  Up hills, down valleys, up mountains.  Sometimes the fog would return, but it was just in spots and she was able to keep moving forward.  The landscape remained bleak, mostly dead and lifeless.  But every so often, she could hear birdsong, feel a warm breeze, she would spot a small green sprout and she knew she was moving closer and closer to the land of the living.  She wore the cloak of grief more loosely now.  It would always be with her.  Sometimes she still inhaled the burning cinders, they still caused pain and tears, but it no longer caused the shock.  Most of the time she could breathe normally and even deeply without the burning pain, but when it came, she knew she could survive it.  The voices of those she loved, those that loved her, became louder and clearer.  The journey had stripped her down, forced her deep within, made her stronger and she knew that when she returned, she would have stories, stories that could help others when they were forced on the journey through their own wasteland.

Back to Basics

So many of you have been asking “What happened with New Jersey?” or “How are you doing?” and I just haven’t been able to answer.  So I’m sorry for that.  And now that I’ve been in SoCal for a month, I’m just starting to be able to respond....  

I discovered the limit of my resiliency.  I tend to be the bounce back kid, I like to think of myself as the warrior Phoenix.  But I discovered at what point I can be flattened.  Just too many losses in too short a time.  And I did not realize how devastating letting go of my store and then my house would be - especially on top of everything else.  In the space of a year and a half, everything I had built my life to be was gone.  And with it, my hopes and dreams.  It’s easy to say “I am not my things” until you lose them all.  For those who don’t know, I had to close my store because business was BAD - I was down 50% from my first year.  I kept trying to hang on, but finally I had to face reality and let it go.  I already had my house on the market - I had a TON of debt I needed to take care of.  So along came an opportunity for love and change and new, and I decided to go for it.  I’m glad I did.  It gave me something hopeful to look forward to, new hopes and dreams, as I dismantled my life.  

And then I got to New Jersey.  It all hit me, and all I could do was cry.  Here I was in a foreign land.  And nothing about it worked for me.  Everything was unfamiliar.  I went from a place of nature and peace to living in a small apartment where there was constant noise.  It grated my already frayed nerves.  I lived with someone who just couldn’t understand the magnitude of what I had been through.  Truthfully, very few people can.  It seems like there’s a handful of people who have known me for a very long time and were there every step of the way - from when Jim got sick to me selling almost everything I had, that really, really get it.  And I was more scared than I’ve ever been in my life - I didn’t know where anything was, I didn’t know any people.   When I did get out and put my hand out, nobody seemed interested in getting to know me.  It all was overwhelming.  I became very isolated and almost agoraphobic.  And then to top it off, there was the weather.... I’ve been through winter, real winter, but that was in Moab.  Huge difference.   Cold and snow in city, well almost city, just sucked.  I got progressively more lonely and depressed.  My energy was gone.  And I just became unable to do anything.  

The good thing in all of it, was that I got in touch with the basics.  What are my basic needs.  I realized I need peace, I need routine, I need some nature, and most of all, I needed somewhere safe.  I am blessed to have the most wonderful mother on the planet, so I’ve moved home with Mom in Thousand Oaks.  I have so much grief, some days it doesn’t seem like I can breathe.  I cry al lot.  But I’m starting to take the actions to heal.  Itty bitty little baby steps.  I have my morning routine where I write in my journal.  I’ve found a support system just one mile from Mom’s.  So every day, I walk there - it’s a twofer, I get exercise and spiritual nourishment.  People here have reached out to me and I’m starting to feel a little at home.  The weather has been a blessing.  I’m sorry California has a drought, but on a selfish level, I really, really needed the warm sunshine.  I’ve found a couple of grief support groups.  I’ve started going to church with Mom.  I’ve never been religious (except for that stint in junior high) and luckily her church - the United Church of Christ, is very liberal and open.  But something there is speaking to a part of my soul, so I go.  Plus, it’s nice to share that with Mom.  On Sunday after church, we go to my brother’s house where I get to visit Nala.  She lives with them, because I think it’s the best place for her - I can tell it’s home for her now.  But she’s always overjoyed to see me and Mom and I take her for a walk.  And then we hang out with the family, it’s nice.  I’ve started back to the gym.  So, I’m just doing the baby steps to take care of myself emotionally, spiritually, physically and mentally.  I get tired easily - grief triggers the same physical reactions as physical pain.  Little by little I try to tackle things.  I still need to get a car and then I can go to a therapist.  Along with losing people and things, I’ve lost parts of me.  I’ve run into a huge wall on my creativity.  Jim and I were creative partners for so long, that I can’t do it right now without him.  It’s like my arms were amputated, and I have to learn to paint with my mouth.  So I need some therapy to help me.  

