Hiccups

Since the end of last month, my world has been in a state of flux. Those last few weeks of July, I was feeling impatient, edgy, and frustrated.  I didn’t have a classroom, but had an idea about a job at the school that I’ve worked at for years. I was feeling the squeeze of the door shutting on the upcoming school year with the jobs filling, but I was still without a place to call home.  As is the story of my life in more recent years, in the final hours…voila…a great job appeared. I interviewed and was offered the position.

Just one little hiccup…it was in a new place. I wasn’t ready for that.  I had to over process the decision (as I always do) of leaving the people I love to have the job I really desire.  I had to jump. It was so far from how I was expecting things to work out for the school year.  It was such a great opportunity.  For me, the over processing, hates to make a decision girl, it was a huge leap.

I overcame the hiccup in my mind.  I overcame the idea that everything was going to be different again.  I took the job and love it.  I forgot how much I love working with older students.  Last year, I worked with students of all ages, all learning abilities, all in a state of flux because their teacher was going to be away from their classroom for a large amount of time.  I was the fill in for someone else’s hiccup.  I stepped in while another person had something come up that was not in their plan. I loved the work, I loved the students, but I was always just a fill-in, not the real thing.  Now, I get to be the real thing.

Hiccup.

My boys are adjusting to the change too.  I must say, that they are remarkable.  After a few tough moments in the first days of school, my little one is “settling in”…his words.  Our first nights of school were heartbreaking.  He was so sad that I wouldn’t be at the same school with him.  Lots of hugs and cuddles during those first days seemed to help him, but my momma guilt was so high that I really didn’t know where to put all my thoughts of how selfish I was to be putting my own need in front of my children’s needs.  I remained calm.  I tried to remember that a happy momma, who can pay the bills, who feels fulfilled with her work, who can be home and present to her kids equals a happier home.  I knew the change would be hard.  Change is always hard.  Change in my house…sometimes feels like the world is coming to an end…again.

Hiccup.

This week, we begin week three of the changes and I have to say that it is going well.  I really love the work, the boys are adjusting, and all the logistics of being in three different schools on time in the morning with the boys getting home safely have all been ironed out.  The new routine has begun and we are all feeling ok about it.

Hiccup.

During the week, a few things happened that threw me off balance.  Pretty normal things, but when you’re me, my family, and in the midst of changing many things…my stress level sky rockets.  These things are just the daily little hiccups that folks deal with all the time.  One hiccup that threw me this week was simple, ordinary, not eventful at all. Nonetheless, it becomes a big deal in my mind.  It grows from a hiccup to “CRAP! What am I going to do if this gets thrown into the mix?”  It’s just my car acting up.  That’s all.  In my head though, it is a monumental amount of stress.  For many folks, there is another grown up in the house and another car…well, there are some easy options.  I never really stressed out about this kind of stuff before I was widowed.  We just worked it out.  Now, in my altered state, I have to rely on people outside the doors of my home.  I have to call on those people around me who also have their own lives to take care of everyday.  It’s really hard for me to do.  I always feel like I’m imposing. I always feel like I’m becoming a burden to them…a nuisance.  I hate burdening others with my stuff, but some days, if I don’t let the hiccups out…I will implode.

So, I’m learning to let it out.  Even over eight years after Dave died, I am still learning how to do this.  When I think about it, I don’t know how he dealt with all my crazy, all the worry I could build up in my mind, all my internal and external over processing.  That poor guy!  It’s funny, but all the things I used to rely on one person for back then, is now spread out over my village of people.  Certain people pull me out of certain things.  As hard as it is for me, I make the calls.  I hate to interrupt their lives.  I hate, hate, hate feeling like a burden.  I think it’s that over responsible, oldest child in me.  As much as I hate it, I do it.  Being widowed has taught me many things.  One of the greatest lessons I have learned though…let people love and help me.  Let people in and amazing things can happen.  My car concerns turned into an evening spent with my brothers and dear friend hanging out…pretty great for something that was killing me only hours before.  My shuffling of children to get us all where we need to be each day, has turned into my boys being graced by the presence of some other wonderful people in their lives…and some new self-reliance.

