The Balancing Act

“So be sure when you step, Step with care and great tact. And remember that life’s A Great Balancing Act. And will you succeed? Yes! You will, indeed! (98 and ¾ percent guaranteed) Kid, you’ll move mountains.” ― Dr. Seuss, Oh, The Places You’ll Go!

Careful, careful, oh…there you go, there you go…you got it! Balance! Balance? Yes, balance!  Very soon after I was widowed, a huge sense of disbelief settled in…I think we call it denial.  I couldn’t believe that this was happening to me.  I couldn’t believe that it was my husband who had become ill and died.  I couldn’t believe that I would be raising my kids on my own.  I was in a state of complete disbelief.  I discussed this with a dear friend of mine, who is also a MSW, and she told me that someday I would be able to balance the disbelief with the reality.  I didn’t believe her…not one bit.

Sitting here today, I have found that balance.  I still can’t believe this is the life I lead, but it is.  Make sense?  I still can hardly believe all that I have survived…but I have survived it.  I look around and I don’t always recognize my life, but I know it is mine and I own it.  I have found, well, really worked very hard, and found a way to survive.  I even thrive most days now.  I am happy most days.  I laugh most days.  I enjoy my work, my kids, my life…most days.

I can still hardly believe it though.

I balance every day.  As a sole parent, it is the balance that holds everything in motion.  One little glitch…and whoops…the whole thing can fall off track.  I wrote once about balancing spinning plates…it is much like that.  I can run and spin and spin, but every now and then I may trip and lose a plate.  I may trip over my own feet or sometimes things are thrown in my path that trip me.  It doesn’t take much to let a plate fall, to get off balance…that’s how it is when the balance is so delicate.

I do think that balancing takes great care.  I do think it takes great tact. I think there is much inside me that I don’t let out…so I can keep the balance.  I think sometimes it builds up so much that it spills out and I trip over it.  I do think that it’s hard to be the one holding the scales balanced for my family…but I will always do it…no matter how hard or what the personal cost is.

So is balance success?  I do think it is…I think the ability to hold things in balance…my disbelief, my reality, my grief, my joy, my stress, my relaxation, my responsibility, my fun, my care for others, my care for myself…I think that is success.  It took a very, long time to be able to balance these things, even for a small amount of time.  Now that I can do it pretty regularly, I find that pretty amazing.  I do count that as a personal success.  If I slip, that’s ok.  If something throws off the balance, I try to address it and get back in sync again. Most times I can do that.  Most days, I have balance.  On those days when I don’t or can’t, I forgive myself, pick myself up and try again….and again…and again.

Balance.

Disbelief, reality.

Balance.

Success.

“Once there was a way…

to get back homeward…once there was a way to get back home.”  Golden Slumbers,  The Beatles

So once there was a place that felt like home.  There was a place where I felt safe, loved, protected…home.  Eight years ago, the door blew open, my love left and my home didn’t feel like home anymore.  That place, that state of being, that knowing and belonging slipped through my hands like sand.  I tried to hold onto it, but it wasn’t possible.  My home, my heart was empty.  This emptiness was to become the deepest, darkest place I have ever experienced.  Every ounce of joy spilled out of me and I was filled to the top with sadness, loneliness and brokenness.  I felt abandoned even though I hadn’t been.  I felt alone, even though I was surrounded by those who loved me.  I felt only pain.  I never thought I would recover.  I sincerely didn’t think I would survive. I knew I would die of a broken heart.

I could never go home again.  I would never be in my safest place again.  I would never be held by him again.  It was over, forever.  It was beyond my comprehension. Home. Gone. Forever.

Looking back, it feels like I slept through the years to survive.  Grief was thick and it filled my waking and sleeping hours.  I longed to be comforted, but comfort never came.  I crawled into bed alone every night, hoping I’d wake to my former life, but that day never came, it never could…there was no way back home.  Even if it didn’t feel like it, I was the only home…home was me…for me, for my boys.