So you ask “How I am”.  It varies in any given moment.  Sometimes I have so much despair that I just wish God would let me die in my sleep.  Don’t worry, I’m not suicidal.  After the pain I’ve had since Jim died, I don’t want anyone who loves me to go through the pain of losing me one minute before they have to.  And I am so lucky to have so many people I know love me deeply.  Sometimes I think of the future - I’m not exactly sure where I’m going, but either psychology or theology or some combination of the two.  I want to take this experience and use it to help others through loss.  Because, let’s face it, we’re all going to have loss.  And knowing I can use this experience to help others is what gives me hope.  But for right now, I’m just doing the little things in front of me to heal.  And I’m grateful to have a Mom who let’s me be where I am, is there with love and patience and understanding; who knows I’ll heal at my own pace, and is providing me a refuge to heal.

Platitudes, Schmatitudes - Just be Present

I've had people ask suggest that my grief is living in the past or living in the future.  All I can say is that when I am experiencing a grief surge, I am fully in the present.  I feel the hole and the pain left behind by the loss.

It's funny how people just cannot handle pain - their own or another's.  When my husband was in the hospital, someone told me "this too shall pass".   Seriously, am I supposed to live in the future or the moment.  Because at that moment everything sucked.  So I guess I'm supposed to live in the moment unless it's too uncomfortable for someone else, then I should live in the future.  Another person blithely said "Oh, he'll be fine".   When he died a few days later, she avoided me like the plague.

What I've gotten to see this past year, is how people use platitudes to avoid being present for someone else's pain.  I know they mean well enough, but really it's just a way to minimize or avoid the raw emotions.  I was actually very grateful for the people who said "I don't know what to say.  I don't know what you're dealing with".  It was honest, it was real.  And they didn't try to put a bandaid on a gaping wound.  They recognized and acknowledged the pain.  Some of them were the best listeners.  Because what I've need is to just keep talking about my feelings.  It's the only way I know to let them flow through me.  I talk.  I write.  I cry.  There have been a couple of times where the feelings have gotten bottled up in me.  Emotional constipation.  And every time that happens, I end up in physical distress.  My IBS flares up, I have migraines, my rib went out.  So I have to talk and talk and talk.

Shortly after Jim died, a few people said "he's in a better place".  For someone experiencing the loss of a loved one, that is at the top of the list of wrong things to say.  Not just for me, but for others I've talked to going through their own grieving process.  Because at that stage, I didn't fucking care.   Good for him and fuck him.  He's in a better place and I'm left here dealing with a mountain of shit he left behind.  Grief is selfish.I had a part of my heart and soul forcibly ripped from me and it hurts.  It hurts more that you know until you experience it for yourself.

Someone I love and care about told me the other day that I need to let it go.  Well I am, just maybe not in a way he understands.  For me letting go is a process.  There is no magic "letting go" fairy.  Poof - it's gone.  There's the pain of holding onto something that makes me willing to let go.  Then there's the pain of the letting go - feeling something being removed from me with no anesthetic.  Finally there's the pain of the empty space once I let go.  Grief has been a non-stop process of letting the feelings surface.  Writing about them, talking about them, crying about them.  I let them wash through me.  Like I said, sometimes I get stuck, but I've done my best to walk the line between avoiding the feelings and wallowing in them.  Overall, I think I've done pretty good.  Sometimes the grief brings me to my knees, or I end up curled up on the floor sobbing my guts out.  And then I get back up and try to focus on what's in front of me.

I give myself points for not drinking this year and not ending up in a mental institution.  I'm grateful to the many people who have shared from their hearts their experiences with loss and let me babble endlessly.  The people who have read my writing and told me how I've touched them, that what I've written has stricken a chord in them.  I'm grateful for the people who have told me I'm strong, courageous and brave.  When I feel weak and afraid, I cling to those reassurances, I believe I can make it through.  I'm grateful for the people that tell me they admire my authenticity.  At this point, I don't have much of a choice, I don't have energy to keep up a front.  It heals my rawness that this too is embraced and loved.  I'm grateful to the many people with endless patience, that have told me and keep telling me that there's no right or wrong way to grieve, that we all have our own path and hold my hand  and give me balance.  I'm grateful for the many, many people who have patiently let me talk and given me the gift of listening.  Through this whole process, the greatest gift I've received is unconditional love.  The quantity and quality continues to astound me.

So thank you all.  The next several weeks are going to be difficult.  A time of reliving an awful period.  A time of reflecting on the journey thus far.  I'm feeling the grief settle into a new place.  I think it will always be with me, but it's settling.  Thank you for letting me share this journey with you.  xoxo

Lost in a Fog

It's coming up on a year since my husband died.  This is the time he started to be sick.  I expected to be in for a tough time this month, and unfortunately I was right.  Last weekend I had two meltdowns over small things.....

I've had periods where the rollercoaster ride from hell has seemed to mellow.  Sometimes it smooths out for a bit, sometimes it starts to feel like I'm going up.  But then it drops down again.  The worst is the corkscrew portion where I don't even know which way is up.

