A change will do me good…

After Dave died, every change was painful.  In those first days, I wanted time to stay frozen.  Even better…time would go backward for me and I would land back in his arms.  I would wake up and he’d be right there next to me, still healthy, still well. I remember going through his things, feeling like I was violating his privacy, and trying to throw away even a paper receipt would send me reeling.  Change was the enemy.  Change had been thrust upon me and I wasn’t going to give it anymore…I had already given him up and I couldn’t bear more change.

That was how I felt.  Despite these feelings though, throughout my time since him, I have still changed.  Imagine that! I have even agreed and chosen change along the way…so odd that one of the things that brought me the most pain, most days…well, I forced myself to do it anyway. When I was frozen in pain, I almost craved change, the very thing that terrified me most.  I felt that if I changed, I would be further away from him.  I just couldn’t bear that.

Change is inevitable, we know that.  I knew that.  There was also that sound, grief advice that I had heard through the years, “Don’t make any big, life changes in the first year of your loss.”  I always teetered trying to balance this.  I craved change hoping it would whisk me away from my pain and always worried I was doing huge damage to my grieving soul and perhaps the grieving souls of my boys.  I usually fell a little off balance, landing more toward change.  Hell, how bad could the change be…I’ve lost him…I can deal with a bit of a change, right?

Well, within a few months after his death, prompted by a friend, I bought a new home.  Soon thereafter, we moved from the home Dave and I had shared for a very long time.  It was hard.  It was really hard…but I felt the change would do me and the boys good.  We would have more space, a yard, well…all the good reasons a family moves for…and it has.  I love my home.  It was a good change and I think that if I had stayed in our home, believe it or not, healing would have come more slowly because I would have been more successful at freezing time.

In the next year, we had to change schools for my big boy for multiple reasons.  We left a community that I had belonged to for many years.  I had been a minister there, I had taught in the school there, we went to church there and we were at home there for many years.  They loved us through Dave’s illness and supported us in many, many ways.  After he died though, things changed.  My big boy needed a different learning environment.  So we changed.  Not everything at first, but within a year or so, we had.  We held on to some dear friends, but really didn’t look back.  In moving and changing, we found a school community that embraced us even more.  Not only did they embrace us, but they wanted what was best for my boy.  This community has been a lifeline for me for years.  They have truly embraced my crazy and loved me despite of it.  Eventually, I began working there bit by bit as my little one grew.  They moved me from position to position when they saw an opening that matched my talents, my time and their needs.  They inspired me to go back to school for my master’s degree (oh, there’s another change) to officially join the ranks of teaching.  This change has healed me and helped me become more of who I am meant to be.

This week I made another change.  I am moving to a new school to teach.  I have another amazing opportunity.  I will become more of who I want to become.  I have spent a few days in this new place, with these new people, and am excited for what is ahead and anticipate with joy how I will change.  I have the opportunity to teach what I love.  It is another life changing step, another step toward thriving again. I am hopeful that this change will do me good too.

Change is inevitable.  Many times, I have gone toward it kicking and screaming.  Many times, I have embraced it and ended up in a place that surprises me and even more surprising, brings me joy.  It is not easy.  Every step I take toward thriving again takes me another step further from who I thought I would be.  I end up further and further from what I used to picture as my future.  That hurts deeply sometimes.  I hate moving further away from a time when Dave was here with me.

Change is also filled with magic.  It gives me this magical opportunity to recreate, to adjust, to renew and revise myself in ways I never thought possible. Even when it terrifies me, even when the logistics of the change seem like it won’t work, even when I am so exhausted from over processing all possible outcomes…it comes down to that craving again.  I crave joy.  I crave happiness.  I want to be an example to my children of taking risks even if they don’t work out.  I want magic in my life.  When I embrace new things, new challenges, I am better.  I become more of who I want to become.

Eight years ago, I was on my knees begging for God to change what had happened to me. I was so broken. I was so lost.  Bit by bit, hour by hour, days grew to months, months to years and what happened to me has indeed changed.  The circumstances didn’t change, but I have.  It didn’t bring Dave back…which was all that I wanted then…but time has brought me back to life.  It may be a life that I don’t recognize some days, but I have carved it out and found my way, one change at a time.