So, for many years, I have been carrying the weight of widowhood.  I have been carrying the weight of sole parent.  I am stronger.  I can handle a heavy load, yet I still long to go home.  I long to rest in his arms at the end of the day.  I still long to have him give me the “don’t worry baby, you’re with me.” I still am bewildered that I do it every day…without him.  Every now and then it hurts deeply again.  Every now and then I have to stop and remember to breathe.  Every now and then, I must stop and remember how good I had it.  I must be grateful for before, during and after.  Some years pass more easily than others, some anniversaries go by and I don’t remember them until they are gone.  This year though…I am remembering that I can’t find my way back home.  There has been so much growth, so much change, I’m not sure I’d recognize the way home even if it appeared magically before me.  How can so much change so radically?

Home was ripped away from us.  He was ripped away from us.

Sometimes, I look back and think that maybe that part of my life was the dream…the part that I just imagined…it seems so far away now…only eight years since his last breath and my life is so different.

It is different because I loved him…not so much because of the tragedy.  It is different because I was changed by his love. I hope he was changed by mine.  I am changed because he trusted me to carry on without him…he knew I could.  I wasn’t so sure.

Eight years ago, I sat on the bed next to him, nursing our baby. While I sat, he was leaving us.  His breathing changed.  I set our baby in the crib.  His breathing rattled and then his breathing stopped.  I laid my head on his chest and his heart beat was gone…so many times in an embrace I had felt his heartbeat, I heard it…this time…it was gone, he was gone, home was gone.

” And in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love, you make…”

Matters of my heart…

So, I’m wondering about my heart again.  It’s a strange thing to know that I am ok on my own.  I wonder if my heart will know when and where it’s right to surrender again. I think the new found confidence in knowing that I can really, really do all of this on my own makes me unsure when it comes to matters of my heart.  I’ve been on my own for so long now, some days, I really think that I will be alone…well, forever.

When I was married, I knew that I had to have a life of my own to maintain a healthy relationship with my husband.  I couldn’t lose sight of me in him.  I have always been independent…guess that comes with being the oldest child in a large family.  I knew that I had to have friends that met the needs that my husband didn’t meet for me.  I learned through one failed marriage before Dave that no one person can ever meet your needs.  I was very young when I married the first time.  I had no idea who I was or who I was to become…really, really no idea.

With one failed marriage under my belt, I was very careful the second time.  I was pretty good about knowing what I wanted.  I wasn’t all that good about communicating it yet though.  I learned that skill with Dave.  We worked hard through the years to be happy and be together.  It was hard work that was filled with smiles, laughs and many good times.  There were many difficult times too.  That happens.  We spent 14 years together…good, bad and ugly…but also many beautiful.  My heart was in it fully and completely.  That being said, it still took many of those 14 years for me to believe that he wanted me, loved me, and would stay.  After the first marriage failure, I wasn’t sure I was worth staying with…

But he stayed.

He stayed for many, many years.

So, now, he’s been gone for many years.  I have now spent eight years alone.  Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that I would be on my own this long.  I like being in a couple.  I like being with someone.  Now I am used to being alone.  I think it muddies up the matters of my heart.

I’m not sure anymore.  I’m not sure when someone is attracted to me and if they are I really don’t know what to do with it.  I don’t really go out looking for it either.  I’m not sure if this is good or bad.  I was lucky to have one very sweet fella fall into my world for a bit.  It was nice.  Here is where my confusion begins though…I don’t know what vibes I send out because I am ok on my own.  I’m not sure what type of signals I emit.  Although I don’t seek out an intimate relationship, it doesn’t mean that wouldn’t appreciate one.  I actually think I’d be pretty good at it again…

With matters of the heart though, it is still not clear for me.  I am still insecure about myself.  Although I know my list of competencies, I find myself doubting my appeal.  I just don’t know if I have it anymore…

It’s so silly…but there it is.  It is so weird to feel insecure about matters of the heart when I know all the things I have survived and grown through.  It is so strange to feel competent in running my home, my career, raising my boys (well this one wanes at times) but not feel like I’m not enough for a relationship…

Kind of feel like I did when it all began…

I never thought I’d have to start over again when it came to matters of the heart, yet here I sit at the beginning again.