This morning started pretty good.  I woke up feeling optimistic, did my morning writing and actually did some yard work.  But then as I headed to town for a doggie playdate (a fun activity with a very nice friend that I was looking forward to) the grief miasma descended.  I showed up for a few things, but then was just so de-energized I came home.  I'm exhausted most of the time.  The rollercoaster has worn me out.

As I continue to move through the grief, I keep realizing how much is lost in addition to the man I loved.  There is no security for me in this new land.  Old beliefs have either been stripped away or are so in my face that I need to let them go.  Some of the old beliefs I intellectually knew didn't work and have tried for years to will them away.  Or I believed I had let go of them, but now, stripped to my essence, I discover they've still been there.  And now they're at the surface, not working and I can no longer hang onto them.

For the last 28 years, I believed that if I could align with the universe, tune into my higher power, everything would be okay.  I believed that everything happened for a reason.  I no longer believe that everything happens for a reason, sometimes it just happens.  I don't believe in some deity that randomly decides it's time for someone to die for some "purpose".  I just think we're born and we die and it just happens when it happens for no particular reason.  And it doesn't matter how tuned in I am, when people die, everything is not okay.  Nothing will ever be the same.  There's no reason, no sense.  It just is.

I've discovered there is nothing I can count on.  There is no stability, no security.  Jim promised he would never abandon me.  Even as our marriage got worse and worse, he said he would never leave me, because he knew how abandonment was what I most feared.  And then he died.  And left me forever.   While logically I know he didn't "leave me", emotionally I wonder if I made him so miserable, he just wanted to escape me.  If he just gave up.  If it was my fault that he left me.  Which brings me face to face with some beliefs I've carried for most of my life.  I think I can control the world I live in.  If I just do things "right", I can control the outcome.  I really thought I had accepted that there are things I can't control, but now I've discovered how deeply held that belief is.  Tied into that belief is the "nothing I ever do will ever be enough".  Because of course, I can't control the world, I can't control other people, I can't control the outcome of anything.  And of course, things will not, cannot, work out the way I want and I feel it's because I'm not enough.  For years I've said the platitude (and thought I believed it) "Just do the footwork and leave the results in God's hands".  But at a deep core level, I still tried to control.

For years I believed I was a strong, independent woman.  Before I met Jim, I was single for 12 years.  But now I keep discovering how dependent I had become on him.  We were so entwined for 16 years as life and business partners.  I keep tripping over how many small things he did for me to make my life better, to make me happy.  Now that those things are gone, I realize how much I took for granted and how dependent I was on him for my strength.  And now I feel weak.  And alone.  My business is failing.  I thought I make it work, but it's not and I don't know what to do.  I worry that the success I was able to have was because I had Jim next to me and that without him, I'm destined to be a failure.

 Everything I though I could count on is being removed.  I know I can't count on anyone.  They could die at any minute.  Or they have their own lives to deal with and aren't there for me the way I want.  They have their own issues and something offered, that I thought I could rely on is removed.

Lately I've felt like I am lost in a forest in the fog.  I've wandered off my path, it's been closed off to me.  I can't find a new path.  I can't see, I can't hear.  I'm directionless.   I've always had a direction clear to me and now......

I just don't know anything.  So I'll keep doing what I've been doing.  I'll do my best to show up and do what's in front of me.  And trust.  Trust that at some point the fog will lift, a path will open.  Hope that something new and beautiful will arise from the ashes.

The Maze of Grief

Grief seems to be a maze.  A maze with different rooms in it.  Loss, Pain, Sorrow, Guilt, Regret, Remorse, Anger, Self-Pity - to name just a few.  You follow the paths.  They inevitably take you to one of these rooms.  If you keep avoiding that room, you never get to move on.  Sometimes you go into one of the rooms and want to stay there.  Anger is a great place - you can avoid feeling the pain and all the rest.   Self pity is good too.  Just crawl under the covers and escape life.  There are also the happier rooms - Acceptance, Serenity, Gratitude, Strength and even Joy.  They're a resting spot, a time out.  But eventually they kick you out, because it's time to keep moving.  There's the avoidance rooms - Busyness, Denial, Rationalization.  If you want to stay in them, you have to keep slamming shut the door that leads out.  Sometimes you think you're done with a room.  You've explored it, found the door out and moved on.   And then you move through the maze and it leads you back.

My husband of 16 years (well, we weren't technically married for that, but spiritually we were) died just over 8 months ago.  You'd think the grief would be easier by now, but it's not.  It is different.  I feel like I'm moving through the maze, but it's getting progressively deeper and more real.  At first, it all seemed surreal, with periods of "Oh my God, it's real".  All my energy went into keeping my head above water.  Sometimes just breathing was a challenge.  I've kept moving through the maze.  But right now, I feel like I'm bouncing between the Sorrow room and the Guilt, Regret, Remorse rooms.