Sometimes, most times, a change will do me good.

Beginnings, middles and ends

***DISCLAIMER – To all of you who may walk with me in my daily life and my daily journey and actually do read this blog, do not let the inner workings of my mind alarm you.  Please remember that I am an “over-processor” and that is why I write.  Do not let my words cause worry or concern because it is with these words that I do find peace from my over-active, self-critical, and over-processing mind.  Please also remember that these words are always my interpretation and may not reflect how things actually happened, but only how I process these things.***

We all have gifts and challenges.  Some of us are better beginnings, some better at middles and some are better at the end.  I am better at middles.  I love the comfort of knowing things are how they are and that routine and ritual work.  I do appreciate the excitement and exhilaration of beginnings and ends, but can’t live there all the time.  It’s probably why my children were happy toddlers.  I am very good at setting up structure, transition time and being there for people.  I am reliable and responsible…probably to a toxic level for myself…attributes I assume came from the fact that I am the oldest daughter of five…and well, it is who I am.

Over the past seven years, I have tried to find a middle from the beginning of something that has challenged me to my core, being a widow.  It was the end of something I cherished with my entire being that tossed me violently into a beginning I never wanted.  I am so grateful that the beginning of my journey of widow has passed.  I have become somewhat comfortable with the middle of it.  I have established ways of dealing with being alone, a sole parent, the only responsible grown up, being on duty 24/7, and well with being a widowed person.  I am almost to the point where the little changes don’t throw the whole routine out of whack.  Back in the beginning, any change, would nearly drown me.  Kids getting ill, an addition of a new activity, new teacher, new work…all these things would send me searching for my life raft.  Now that I’m in the middle…not so much.  I can handle surprises a bit more now and am capable of suppressing even some my most extreme fears and emotions…don’t know if it is a good thing, but it is my middle right now.  I have even been known to, on occasion, do something for myself…amazing for me.  Thinking about my own needs, re-affirms to me that I am in the middle.  The middle allows more brain space for me to consider beginnings again….endings though still throw me for a loop.

Unfortunately, sometimes the fact that I am a middle type is boring…comforting, but boring.

At the end of last year, I was given the grace of a sweet beginning.  It was a beginning that I had pretty much thought was never going to be a part of my life again. A very sweet man came into my life and the beginning was exhilarating and reminded me that beginnings can be good.  Here’s the thing I need to remember though…not every beginning leads to a middle…and that’s ok.  Sometimes even the most wonderful beginnings are just that…a beginning. All the exhilaration, and for me it was truly amazement that he was even interested, was a reminder to me that I can’t always stay in the middle.  It is important to risk, especially in matters of the heart, even if a beginning is all that is there.  Is it easy? No.  Is it worth it? Yes.  I need the joy of starting new things in my life.  Since Dave died, my life went into hold…kids and survival came first…granted I have tried many new things with both success and failures…so I guess that counts as beginnings…but this beginning he graced me with was different.  It challenged me in a new way, a way I was not willing to be challenged in for a long time.  I am grateful.

Endings.  I’m not so great at endings.  I over-process, blame myself, and have trouble letting go.  I feel abandoned….hmmm, I wonder where this comes from??? Yes, it’s part of that widow journey I’ve been on for a while now.  Although it isn’t anyone’s fault, endings still leave me feeling more alone these days.  When I thought I wouldn’t get to work in a place I loved, I plummeted…more deeply than I have in a long time.  When I think that my sweet beginning may never have a middle and might jump to the end, I am sad. It’s just me.  I like the middle.  The thing I can appreciate about endings though is that I really do learn from them.  I can appreciate what was.  It may take me a while to move on to the next thing, but I am always grateful that I risked enough to discover something new.  As hard as endings are for me, I know that they are necessary.

I know my story must have beginnings, middles, and ends.  I know that with all of these phases, I will find grace.  I may not always be happy with the outcome, but hopefully I will always be able to discover the way I have changed.  Hopefully I will always be grateful for the opportunity no matter where it leads.  Hopefully, I will have more and be more of who I am to become because I risked the thing I detest the most…the endings…because there is never a new beginning without the ending…and maybe, yes maybe, someday I will find myself happy in a middle again.