Faith?

It’s nearly Easter again.  Lent has passed for another year and for me that it really all that it has done…passed. The three holiest days in my faith tradition end today and while I recognized that they were happening, it was nothing like it was.  I don’t believe that I know what it is like to lose faith completely, but I understand what a lengthy lapse in faith is. I also know that a lapse in faith, a transformation of some sort is absolutely normal after experiencing a life altering event.

During Dave’s illness and death, I clung to my faith.  As I was drowning in losing him and knowing he would die, I remained strong, steadfast and true to my roots.  I prayed for him, with him, with others, on my own, I trusted that this would be survivable.  I felt like his illness was about new life, in a good way, not the way I have actually experienced this new life following his death.  In those early years after he died, I begged God for mercy. I begged God to lessen the pain.  I begged God to wake me from the nightmare that had become my reality. I begged God to bring him back to me.  I surrendered myself. I was able to keep moving, but began to feel more and more abandoned by the God I had worked so hard for and trusted.

As the years go by, I try to hang on to the little miracles that I witnessed along the journey of his illness, death, and my life after his death. They were there. It gets much harder to believe in those miracles though when I didn’t receive the one miracle that I wanted most…his complete cure, recovery and survival…

I will never understand why he died.  I will never understand why my children didn’t get to grow up with their father with them. I will never understand why after so many years of searching for a love that brought me peace, it was ripped away from me.  There are no answers for those whys.  There is no reason for this…no matter what people believe about a “God’s plan”, no matter what I may have believed about “God’s plan.”

My experience of losing him, watching my children lose their father has transformed my beliefs forever.  I am still rocked to the core by the beauty and goodness that surrounds me daily.  Those moments of beauty that are overwhelming and move me in a way I am unable to put into words remind me that there is something bigger than me out there.  I see other people get the miracle I prayed so desperately for…there must be something.  I have also been rocked to my core by heartbreak, sadness, despair and loneliness. I don’t feel that we were unworthy of a miracle…but I don’t cling to faith the way I did when he was sick and died.  I still feel inspired, but it is rarely to the faith life that I knew so well, the faith life that I worked hard to let others see through me.

The best way I can describe it…disconnected.  I watch the church that I belonged to transform, for better or for worse, and I don’t feel like it fits anymore.  My heart is less tolerant of intolerance.  My soul longs for place to belong that doesn’t exclude others for how they look, who they love, or does the judging of character that is God’s job alone.  This land of milk and honey doesn’t come easily though.  Church is filled with people, their bias, their judgment, their intolerance, their need to be superior or have power…just like everywhere else humans exist.  The last bit, that last sentence is really the entire reason I worked in church…I wanted to show others that sinners, broken, hurting, forgiving, hopeful people were on the inside of church.  I have been all of those things and I was there.  I wanted young people to feel compassion, not judgment.  I wanted to show that the most broken could find peace through community.  It wasn’t always my lived experience, but I had experienced it throughout my journey and I wanted to be able to give back as others had given to me.

Here’s the hard part now…I’m not sure that I need to practice an organized faith to be that or experience those things.  I still try to do those things, but from my plain Jane, everyday girl role, not as a minister or representative of a church.  My largest struggle is how this affects my boys.  Unfortunately, only time will tell how they are impacted by my faith journey and choices in practice.  There are moments I feel that I am depriving them of something they deserve and other moments when I feel that I am somehow saving them from heartbreak.  My big boy has seen me in both roles.  He saw me in active ministry.  He saw me catechize, he experienced ritual and community in and through my faith life.  He now claims to be atheist.  At this point in our journey, I am ok with this.  I have enough experience with faith development to let him find his way.  My concern for him…what if I’m not modeling anymore?  What if my lapse in faith has caused his disbelief? Hmmm…