We had an amazing relationship for 13 years.  We used to joke that we were the same person in male and female forms.  Most of our difficulties were his man/logic view vs. my female/emotional view.  And for 13 years we were able to find our way with lots of love.  Which was especially amazing since we were together 24/7.  We were not only married, but business partners working together.  We were soul mates.  And then something happened.  I'm not sure what exactly.  I had health issues and because of them started doing some emotional/spiritual growth and changes.  And since I was new to it, I didn't do it very well.  I made a lot of mistakes.  Business was tough and we were traveling a lot - so there was a lot of stress on both of us.  But we'd been through those challenges before and were able to tackle it together.  And I just have to wonder if that's when the diabetes (which eventually led to his death) kicked in.  Because he became much more irritable and the connections we had began to strain until neither of us had the energy to make our marriage work.  So there we were on the precipice of divorce and then he died.

At this point, I feel like I'm grieving the end of the marriage as well as his death.  It's a double whammy.  Lately I've had memories of the good times.  And realizations of how much he brought to my life, how many things he did for me.  I was sick recently.  When I got to the store to get my prescription filled, I just sat in my car and sobbed.  I felt so miserable and all I could think was "If Jim was here, he'd get my prescription for me.  He knew what I could eat and what food would make me happy.  He'd take care of me."  And all I wanted to do was call him, tell him how sorry I was for being unappreciative for the wonderful things he did for me.  But he's dead and I can't.  People want to make me feel better and tell me that I can tell him.  I just want to scream.  HE'S DEAD!!!!!  I know they mean well.  But I can't call him.  I can't talk to HIM.  I can't make amends.  Maybe I can, but it's not the same.  I can't wrap my arms around him, I'm sorry, tell him he's a wonderful human being, maybe heal some of the pain I caused him.  I can tell the air.  And sometimes I do feel him, hear him.  The other night I saw a fireball and I knew it was him.  But most of the time, there's just an empty space where he used to be.

So I'll just keep moving around the maze.

Healing

The other day I received a holiday card.  A thoughtful, beautiful card.  And it still makes me cry.  My friend wrote "How you've endured this year with your spirit intact is amazing".  It reaches deep into my heart & soul that others see me this way.  It's been six months of doing whatever I could to just survive the pain.  To not drink, to continue to get out of bed, to do whatever was necessary to remain in this world; physically, emotionally, spiritually.  I didn't try to be "strong", I didn't try to be "tough", I didn't try to keep it together, I didn't try to hide from the pain or hide the pain.  I just did whatever I could to keep moving through the loss, through the fear, through the pain.  I grasped onto every hand that was generously extended, the lifelines that allowed me to go into the depths and find my way back out.  I allowed myself to accept every drop of loving assistance that was offered.  And I talked.  And wrote.  And talked.  To anyone that would listen.  I let the grief keep moving through me; talking to process, talking to release.  I didn't care how I looked or what other people thought.  I was stripped to the core and just did whatever I had to do to survive.

Sometimes I worry about being selfish, about all of the taking I've had to do.  Luckily a friend said to me early on "You've given so much to so many for so long.  Please let us give to you".  I didn't have the energy to fight the love.  And I've discovered that I don't have a clue what is selfish and what is not.      At some level I've long known that giving makes me feel good and that by receiving, I allow others to have that same good feeling.   Through this process called grief,  I've had to take everything given.  But what's boggled my logical mind is how many people have thanked me for my writing, for my talking.  It's baffling how allowing myself to open up, share my pain, my grief has so many people thanking me.  I don't understand how by doing what feels selfish it is also a gift to others.  And I don't have to understand.  I just have to trust.  Trust that being me is all I need to do.

I'm still moving through the grief.  Every day it's at another level, another place.  So many things make me weep.  But the deep, gut wrenching, my heart & soul are being torn out of me, sobbing on the floor has subsided.  So I let the tears stream when they need to, knowing that I'm letting the pain clear.  And sometimes the tears are of joy & gratitude from someplace deeper inside myself than I've been before.

So I sit here this morning with a full heart.  I've learned I can not only survive, but triumph over whatever life throws at me.  That the heartbreaking pain has both helped me find my inner strength and opened my heart more fully.  Although I'm still saddened by the events that have brought me to this place, I'm grateful to be right here, right now.

Six Months of Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey Stuff

It's been six months since my husband died.  In some ways it feels like forever, in other ways it feels like yesterday.  We were both huge Doctor Who fans and one of our favorite quotes was "People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly... timey-wimey... stuff."  That's what this feels like.  I've grown so much emotionally that it feels like a very long time must have passed.  But when I sit & get quiet, the loss wells up inside me like it was yesterday.  

Grief is weird.  And until you experience, you have no clue.  I didn't.  