Many of my hiccups along the way have turned into unexpected friendships, moments of gratitude and revelation for me.  Although I still struggle and freak out a bit at first when the hiccup erupts, I know with certainty most things are survivable.  I know that many of those things that throw me off balance are really just hiccups…and with the courage to reach out to the people who love me (and even a kind stranger sometimes) they will remain just that…a hiccup.

It’s a long road…

 “…cause it’s a long road to wisdom but it’s a short one to being ignored…”

~Flowers in Your Hair, The Lumineers

Driving to San Diego is one of my favorite things.  I love getting up early to travel the empty highways.  I love the way the landscape changes as we ascend the dry, desert mountains on the Arizona side toward the moist, lush, green mountains on the San Diego side.  I love the descent into the cooler, summer weather.  I love the way my boys sit in the back seat together watching movies, reading, or listening to music.  My big huddled with my little gazing out the windows excitedly waiting for vacation to begin…even though it already has.

I love driving.  I love listening to music and watching the road speed by me.  I listen to old, to new, rock, alternative, country, R&B, well, pretty much anything.  I listened to The Lumineers for a while this time on the drive.  I was thinking about the upcoming weekend and the upcoming experience at Camp Widow West while the music played.  When Flowers in Your Hair played, a line of the lyrics got stuck in my mind:  “…cause it’s a long road to wisdom but it’s a short one to being ignored…”

Throughout the weekend these words kept creeping back in to my mind.  Since Dave’s death, it has been a very long road for me.  Now I’m not saying that I am full of wisdom, but I am working on gaining some.  It’s not really wisdom of knowledge I seek, but wisdom of the soul.  This wisdom I value is the understanding of pain, love, joy, sadness and survival. I have worked very hard to come back to life over the past eight years.  I did not want to come back to life in the first year or so.  I wanted to go back and be with Dave.  All I wanted was him to be with me…for him to be here… not dead.  It was a very, very long time before I could even admit to myself that I wanted to survive and be happy again.  In finding that truth and admitting it, I wanted to find the wisdom of surviving a heartbreak that I thought would be the end of me.

One of the paths of wisdom I chose was writing again.  I also chose reading the words of those with similar loss, pain, and hope.  I found Widow’s Voice http://widowsvoice-sslf.blogspot.com/ shortly after beginning my own blog.  I was inspired by the truth shared.  I was inspired by the openness in sharing loss.  In my real world it was very often hard to share the truth and pain that was always lurking in my heart.  When I shared my deepest pain, fears and loss it made my people around me worry.  When I wrote it down and shared it with the widowed community, it helped.  It helped me.  It helped a few others.

Sharing with the widowed community through my writing lessened my need to share about my heartache publicly, verbally. I let my blog be the main voice of my grief.  With that simple act, I decided to become more of a listener than a speaker.  Now for those who know me…this is a difficult act…I’m quite the chatterbox…but, nonetheless, over the past years, I have tried to listen more than speak.  When I think of the lyrics that stuck in my head, I think of this.  Early on when all I could do is share my story with the people around me, I soon felt ignored.  I felt like they couldn’t listen to me anymore.  I felt isolated…hence, the name of this blog…I felt like I was out on an island alone with no way off.

So, this last week when I went to San Diego as a volunteer, I went hoping to be a listener.  Now, I’m not sure how well I actually did it, but I heard the stories of many women and a few men.  They openly shared their journey with me whether we were strangers, acquaintances or friends.  I witnessed courage in many ways.  I witnessed pain and joy, tears and smiles.  My biggest hope is that one widowed person felt heard.  I wanted to be a soul who really listened to their story, their pain, their struggles, their triumphs and successes.  I wanted one less widowed person to feel isolated, alone.

I’ve worked so hard on my own stuff, that I was able to listen and it was about listening to them…not their words setting off my own stuff.  I heard them, not me echoing in their words.  Although there is always an element of this, it wasn’t about me; it was about the person in front of me who blessed me with their presence, their story.

I think part of the true wisdom of Camp Widow West and East is the gathering itself.  The bringing together of people who don’t really want to see anyone or go anywhere because of their broken hearts and wounded souls.  There is such wisdom in being present to another person, even if no words are spoken.  This gathering is one of the only places in my life that I feel truly embraced with all my widow scars.  I don’t scare anyone there or make them uncomfortable.  I am not scared by their stories and am anxious to hear them share their wisdom, brokenness, the ways they heal themselves, the ways they survive every day.