My little one has only really experienced mommy after daddy died.  This mommy went to church (sometimes), prayed, but didn’t catechize him.  His mommy felt betrayed, abandoned and has been searching for a place to belong.  He hasn’t had the experience of ritual, catechesis, and community that his brother had.  He hasn’t been initiated into our faith tradition.  It is his experience that brings me the most pain and guilt.  I wonder how I will share a faith that I often doubt and how this affects his ideas of God, love, permanence and eternity.  I wonder how it affects his grief journey.  I wonder how it will affect him all around…hmmm…

So this Easter, I continue to search.  I look to my heart, my soul, my very being and to God to continue to be open, loving and compassionate.  I hope eternally that my actions won’t ruin the relationship that my children are to have with God.  I hope that beyond practice and tradition, I will continue to experience the love of God and community.  Easter is about new life, that much I still know.  What I didn’t know is how many different ways we can receive new life…now, I do.  I have been transformed.  It is no surprise that my faith life has changed drastically.  The real question for me now is, how and will my faith transcend the change? How will I be different since receiving my new life…this forced life…and if faith will still be present?

A definite work in progress…maybe even a leap of faith?

Whoomp…there it is

I have been feeling pretty good lately, pretty normal…as relative as normal is. I have going through the days happily, enjoying my work, enjoying my kiddos and even added some extra things that I enjoy outside the responsibilities.  Simply stated…life is good.  One phrase I thought I’d never utter again.

So this week, my big boy had a milestone.  He is starting a new phase of his life, a wonderful phase of his life.  He asked a sweet, young lady out on a date.  This is so wonderful.  This is so fabulous! He mustered up the courage, asked, and she accepted.  It is a big deal for him.  Of course, he is totally nonchalant about it.  He came to me and asked me about my schedule for the weekend, told me his plan, and was completely thoughtful about the whole thing.  He shared the whole process with me…and for those of you who know how much I love the process…this was such a gift!

The day came.  We all went our ways for the day.  He asked.  She said yes! When we got home after school, he told me about it.  I am so thrilled for him.  I am a tad nervous about it, but thrilled about it at the same time.

A few hours later, I was back in bedroom alone and WHOOMP!   There it was…my grief swooped in, buckled my knees, and blurred my eyes.  I stood looking out the window as all those widowy feelings consumed me.  I was sad for him, because his dad is not here to guide him through this moment of his life.  I was sad that his dad wasn’t here to hug him and tell him what good kid he is.  I was sad that Dave didn’t get to see his boy turning into a man.  I was sad for me.   I was sad for me because that familiar feeling snuck in and whispered that no one else in the world cares for my boys like I do…and I don’t have him here to share this stuff with anymore.  I miss the joking, the smiles, those parent moments…I just felt so alone again.

My eyes welled up with tears, but no crying came.  My body felt the tension that my sadness can bring, but it did not overwhelm me.  My heart ached, but it felt strong at the same time.  As much as my grief can surprise me, I can withstand it now.  It is like standing in the ocean and letting the large wave come over you and not losing your stance.  It came. I felt it. It hurt, but I am not broken this time.  I held my ground. I let all the thoughts fill my head and then let them exit my mind.  I can let myself miss him like I did in those first moments when he took his last breath and still lead a happy life.  The two have come to some type of odd balance…at least this time.

I reached out to several friends to share my part of my boy’s new dating exploration.  They may not have known that it was one of my survival techniques when my heart is recovering, but maybe they do.  They were open and let me share.  Although it may not be the same as having his dad here to share it with, it was nice.  Being able to have these friends out there that let me process my life, my experiences and see those experiences reflected back to me through our conversations makes a valuable difference for me.  I have to be vulnerable and believe that they care enough to listen and also courageous enough to reach out to them.  It has taken me years to build the courage to reach out to others.  It has taken loving, patient friends who will let me contact them with the mundane…and then just listen and chat about it.  They are kind and let me interrupt their lives with my routine endeavors…that many times seem like daily things, but are big transitions for me.

I love them for that!

So, my big boy will have his date.  I will hold my breath until he gets home to tell me how it went.  Nearly like normal…we will balance our missing Dave with how life is now…and hopefully move toward tomorrow with more love and fortitude in our hearts than we had today.

