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.