I come home from San Diego wiser than I was when I left.  This is not because I did anything in particular…I just went.  I stood and sold t-shirts and books and listened.  I was there…it’s really that simple.  I just went.  For those of you who haven’t gone yet, it is worth the trip.  For those of you, who shared your story with me in San Diego and share your story with me here, thank you!  You inspire me and give me hope. It is through our solidarity that we gain the wisdom of survival and hopefully peace of mind and soul.

It’s a long, difficult road, but in the end, the wisdom and understanding gained has changed me for the better.  It is a change that I wish had been triggered by something other than the death of my husband…but, once I was able to breathe again, it is a road I now travel willingly because I know I am not alone on this journey anymore.

Safe and sound?

Letting go has not been one of my strengths in recent years.  Allowing myself time and space to feel safe, relaxed and unbound isn’t really part of my current life.  It is a skill that I have struggled with all my life.  I am responsible.  It is my strength, so to speak.  I am the oldest daughter and have four younger siblings, from the beginning, I have been wired for responsible.  When I was younger, I was better at letting go, having fun and shedding my responsibilities.  Since I became a widow and a sole parent, I find letting go even more difficult.  It is not only difficult because everything is my job, but because I worry that if I do let go again, if I do trust again, if I find a safe place of respite, it will be ripped away leaving me alone, naked and exposed.  I’m not sure if I have it in me to rebuild again.  I’m not sure that I can surrender again knowing what I know now.

Feeling safe isn’t about if my home is secure or if I will be attacked on the street. I don’t worry about those things.  Feeling safe to me is that place where you go with another person where you are naked and exposed, but loved and cared for at the same time.  It is that place where I know that if I give in, surrender, I won’t be left hanging out there alone. It will be a place of respite.  It will be a place to collapse at the end of the day, good day or bad, where I am just me and someone cares about that.  Sometimes I do worry that I won’t be able to be safe in this way again, because I know in the depths of my being that these things will always end.  I really wonder if I will ever find a safe place again where I can truly lie, relaxed and unbound by my responsibilities, and receive care and compassion from someone.  I’ve had glimpses of this, but I really don’t know if I’ll ever be able to feel this type of safety again.

What I do know is I’m pretty tired of the “me” show.  This is the show where I do everything.  I take care of all the elements that keep my life running, keep my kids life running.  Now, I know many people, who do this even when they are in a relationship.  We do it because we are responsible, we do it because it is who we are, I know it is how I’m wired, but I remember a place where I could do most of this and still take off the “me” mask at the end of the day and there was someone there who would make those responsibilities feel miles away.  The “me” show is boring and always a repeat.  I don’t mind the work, I never have.  I do miss the collaboration.  I do miss hearing someone else’s story.  I miss the variety. I miss the intimacy.  I miss feeling safe, loved, and being able to provide those same things for someone.

When I was younger, I was more open I guess.  My life experience hadn’t crept into my bones as deeply as it has now.  When Dave died, many pieces of who I was ceased to exist.  My youthful naivety was a casualty. When I was younger, I knew heartbreak, but not like I know it now.  Becoming a widow, especially at a young age, I fear has aged my soul deeply.  It takes this once carefree girl and fills her up with so many responsibilities.  The responsibilities that are mine alone often feel like a heavy cloak that I am unable to get out of or put aside.  It weighs me down.  It won’t come off, even when I try. Even when others try to carry it for me, it is still my cloak.  Even when I try to shed it for a moment, there is no one that really wants to stay and help me get it off permanently.

If I do get the cloak off, there I am again, naked and exposed, vulnerable.  There I am again opening myself up again to who knows what…

I tell myself that the “who knows what” will be worth it.  I tell myself that if I practice taking off the cloak, shedding my responsibilities briefly, feeling a moment of safety will lead me to a place where someday I will feel safe again.  I watch as people I know have had heartache as consuming as mine plunge into risk again. They plunge into love with their heart and soul.  I tell myself that even in those few moments when I have allowed myself to be vulnerable again, I have felt better and someday I will get there again.  I will find the safety, the relaxation, the soul who cares for me deeply.  I have to believe and hope that if my heart remains open, intimacy will find me again.