A girl like me

I remember feeling so isolated and alone after Dave died.  I remember feeling like there were few who would understand.  I remember going out and about and only seeing couples and complete families (those with a dad).  I remember feeling like things had forever changed and there would be no return to the normal I once knew.

Those first years, everywhere I went it felt like I stuck out and everyone knew I was different.  My sorrow, my heartbreak, my brokenness seemed to reflect through all the eyes that saw me.  Many days, I felt invisible.  It felt like I was in a daze and wandering around without being seen or cared for at all. Grief had taken my own existence away from me.  It had created a me that barely co-existed with anyone, anywhere.

As the years passed, I began fighting my way back into life again.  I began going out again.  I spoke to friends about other things than my tragedy.  I met new people who did not know my story.  This life ran parallel to the isolated life.  I still felt separated.  I still walked in the world of the grieving through support groups, widowed friends who understood, and my own heartbreak.  It is only in the last few years, I have felt like I’ve assimilated.  It has only been the last few years that I felt more included, seen, felt and well, somewhat normal again.  I know that the normal that I am now is very different than the normal I was, but I am feeling…well, like I am part of the world again, less invisible.

Last week was spring break for my boys and me.  I noticed things that I haven’t noticed. The places we went and visited, I saw more people like me.  I seemed to see more moms with kids, but no dad…women with children baring the responsibility all by themselves.

It felt like they were everywhere.  I wonder if it is a new thing or if my eyes have just been opened in a new way.  There was another thing…I didn’t feel sad.  I didn’t feel sad to be out and about with my boys, just me.  I didn’t feel broken.  It just felt like us.  This is a new thing for me.  The world revealed more women like me to me…but more importantly, I saw that we are who we are now and that is ok.  We are a complete family.  Even without Dave, even through the heartbreak, we are complete.  We have come through this tragedy and are doing ok.  Do we have our bad moments? Of course.  Is every moment perfect? Never…but, I didn’t feel broken anymore.  I didn’t feel like every moment was missing something.  I enjoyed the moments as they were. I enjoyed my family as it is.  I didn’t ask myself what ifs…

Each day of my journey has brought me a new understanding of who I am.  Next month, we will mark the eighth anniversary of his death and we will march into year nine without him.  To me, this is unbelievable.  I never thought I’d make it through a day, let alone eight years.  Many days, I am amazed.  Amazed by the people who have helped and loved us through all of this, by the strength and courage my boys show every day, by the mentors who modeled survival to me, and by the mere fact that we have survived.

So for all the girls (and guys) out there like me, hold on.  If I can get here, I’m pretty sure you can make it too.  My heart was so shattered; I thought it would never heal.  I was broken beyond my own comprehension.  I was beaten down to my core.  I could not see a way, a path, a reason to keep going without him…but, I am here.  I am here.  I have found joy again and am grateful.

Discovery

I think one of the strangest places that my journey of widowhood has taken me is this place of discovery.  Discovery brought forth by the need to survive.  This new place is definitely earned.  I struggled to survive for so many years.  I searched my being for a way to get through each minute, each breath when Dave died.  At 39 years old, I was a widow.  I was a mom with two little boys looking to me for guidance through this unknown journey of grief.  I didn’t have a clue how to survive.  It was all trial and error. Surprisingly, here I sit nearly 8 years later…still alive.  That alone is a something that I doubted early on in the journey.  I thought I might really die of a broken heart.  If my own pain wasn’t enough, I had to watch my children struggle to understand how this horrible thing had happened to us.

A few years shy of a decade later, I sit in a place of discovery.  I have learned new things, become more capable and believe it or not…more loving too.  I am kinder to myself. I have discovered things that I never would have learned if this wasn’t my journey.  I am more appreciative of my family, my friends, and my life.  At first, none of this was true…it was just breathing. That was it…nothing more, nothing less. Now life is beginning to take my breath away again and I can see the beauty around me without thinking that life isn’t fair.  It took a long time to not feel ripped off by the universe.  It took a long time to think that my life would have joy in it again.  Step by step, discovery by discovery I find myself in a new place…is it better…who knows?  I don’t think anything would have been better than my boys having their dad watch them grow up.  I don’t think I’ll ever be ever to measure better or worse.  There’s just no telling when your world is torn apart.  I didn’t get to see the life I’d planned, so how can I judge?