A couple of weeks ago I went to Grand Junction to the arts & crafts show.  Sometimes I know something is going to cause the grief to surface, other times I'm totally not thinking & clueless, until "Bam!" it gets me.  Driving to GJ, I felt the sorrow surface.  I've learned to just let it, let the feelings surface, let the tears flow.  I exited the freeway and there I was, sitting at the longest light in the world in front of the hospital where the worst week of my life happened, where the last week of my husband's life happened.  I sat there and stared at the window of the room he was in.  The trickle of tears became a full fledged storm.  I drove a few blocks to where the arts & crafts show was, pulled in the parking lot and the tears became a deluge.  We had been in that show for the last 12 years.  I went into the show and it was a painful, but healing experience.  Our artist family gathered around me.  They let me know they missed Jim and missed us being there.  They listened while I talked and hugged me.  They gave me unconditional acceptance and gave freely of their love & affection.  I cried my way through the show, sometimes laughing at the same time.  More letting go.  More acceptance.  Walking through the grief.  Gratitude for those that hold my hand as I walk through the rough patches.

I haven't been able to watch Doctor Who yet this year.  Or Fringe.  Or Survivor.  We watched them together and even when our marriage was pretty much over, we still watched them & talked about them.  

It seems to be a continual process.  Every time I confront something with a ton of memories entwined, another layer of denial is destroyed.  I am reminded that he died, he's no longer in this world.  And the pain is as fresh as it was the first day.  Either the pain has gotten less intense, or I'm just used to it now.

It wasn't only that he died that day.  I died too.  The whole picture of my life shattered.  I now know how tenuous, how delicate the balance of our everyday life is.  I spent so much time looking for  security, for safety.  Now I know those are only illusions.  There is now and my connectedness with now and that's pretty much it.  A lot of my fear has been removed.  I'm being more me than I ever have and living life the best I can.

Life can't hand me much worse than it did this year.  But I also think of this year as the year I discovered I'm a phoenix.  I was incinerated and a new me has risen from the ashes.  A stronger, more me, me.  A me that knows I can pretty much handle anything.  I am a bad ass warrior phoenix.  Who cries a lot.

Death Has Destroyed Me, Defined Me & Strengthened Me

Today a friend posted the quote "When something bad happens you have three choices: You can either let it define you, let it destroy you or you can let it strengthen you."--Unknown 

It got me thinking (one of my favorite activities).  And all three are true.  So get rid of the "or" and replace it with "and". 

 This year has destroyed me - the old me.  The me of innocence and naivete.  The me that thought if I could do everything "right", I could control the Universe.  The me that thought everything happens for a reason.  It stripped away the "nice" girl, the people pleaser.  It tore away my masks, my routines, my dances that let me hide from myself.  I was and continue to be, so raw, so tired.  I don't have the energy to don the old masks, to dance the old dance.  So yes I've been destroyed.  Maybe it's the ego got mortally wounded and all I can do now is be.  So the me I had been was destroyed.  

It's defined me, or maybe redefined me.  Letting myself feel how I feel at any given moment.  Being okay with sorrow, being okay with joy.  With all my barriers stripped away, I've been able to feel love in a way I never did before.  When I wore masks there was always doubt "Do you love ME or the act?".  Today I know that the people who love me, love ME.  The real me.  And I've been able to love and accept myself in a way I've never been able to before.  I haven't had a choice, really.  It's either accept myself or go crazy....  My logical mind can't control my emotions any longer.  The losses seem to have short circuited the wiring.  And so I'm left with just being okay.  It feels horrible, devastating sometimes, but it's okay.  Through all this, my heart has grown.  I have new knowledge, new experience, new knowing.  I really had no idea of the how painful death is for those of us left here.  Now I know.  It's given me more compassion, more love, more clarity.  I'm a new me - closer to the me I was created to be.

As for strengthening me....  Being able to keep walking through this without drinking, without crawling into bed and giving up on life, giving up on love - I am one bad ass warrior.  Every time I hear the saying "That which does not kill you, makes you stronger" I think that by this point I can bench press a semi with 3 trailers....  It gives me the ability to face each new day.  I've made it this far, I can keep putting one foot in front of the other, show up and walk through this.  It's strengthened me enough to be able to let go of things I need to.  To sit with the empty spaces and not try to fill them up.  To create the life I want deep in my heart & soul.  To know that sometimes doing the "right" think, the thing in alignment with myself & god, will cause pain to myself and others.  We can choose to grow from the pain or try to avoid it, but I've realized pain in inevitable.  I now have the ability to go deep inside & find my truth and the strength to face the consequences.   Because all I have left after everything has been stripped away is my connection to the Universe that created me.  All I can do is do my best to act in harmony with my purpose.  It takes a lot of strength & courage to do that - and this year has given me the clarity & strength to leap into the unknown.  Most of the time I have no map, it's all uncharted territory.  Sometimes I sit on the floor and cry, it's so unfamiliar, so scary.  I wish I could turn back, but I can't, I can only go forward.  So I get up, or ask for a hand up and continue the new exploration.  Because when you get down to it, life really is just the journey.  Things will always change.  We will always be required to change.  Sometimes we find a comfortable spot & get to sit, rest, enjoy the view.  We will never be able to stay there.  The greatest sadness I have about my husband and my father's lives is that they each wanted to avoid pain.  They tried to find a comfortable spot to stay in, they decorated their ruts, built fortresses to protect themselves.  They died carrying the baggage of the past, but couldn't, wouldn't see it.  They were so isolated from themselves, they were never able to fully connect with others.  I feel such sadness that they were never able to fully live.  So today I choose life, even when there's so much pain I don't know if I can bear it.  Because there's also joy in embracing the pain, the changes, the not knowingness.  I choose to stay open, to be me, to make mistakes, to venture into new territory.  Because I know I can survive anything life has to throw at me.