The ultimate truth is there is no guarantee of this.  The ultimate truth is that this might be my story. The responsibility to find a place where I am safe and sound is up to me…here comes the “me” show again.  The learning to let go and relax again is mine to own.  I have to get out of my head and create moments of peace for myself.  Finding a safe place and allowing myself to be vulnerable won’t happen if I don’t allow it.  Allowing someone to see me naked and exposed is a risk only I can take.  Hopefully, my story will find me in a place of balance.  Hopefully my story will be to transcend the pain and trust again.  Hopefully, my story will find me feeling safe and sound again.

On the cusp

Yesterday, I had the privilege of taking my oldest to high school and getting him registered and ready for the start of his high school career next week.  When we got to campus, he successfully hid his worries as we moved from one line to the next.  We saw friends and met some new people.  I think it was a success…but who knows? I’m his mom…very little credibility these days in public.  He was even gracious enough to put up with me as I greeted my friends and re-introduced him to their kids who he hasn’t seen much of since his preschool days.

I’m so excited for him.  I can still remember starting high school…way back when.  Little did I know then, in those first days, even first months, that I would meet people who would become my people.  It took me some time my first year in high school, but now as I look back, the friends I held dearly by the end of that first year are still the friends I hold dearly now.  They have watched me grow up and I find great solace in that…even greater solace that they stuck with me through it all this far.

Another chapter began yesterday for me too. As luck would have it, I will be starting the school year at the school I love.  I will be working with people who have nurtured me and become friends and I can’t be happier.  As I write this morning, I am very grateful to be a part of a community that I hold so dearly.  Although the role is temporary, I feel like the bond is more and I couldn’t be happier.  I have been trusting, well…most days I am…that I will be where I am meant to be.  Trying to remember every day a motto I stole years ago…everything is in divine and perfect order, NOW!

For me the hardest part of the motto is the “now” part.  I know truly that the “now” is the only moment that I really have.  It is always my intention to be in that moment.  It is always my intention to be the kindest, most loving, best me that I can be in that moment.  I think I’m better at focusing on now when I am on the cusp of something new.  I’m more alert to the moment, because I must be.  It is so easy for my over thinking, over processing, over worrying brain to pull me away from the moment.  It is so easy some days to let that voice in my head talk me down instead of letting me be present to my moments.  It is only years and years of healing, years and years of nurturing hope, years and years of incessant practice that help me shove those things to the corner of my mind and focus on the moment.  This is not an easy task at all because many days the only reflections I have are from me only and I am most often the person that gets in my way of my own happiness and success of living in the moment.

I must say that living in the moment, on the cusp, has led me to places that I never expected.  Losing my husband, a life event that I never would wish on anyone, stripped me of my future and forced me to live moment by moment.  Every day, breath by breath, I strove to be present to my heart, my joy, my pain, my sorrow…and all of the same for my kids too…this desire to be present led me to a place of gratitude…again, most days.  I promised myself that if I kept my heart open, kept my heart soft and didn’t let losing him turn me to stone, that I would survive it.  If I could live in the moment, not worry about the next moment, I would be ok.   If I could remain flexible, listen to my heart, and remember that the only thing that is constant is change, someday I would feel better. All of these things are so difficult for me to do, but being on the cusp again reminds me of how far the boys and I have come.  Being on the cusp invigorates me and it’s not a bad gig if I can get it.

My new role in the community I love is nothing I expected, but it is a great role and I am thrilled to have it.  The flip side of that is that I am coming in on the fly and will be running full speed for the next few weeks.  I will be pushing myself in new ways, but in the comfort of a place I love with the support of folks who want me to succeed.  What a wonderful thing!

Grateful, yet again…

This week, this little blog surpassed 15,000 all time hits.  Now I know out there in the blogosphere that this is a miniscule amount, but for this little vanilla girl from an average place with average dreams it is a big deal.  I started this writing to prove to myself that I could indeed do something I set my mind to and hopefully in some small way possibly help others who felt isolated, heartbroken, and alone.  I have felt so alone and most days felt useless on this journey of widowhood that this little blog was a way that I could give back while I continued to heal my own heart.  My grief was something that made me feel so far out on the outskirts of life that it was my way of dipping my toe back into the water of life.

When I started writing memoirs, I had just left a job that I thought would be part of my life for a long time.  I was disappointed in myself and in them, well, I was disappointed with life again..