What I can say? I can say that I have grown and continue to discover a woman that I didn’t know before he died.  Would I have grown and changed? Of course! Would I have grown and changed into this woman? I don’t think so.  There’s something to be said for being brought to the darkest place you’ve ever been, emotionally, spiritually, physically, well…in every way…and then finding your way back to light, joy and love.  I never expected to find my way.  I am living proof that it is possible.  It has taken much time and extreme effort.  It has taken every ounce of courage I have.  It still does…every day.

It is still hard to crawl into an empty bed each night.  It is still hard to come home to more work and no one who wants to hear my story.  It is still hard to watch the boys grow and change and not have him here to share it all.  It is still hard to bear all the responsibility of being a sole parent, sole financial provider, sole emotional provider…but it is all doable.  Over the last year or so, it has even become a life I appreciate and enjoy.  That fact alone is a discovery I thought I would never know.  It can be amazing…and the even bigger thing…I appreciate it all more.  I know the struggle.  I know the sadness, the heartbreak and it makes the happiness sweeter than I have ever known.

Guiding, trusting, enduring

I’ve always followed my intuition.  I listen to my heart, look for signs or guidance and follow what brings me peace.  I started doing this more and more as I got older.  When I was young, I would have the intuition, the inkling, but didn’t trust myself or have the confidence to think that it would be the right thing for me. I started by trusting impulses and that grew into a somewhat reflective process that guides me.  Following my intuition has led me to beautiful places and to some not so great places.  It has planted me solidly in good decisions and bad.  It most often led me to being a better person, but there have been more than a few times I look back and wonder what the hell I was thinking??

When I was left alone to survive and care for the boys, my heart shattered, my strength depleted, it was hard to find my intuition.  My inner voice was drowning in sadness and despair.  I was only guided by the simple fact that Dave was gone.  I didn’t know what to do or how to survive.  I knew I had to endure, but I didn’t know how that would happen.  I felt like the heavens and all good things had abandoned me.  How after such a long search to find love had it been ripped away too soon and so tragically?

In the first years after he died, I would look to him for guidance.  I would desperately search for signs that he believed in me and that he would somehow point me in the right direction.  I gave up my voice.  I gave up my intuition for the voice that asked me “what would Dave want me to do?”  My voice, my intuition evolved into more of a to-do list dominated by what I thought he might want.  At that point in my journey, it was a way to survive.  It was a way for me to keep him alive.  The unfortunate part about this was that I ignored my intuition.  I still trusted my heart, but it wasn’t clear or intentional and I wasn’t really listening to the stirrings of my being carefully.  It’s hard to define.  I was trusting what I thought was my heart, but it was really me desperately searching for a way for this to be over, for him to still be alive, for the nightmare I was living to end.

As years passed, my voice began to emerge from the emptiness again.  As it started to whisper that I would not be able to endure for the long run living as I was.  I didn’t trust it.  As it said there had to be something different and I would have to search for another way, I rejected it.  Slowly, I began to listen to the stirrings of my soul, my heart.  The stirrings that weren’t about Dave, but were about me, began to surface to my consciousness.  Although I had been enduring widowhood, I began to change the way it looked to me. I knew something else was there for me.  I knew all the way through my being that there had to be more than just endurance.  I was sure about it.  The problem was that I was sure about it, like I was sure that I heard the phone ring or the baby cry when I was in the shower…I was positive I heard it, I knew it, but when I got down to it, it didn’t happen…there was nothing there when I ventured out to find out where it was.