Into a New Land

So it’s funny - I seem to tap into a completely different part of my brain when I type versus when I write by hand.  My handwritten journal is freeform, random thoughts, stream of consciousness.  Mostly though, handwriting seems to let my feelings stream forth, unrestrained by logical thought.  It works well for me letting my real feelings emerge from the subconscious, unfurl onto the paper and then have a chance to recognize, own and accept them.  When I type, it’s a more contemplative, thoughtful writing.  I think, I connect, I communicate with others.  

Last night I was overtaken by grief over the loss of my old life.  It was triggered by missing Athena.  I have a new dog now & she is a sweetheart.  But she’s not Athena.  There will never be another Athena.  Athena was the dog I had dreamt of all of my life.  And after 2 years together, she was able to read my signals with a precision that constantly astonished me.  Nala, the new girl, is still adjusting to me and I to her.  We’ve been together 2 1/2 weeks now.  She’s 9 months old and needs lots of training still.  And sometimes she brings up how much I miss Athena.  

From there, I just went into how much I missed my old life.  I guess what I really miss was the predicability of it, even when it sucked.  My husband and I were heading for divorce just before he died.  I wanted more from him than he was able to give.  We were in process of trying to let go of our old relationship and see what was left.  So it’s not like my life was terribly “stable”, but between my husband, my father & then my dog dying, I’m just don’t have any illusions of security anymore.  Even when Jim & I were fighting, I knew him, I knew us, there was that familiarity that 16 years together brought, even when it sucked.  So many connections to who I was, severed.  Thank the Universe that I still have most of my friends (oh yeah, I lost a few friends in the midst of the losses), I still have my home, I still have my store.  But on a deep, core relational level, I am adrift.  

I’m in a new relationship.  Didn’t plan it, didn’t look for it, it just happened.  Kinda freaked me out, but after writing 10 pages, the Universe told me to get over my “plans” and go with it.  So I’m trying.  I’m trying to practice new behaviors and learn from the lessons of past relationships.  I’ve spent the past few years moving out of codependency.  Looking back, I was doing it not too gracefully and inflicted a lot of emotional damage on my husband.  So I’m doing my best to do it different.  And I have no fucking clue what I’m doing.....  I’m in a new land with a new man and I’m trying to find my way.  And I don’t have a map!!!!   

So I’m a stranger in a strange land.  I’ve changed so much in the past four months and everything in my life has changed.  I’m little by little emerging from the fog, gaining clarity, but sometimes it’s so damn bright that I can’t see and just stumble around.  

And some days, I just miss the familiarity, even the familiarity that sucked.  I guess that’s part of grief too.  

It's His Birthday - and He's Still Dead....

I'm feeling contemplative tonight... Three months ago today, my husband Jim died.  Tomorrow is his birthday.  He would have been 54.  Things had been rough with us for several years.  Looking back, hindsight being 20/20, I can see how his diabetes (undiagnosed & unknown) affected him and us.  Little by little, the compassionate, loving man I had loved disappeared; to be replaced with someone increasingly intolerant, impatient, and rigid.  It was a slow, gradual process of erosion of love.  I tried and tried to figure it out, to fix it.  There would be hope and then everything would go to hell again.  Until I was exhausted.  We were in the early stages of divorcing & letting go.

Luckily I was finally able to hear him, how he just wanted peace and calm and for everything to be okay.  What he really, really wanted was to avoid pain.  In my quest for growth & development and confronting pain face on, all I had done was inflict more pain on him.  I kept trying to get him to hear me, but I didn't listen & hear him.  When I finally did, I was rocked to my core.  I was able to see my part & set about to do my best to make amends and heal the harm I had caused.

To this day, I am so grateful I had come to that place about a month before he died.  I realized that what he wanted & what I wanted were mutually incompatible, stellar opposites.  There was no way to remain married and happy.  Any way I looked at it, at least one of us would be discontent.  Most of the time, both of us were miserable.  And so we were letting go.  There were still so many connections - we had been together 24/7 for 16 years, completely intertwined in both our business, creative & personal lives.  There were so many filaments to untangle, and to see what bonds remained that were healthy.