Writing has always been a part of me.  I don’t journal, I write most things to be shared…narcissist I guess, but that’s how I’ve done it.  When I was a youth minister, I found a voice as one of the many struggling with ministry. It was during this time that I began my life as an “officially” published (and “officially” paid) writer. I told the stories of my ministry to other ministers through trade magazines. It was a little niche that found my story valuable.  My voice began to develop a different way, a ministry sort of way.

When Dave died, every grief program said to journal.  They all say how cathartic writing can be.  I knew that writing was cathartic, journaling though…I never really got.  I could never sit and journal for myself alone (narcissist in me again).  In the early years of grief, I would just vomit words onto paper, raw, emotional, and painful words.  Some have never seen the light of day. I would sit in the dark of night, while my babies slept and my mind tormented me, at my computer and write…oh ya and cry, cry alot.  Luckily for me an email from a former editor of mine came around soon after I had written something that could be shown in the light of day.  That piece that commented on the temporary-ness of life here on earth found its way into the first edition of his new magazine.  Shortly after I began blogging for the magazine and found the venue exhilarating, honest and loved that we could be authentic about our lives and our faith journey in the moment and it was published pretty much right then and there.  Shortly after, the same article he published found its way into the pages of a grief based magazine (with my help of course, not by magic).  I had found yet another part of my voice.  Although at the time I felt like I had somehow prostituted Dave’s death, the compulsion to write about it survived those feelings.

Memoirs from Widow Island started as a joke in one of my support groups.  I had been talking about how isolated I found myself as a newly widowed and mother of young children.  I often said that if I survived it all I would write book – Memoirs from Widow Island.  It would be a book about getting off the island.  Instead, in the midst of disappointment with what I then thought was a career fail, I decided to launch the blog.  I had seen a few grief based blogs and thought it might be a path for me.  It started with a few modest posts and for the first year I was happy to get a hit or two from family or friends.  I never imagined that it would be getting five to seven hundred hits a month…

A little dream, fueled by hope to serve others has been a spring board into a world that is filled with heartbreak and healing.  It has linked me to lovely people whose wisdom and ability to share their stories with vulnerable voices have made me a better person.  Their stories that I found as they found me have built a network of caring and love that I never knew.

Walking through the pain of grief and putting my words, my feelings, my hopes, my fear on the page has opened doors into a world of growth and inspiration. I have been inspired by them and have had the privilege of being inspiring to a few others.  It has been such a huge privilege and I am grateful for this everyday.

Lately I have been considering my journey and wondering if my time with Memoirs is finished and I’ve been struggling with the words.  I wonder if my voice has a new direction to develop.  If the past is any precursor, this is true…the only thing I can count on is change. Today, though, I’m not off the island quite yet.  Today, I can see the boat at the dock waiting to take me off the island.  Today, I know I am closer to leaving the island, but there is still some work to do.

Thanks for your hits.  Thanks for reading.  Thanks for writing. Thanks for inspiring me.  Thanks for filling my humble heart with gratitude again, because if there is one thing I’ve learned on this journey…it is through the sharing of our journeys that someday I will get off the island!

So tired of being the bad cop…

As a sole parent, I am always the bad cop.  Not a day goes by when I don’t have to play the role. Even on a beautiful Sunday after a nice trip to the park, within minutes of being home out comes the bad cop.  Boys will be boys, but when push comes to shove…and punching…and just altogether rottenness…bad cop/mom has to step in and remind them of the expectations.

Now add into the mix a teenager who’s beginning to feel his oats and mom is on the losing end of the conversation every time.  Now, not only does discipline come into play, but I have to listen to the teenage rebuttal.  The rude expression of opinion is given and I am repeatedly told that I don’t know anything and am hated.  I know that this is the true sign that I am doing my job as a parent…but it gets old when you’re the only parent around to take it.

Day in and day out, the work never ceases for any parent.  For me as a sole parent, some days the responsibilities are so heavy I’m not sure I’ll make it through hour, let alone the entire day.  Breaks are far and few between and my time away from my kids is most often spent working…this mommy needs a break!