I had to trust myself through the good choices and the bad.  I had to trust myself when I went back to work full time the first time, only to see the boys spiral back into grief.  I had to trust that giving up income for presence in my children’s lives was the way to go, no matter the financial struggles I faced.  I had to trust that my intention to teach was solid even when my own educational experience left much to be desired. I had to trust that giving my heart away again was the right thing to do even if pain followed.

So, after many years of searching for my intuition again and searching for the courage to trust it regardless of the result, has led me to place beyond endurance alone.  It has created a joy, found through surrender.  It has taken my despair of not having the life that I wanted so desperately and transformed it into a life that enhanced by those very experiences I have endured steadfastly.  I am now in a place where I can hear my voice again.  I can still be guided by Dave’s love for me and his boys, but instead of desperately searching for him to return, I found myself again.  I found a me that is more tender, more wise, more forgiving, more moved by beauty, more profoundly grateful for love and for this life.  I found a me that is more than enduring, a me that truly trusts her heart and finds joy in the decisions made carefully (led by intuition) even when they take me to unexpected places…good and not so good.  I have found a place beyond enduring…happy again despite the odds.

Steady as she goes

Busy, busy, busy, that’s me.  Keeping myself busy has never been a problem.  Too much time to think…well, I can always fit in the time to over process anything.  My mind is probably four times busier than the busiest me.  The gift of busy though is that I don’t have a whole bunch of extra time to act on the things that go through my mind incessantly.  I am a reflective person, so I continue to take time to contemplate where I’ve been, what I’m doing and where I want to be…maybe too much.

Another gift of busy is that I don’t have too much time to contemplate the sorrow I still feel in my life.  I still have a hole in my heart and nothing fills it.  I still have an empty heart in many respects.  I am still lonely.  If I stay busy, I only have to think about this, to feel these things when the momentum slows.  During the week, the momentum never slows and I can fill myself with work, family and my obligations.  When the weekend comes, especially after the kids have gone to bed, the aloneness hits me in the face.  No one to talk with, no one to sit with, no one who wants to know how I am.  It still leaves me feeling hollow.  As much as I do for others, when Saturday night rolls around, I’m still sitting alone in my living room thinking too much.

I have filled my life with many relationships.  I always have.  I have friends, coworkers, acquaintances who fill my life with laughter and camaraderie.   During the work day, I am blessed to be surrounded by students who make my life a joy.  Now that the boys are older, I have time to do some of the things I enjoy too.  I get to spend time coaching and taking care of myself too.  At home, my boys keep me alive and ticking. Not a shabby life by any means.

I don’t even mind planning ahead a bit now.  I can look at the future and not be overwhelmed.  Even looking forward is a huge feat for me.  I can remember when looking to the future meant that I would have a plan for dinner and even that brought pain.  Then slowly it meant I had plans for work.  Now, I may even have plans and goals that will lead me to more fulfilled place.  I have plans that even make my heart happy…sometimes.

Nearly at the eighth anniversary of his death now, I can see light in the tunnel.  I know there is not really an end to this tunnel and as long as I am moving forward, healing will continue to come to me.  My hope is that if I keep the forward movement steady, the healing may lead me to a place where I feel loved again.  I know I can keep living this life as I do…alone…but I don’t want to do that.  I want to have someone to share my life with.  For many years, I felt this was a cop-out to want to have someone in my life.  I thought I had to do this on my own.   I imagined my journey as a widow was to break me of this enabling need and prove to myself that I didn’t need someone in my life.

I look at those words and think “how absurd!”  As a person who spends her life building relationships with others…first in ministry and now as a teacher…how can I ever imagine that!  Relationships are paramount to me professionally and personally.  It is important to me to be a loving, compassionate, committed parent, friend, colleague…well, all of it.  Why wouldn’t it be important to me to be a loving, compassionate, committed partner, lover, and confidant with and for someone?