So there we were, disengaging, while I did my best to heal the wounds I had wrought on him.  And then he got sick.  And I was able to be present & loving... most of the time.  As he got sicker, he said more hurtful things.  And in my head (and sometimes to others), I would say "Fuck him." and be ready to walk away.  But there were still these connections and feelings.  Shortly before he got sick, he told me "You're my best friend.  You know me better than anyone ever has.  Sometimes you know me better than I know myself.  I don't want to lose you completely from my life."  I replied "I know.  I wanted you to be my best friend and you can't, or won't.  I don't know what we'll have after the hurt has healed."  I couldn't walk away.  So for the last week of his life, I focused on doing whatever I could.  It wasn't much, he was intubated and unconscious.  But I stayed on top of what was going on in the hospital, Googling like crazy to understand his health.  I was able to, actually encouraged, to bring our baby Athena, our tiny toy poodle, into the hospital.  I read healing meditations & visualizations, I used every suggestion from energy healers.  I tried to will him back to life.  I threatened him with the thought that if he died, he'd be stuck having to listen to me talk about my feelings, non-stop, for the rest of my life.  Whatever I could come up with to reach him, deep in wherever he was, I tried.  I just wanted a divorce,  I did not want him to die.

And then he started failing and I could feel him slipping away.  I grasped, but I could feel him going.  And then he was done.  And he died.  I know he's in a better place, whatever that may be.  He wanted to avoid pain, and he did.  I've been left with the Mt. Everest shit heap of pain to face head on.

It feels like I'm through the major upheaval & confusion.  I've emerged from Zombiehood.  A friend described death & grief like going over a waterfall.  For awhile, I didn't know which way was up, I couldn't breathe, I couldn't think.  The waters are still tumultuous, but I'm finding the currents.  Sometimes I bash against a rock & the breath is knocked out of me.  I'm swimming.

I was in process of letting go of a marriage, untangling and releasing the rotted connections.  And then, boom, those connections are severed.  It will take time for me to sort out this new reality.

I've learned so much.  About myself, about others.  So much has been stripped away, leaving me with clarity.  My people pleasing was brutally ripped from me and I've never felt so loved in my life.  I must be doing something right to have received the breadth and depth of love that was my lifeline.  I've discovered who loves me as I am with no mask, no pretense.  I've discovered what I'm really made of, how solid the foundation that I laid when I quit drinking 27 years ago is.  I'm rediscovering parts of myself that were put aside during my marriage and building a new me.  I've rediscovered joy and fun.  I'm seeing someone romantically, which was quite unexpected.  It began as friendship, and has become something more.  And instead of trying to control it, I'm just going with the flow....

And sometimes, today, when I feel great joy, I also feel the sadness.  About what was,  what was lost.  I lost him twice.  I'm grieving both.  I lost the man I loved slowly over time, without knowing how & why.  And then he died and I lost him forever in any way shape or form, in this plane at least.

So here I am, 3 months later.  The pain doesn't ravage me the way it did early on.  I'm still searching for my new reality, my new me.  I'm still grieving & releasing.  And today, I'm just sad....

Overdosed on Advice

Here's the thing about grief - it's exhausting.  Physically, emotionally, deep in the gut, into the soul exhausting.  Each day that I get out of bed is a major triumph.  Making coffee, showering & going to work are major accomplishments.  Anything more is bonus.  Most days by 3 or 4 pm, I just want to go home and zone out; watch tv, play computer games, anything to not feel anymore (unfortunately those old standbys - drinking, drugging, shopping, eating & sex - just don't work for me anymore....).   Sometimes I try to make plans to go to dinner or walk with a friend, but most of the time trying to juggle schedules fries out my brain circuits.  I just don't have the energy or patience to deal with even minor frustrations.

So add to the exhaustion all of the well meaning advice and I overload.  During the best of times I have low tolerance for advice, especially of the "should" variety.  "Should" ALWAYS feels like criticism.  I'm doing it wrong and you know better.  Advice is a gentler variety of "should", but to me it feels like criticism disguised as helpfulness.  I usually feel like I have to explain myself, that I've already thought about your great idea for me and have decided not to do it for a reason.  In good times, I've learned to just say thanks and change the subject.  But these are not good times.  As people give me advice, I feel my already tight chest constricting further.  The tension rises.  If I'm lucky they leave before I hit my limit.  On several occasions, I've put my hand up and told them they need to stop immediately.

I'm struggling minute by minute to maintain my balance.  It's very fragile and precarious right now.  A friend described it perfectly; I'm standing on a disc on top of a ball.  It's a constant dance to stay on the disc.  And then someone comes along with advice.  Now I have new weight added to the disc and it's very easy to TILT.  And when I TILT, it's huge.  It's flight or fight time, baby.  Since I don't like to cause wreckage that I later have to make amends for, flight is my favorite.  In person, I bolt.  Fast.  Or on the phone I abruptly end the conversation.  And then I break down sobbing hysterically.  Or sometimes I just go for immediate hysterical sobbing.

Last Monday I ended up in the ER.  I thought I was having a stroke.  Luckily it turns out to "just" be migraines with aura.  Mostly brought about by high blood pressure.  I think I overdosed on advice.