I remind myself that I am blessed to have two healthy, happy children.  I remind myself that all moms go through things like this.  I remind myself that “this too shall pass” and it does, but most days it seems to be followed by another issue.  I have tried the last few years to infuse more fun, more joy, more hope into our lives.  I knew that the boys took their mood cues from me when they were little…now they can just be all moody all by themselves…it doesn’t matter if I’m in a good mood, their moods can just be rotten.  Some days I wish we could just be on the same page for a few moments.

Oh well, I will try to appreciate the short moments of good behavior around me and savor the fact that when they are around others they are good boys. I know that it is only their deep security with me that allows for the expressions of their negative emotions toward me or at least that’s what I’ll keep telling myself!  They know I love them.  They know I will set the boundaries.  They know I will be the bad cop.  I will be grateful that they know they are loved and that I am here with them.  I will be grateful that they’re really good boys…down deep.  What more could a mom want?

One extra day won’t kill me…

This weekend is a three day weekend.  When Dave was alive, I looked so forward to the long weekends.  Hanging out, finishing unfinished things, and just relaxing made the weekends complete respites.  We enjoyed each other’s company, had time to do our own thing, and quality family time all in three days off.

Then he died.  Three day weekends were torture.  All I could see was families doing the things we used to do, couples holding hands, and dads playing with their sons.  My vision was filled with what was missing…completely normal I think.  It seemed like the weekends would drag on forever.  I was miserable. The kids were miserable.  Life was miserable…again, completely normal…I think.  This went on for years for me.

There were long weekends when I would plan something to keep my mind off my lost love.  I would try to do something special with the boys…not even special really…just regular, but through my eyes of misery, it seemed special.  It always fell apart.  In hindsight, I can see myself trying to “be” happy.  I was trying to force it for the kids.  It always ended up badly.  The three of us were miserable and most times the outings would end in tears.

Then there were the long weekends when I would try to keep myself so busy with housework and tedious chores that I didn’t even acknowledge the long weekend was happening.  People always asked what we were doing for the weekend… I’d replay – “oh, is it a long weekend…I hadn’t noticed.”  Denial rang clear in my mind as I busied myself, ignored the families, ignored the couples holding hands, and ignored the dads playing with their sons.  If I didn’t acknowledge the three day weekend was here perhaps my misery would ease.

I’m not sure when it happened, but the pain of the three day weekends started to subside.  I’m not sure if it was because my boys are growing and I’m not constantly exhausted or if it truly is just the passage of time.  I know that it helped when I stopped trying to do and be something that I was before he died.  I know that it helped when we began to understand and acclimate to a life without their dad and my husband around.  As my grief journey continues, I know that each day, each experience I survive, has made me that much more able to deal with the next day, the next experience.  It’s time served so to speak…time that I’ve become more capable to deal with my broken, healing heart, time that I’ve come into my own as a sole parent, time the boys have acclimated to only having one parent around….does it just boil down to time?

When I started this journey without him my life looked very different.  I had a six month old baby on my hip and my oldest was only six years old.  Now, my oldest is nearly in high school and my baby is now a happy school kid (most days).  Life changes.  I look back and don’t know how I made this far, but I did.  I look back and see a life that seems so foreign to me now…and that’s ok.

Life had to change for me to survive.  I took slow, most times unsteady steps toward survival.  Each step led me to a place where a three day weekend doesn’t rattle me anymore.  I even look forward to them.  It leads me to a place where I can relax…even if it is just me and the boys.  I can watch families, couples, dads and sons enjoy their lives and not loose it…I can even be happy for them.  Even better than all that…I can look back on my life with Dave and be happy that I had that too.  As much as he helped me be the woman I was to be when he was alive, he has helped me be the woman I am right now.  His death forever changed me.  His death is woven into the fabric of who I am…not just his death though…it is really his love that did all that. His love helped me become a woman who can love herself…I loved myself enough to survive his death.  I loved my kids enough to survive…but loving the kids wasn’t enough for me to become who I am today.  Loving them, being loved by him, gave me the courage to love myself.  It gave me the courage to sit through long weekends in misery which led to place of appreciation again.

This journey that I didn’t want, that was thrust at me, that is my worst nightmare, has become my journey.  No matter how much I would do anything have him here, I don’t think I want to change who I am right now.  I want to continue to grow and evolve.  The pain, the heartbreak, the grief and sadness were so deep that I am transformed.  I wouldn’t be who I am without losing him, our life together, our future.  So, so bittersweet.