So as busy as I may be and as steady as I hold the line, I still will keep my heart open.  Not in the way a young girl looks for love, but in a way that I now know.  I now know that I can survive one of the greatest heartbreaks a person can imagine.  I know that life and love are fleeting.  I know that people come with baggage and that is what gives them depth.  I know that my heart can expand to embrace another in ways that I never would have imagined possible.  I know the gifts I have to offer and the challenges that I struggle with every day.  I know how not to lose myself to another.  If I stay steady on my path, if I keep my mind and heart open, I know I won’t face lonely forever.  I know that his death wasn’t the death of me…even though it felt like it so often for so long.  I know that as important as it is to just keep moving, keep busy…it is also important to stop, look around and assess…even when I’m lonely and feeling like solo may never end.

Steady as she goes.

It all adds up

I’ve been in kind of a funk the last week or so.  It’s not a full on wave of grief.  I’m feeling reflective again. I’m not sure if it’s the beautiful weather here or that the spring events are beginning again, a series of events causing me to remember, or perhaps that I’m still doing all this solo. I’m guessing it’s a combination of these things.  I’ve been considering how I will lead a fulfilled life as a single person…a new idea for me.  I’ve been reflecting that I am who I am today, for the most part, because he died. I’ve been struggling with the gratitude I feel because I do feel like I’m the most authentic me that I have ever been…but I wouldn’t be here without the fact that my husband died.

I never considered the fact that I would be single in my forties. When Dave and I married, I imagined as most people do…that we’d have each other for the duration.  Well, we did, but he left a little too early for me.  So, here I sit, well over forty, exploring what I want again.  I have had a taste of being out there again, but I chose a very safe place/person to start with and am not sure if I really risked too much. The thing I’ve noticed as I’ve been walking this single journey is that are plenty of folks out here living lives they enjoy on their own.  Inspired by a friend who really lives his life and enjoys it, I have opened my mind to the fact that single does not have to mean alone or lonely. As I began considering this, I looked around and realized that I was building a life that I am happy with even though I don’t have one of the things that I thought was essential for a happy life…it is really a paradigm shift for me to believe that I can be happy without being someone’s someone.  I have for much of my life measured myself by what others think of me, feel for me, and meeting my responsibilities to those others, not by what I my soul desires.

Most of who I am right now is because Dave died.  It’s a hard thing to measure though, because really, who knows if I would of done the things I have done if he were still living? I’d like to think I would have still had some of the same ambitions and achievements, but I may not have been pushed outside my comfort zone in the way I have been.  I have had to decide on my own who I will be, what is best for my family, and how to survive.  I have had to follow my heart without having my heart’s desires affirmed by another person.  It is very different for me. Every step I take is all me.  I hate it, but am invigorated by it also.  Maybe hate is a strong word…I am coming to appreciate it in new ways more and more as time passes.  I can truly claim  the direction I have gone was through my own ambition and motivation…for better or for worse.

Here’s the really hard thing to reconcile…I have only become this person because he died.  Of course, there is the element of how I responded to losing him, but I want to put that aside for a moment.  I have courage that I never had before his death.  I have a different self-confidence because I have survived losing the man I love so deeply. I am more comfortable in my own skin because he left me here to struggle through on my own, because he knew I could and would do it.  I don’t think he knew how I would do it, but he knew I would.  I knew I had to do it.  So, is it only through the obligation of “must do” that I am who I am? Maybe. It is so weird to be in a place that I am grateful to him for everything he went through so I could be the woman I am today…and yet, I would change it all back in a moment if he could live and be with his children, with all of us again.

I guess it all adds up.  Who I was before him, who I was with him, who I was because he loved me and who I am because and since he died accumulates into the woman I am right now. It’s a combination of experiences that I have loved, hated, and survived nonetheless.  It is the combination of walking through the darkest moments I have ever known and trusting that there would be a light when I submerged.  As I begin to sit in the light again and appreciate the warmth, I wonder who I would have been without the darkness, but just as I can’t know who I would be if he was sitting beside me today, I can’t know who I would be without the darkness.  Coming to appreciate the journey is an odd thing…something I never thought possible.  As the years pass, as I change, as my children grow and become more of who they will become, I really do appreciate this journey more…because it really does add up…and sometimes, just sometimes, the journey will take us to amazing places we never imagined.