I realize that most of the people with advice love me & care about me.  They hate seeing me in pain and/or it makes them uncomfortable.  But there's so much conflicting advice.  Exercise.  Rest.  Keep busy.  Feel your feelings.  Take antidepressants.  And on and on.  Right now I don't have the emotional fortitude to deflect the barrage of advice.  It overwhelms me.  "How can I do all of that?"  "Oh fuck.  I'm not doing it "right"." "What I'm doing isn't enough."

The people who are helping me the most right now are the ones that tell they're proud of me.  I'm doing an amazing job.  They're impressed by me.  One friend told me I'm a rock star.  And it's not people I'm trying to impress.  I pour my guts out.  I babble.  I process.  I'm raw.  When they tell me I'm doing great, it feels true & real.  It gives me the strength to continue on one more day.

My father died on Wednesday.  I think it's a bloody fucking miracle I'm at all functional right now.

I Can't Stop Crying

A couple of weeks after my husband died, an acquaintance emailed me condolences and then said "I hope everyday gets better.  I know first hand that it actually does. "  I'm glad that was her experience, but it is most definitely NOT MINE.  At that stage, the numbness & shock were wearing off and I felt worse, much worse.  It's all a rollercoaster.  Some days I'm functional, sometimes I'm actually productive, but some days I'm plunged into grief and sorrow so strong I can barely walk.  Today is one of those days.  I managed to get up, do my morning writing, take the car in for repair and go to work.  All this while crying.  In grief I've developed a new cry - the steady moan cry.  Previously I've had the silent, streaming tears and the deep hiccupy sobs.  This one is new.  And it just keeps going.  I want to stuff it down, stuff it back in, but it insists on coming out.  


I finally stopped crying enough to open my store & be personable with customers and then someone, a man, tried to tell me something I "should" do about my signage.  I crumbled.  After he left, I locked the door and fell to the floor and just wailed.  I often wish we were back in the Victorian Age with their Mourning Etiquette.    Mourning clothes as a display of inner feelings.  Plus it alerted those around to your mental and emotional state.  And while I used to think that a year or two of required mourning for the widow was excessive, today I'd love to have the luxury of that time and the patience of those around for the grieving/mourning process.  I'm raw.  I'm fragile.  I'm also strong, strong enough to make it through.  Sometimes I'm so exhausted, I don't want to go on.  What keeps me going is not wanting to inflict the pain I'm in on the ones I love.   I don't want anyone who loves me to suffer the pain of losing me one minute before it's my time to go.   So today I cry.  I cry until I wonder how many tears I have in me.  Everything hurts.  Everything aches.  I cry some more.  

One Month Ago Today

Today is especially difficult.  It's been a month since my husband died, it's the 4th of July and the Higgs  Boson particle was just discovered.

Recently I was ranting about how much the phrase "This too shall pass" pissed me off, especially as a response to my grief.  If I'm supposed to feel my feelings and be in the present, how exactly is "This too shall pass" an appropriate response?  It's not, but it allows other people a way to dismiss and avoid my pain.  A friend asked if the pain was in the future, thinking about things down the road.  I replied that grief is in the moment - more than any other feeling I've had when I feel my loss it is in the now.

Grief is a series of realizations that the person you loved is really, truly dead and gone.  The first 10 days, it was a series of shock waves.  Everything felt surreal.  I kept thinking "This is just a bad dream and I'll wake up."  And then I'd realize it was real and be struck with a tsunami of loss, pain, grief.  Every time I run across a connection and realize anew that he is dead, I'm struck with a sharp, debilitating pain.  I'll cry, I'll call someone and talk, I'll do whatever I need to do to survive it.  And then I pick myself up and move on.

So today, I woke up at 5am.  I seem to have PTSD - a month ago, I got a call at 5am that he probably wouldn't last the day.  Ever since, I wake up at 5am.  Sometimes I'm able to get back to sleep, but mostly I lie in bed in that region between wakefulness and sleep, and my brain thinks about the reality that he's no longer here and my life is irrevocably changed.  This morning I just kept thinking "It's real. It's been a month."  Holidays suck right now.  Celebration is the furthest thing from my mind.  Just getting up, working, taking care of myself is challenging enough.  Sometimes I even have moments where his death/my loss aren't at the forefront of my mind.  So tonight I'll hide out and avoid the celebrations.  As for the Higgs Boson particle - he loved science.  He would ponder gravity and black holes and share his thoughts with me and we would have lengthy discussions about science and spirituality.  When I saw the stuff about the particle, I wanted to email him links to articles, and then one more time it struck me, he's gone... forever.  There won't be any talking about the particle with him.  He won't drive me crazy talking incessantly about it for a week.  And even though it could be irritating, his enthusiasm was contagious.  He kept my mind sharp.  And I learned far more than I realized with him in my life.

So I'm crying again.  I've already cried several times this morning.  And now it's time for me to pick myself up, get ready for work and keep moving forward.