I sit here this morning looking forward to my days off.  I sit here this morning changed yet again.  I sit here this morning, grateful…and dare I say it…even cheerful.  I am ok with a long weekend.  I am ok with a long weekend where I am the only adult on duty in my home.  I am ok with playing with my kids alone, doing my own thing for a bit, and then adding some more quality, family time.  I think the simple fact that I can say “I’m ok”…is amazing…I never, ever, ever thought that I’d be ok…but I am.  Today, for this long weekend…I’m ok.

Welcoming the morning

Today I woke up feeling…well, dare I say it…happy.  I am! I am happy and so grateful for feeling this way.  Not to say over the years that I haven’t felt happiness.  I have. Today is different though, there is a depth to my happiness that I haven’t felt in a long, long time.

Over the past months, well actually over a year, I have been working on a plan.  This plan is to maintain financial health, while maintaining my presence in my children’s lives.  This is not an easy task as many parents know.  For me as a sole parent, it has felt like a mountain of weight on my shoulders.  Several years ago, I went back to work full-time in an administrative position, but it was just too much.  We were all coming home cranky, tired, and I just wasn’t giving my kiddos the care they needed.  I did enjoy the work…I love working outside the home…but as I fulfilled the need to provide for my family financially, I lost footing on the emotional and spiritual support they craved too.

So, I adjusted.  My little one still in preschool, I cut back.  I only worked part-time at a very flexible, low paying job.  I sat in the moment, held on, humbly accepted the generosity of others, and in time, he made it to kindergarten and I was able to work more.  I looked for work that fit into the kiddos daily schedules…not super easy to find…but was open to receiving what was available and in a very short amount of time, part-time work grew into a full-time position in a place I love to work and look forward to every day.  I have been truly blessed in this part of my life.

This lovely job, that I enjoy with all my heart isn’t really enough financially though.  I hold on, I budget wisely and we are not losing ground anymore.  I needed a plan.  I needed work that would provide me with the time for my kids, the financial resources to feed them, and if I’m lucky, provide an outlet for my own gifts and talents. For many years, I have resisted the urge to teach.  I have always felt my calling was to work with kiddos outside the school environment.  I know that I am blessed with the gifts to work with kids, but always hemmed and hawed about teaching them.  I have a substitute teaching certificate, but never committed my heart and gifts to this profession.  I studied theology in the 1990s and became a youth minister working with jr. high and high school kids for a decade.  I loved it.  I worked as an after care director for an elementary school and loved it.  I also ran a preschool, but just never made that commitment to become a certified teacher.

About a year and a half ago, that changed.  I had the opportunity to continue my education and enrolled in a program to earn my teaching certificate and a master’s degree in education.  It was a paradigm shift for me.  The old me, who wanted to be that adult outside of school that provided support for kiddos, became the sole parent who needed to find a way to participate in work I love without forgoing my vocation as parent.  I have been working pretty hard over the last year or so.  I went back to school part-time, did the work, made the grades and now am ready for the final piece…my student teaching. I really didn’t know when I began if I’d be able to complete the task.  Today, I welcome the morning because I made it this far.  I made it through the course work, the homework, the being away from home, the asking for help with the kids…I’m standing here nearly completed with the process and am so grateful for the grace and strength to have made it.

The even better part of the deal is that I get to student teach at the place I work now.  I get honor of working with teachers I admire and kiddos I already know.  I get the opportunity to develop my own gifts and talents in a place where I am loved and I love being.  This is one of the greatest gifts I have ever received.

I promised myself when Dave died that I would take this journey one step at a time.  I did not know how I would survive it.  I knew that I would survive it…even though many days felt like I wouldn’t.  I knew I had to survive…there really wasn’t an option. What I didn’t know was that I would grow so much.  What I didn’t know was that his death would lead me to a place that wasn’t in the plan or familiar, but I knew I was meant to be.  I remember in those early days, opening the curtains and looking out on the morning and thinking…why? Why do I need to be here? Why do I have to continue? Why did this happen? I remember cursing the beautiful sun for making me live my life another day.  I only opened those curtains because I had to…but today, I opened the curtains and something different filled my heart…gratitude that I kept on plugging, gratitude that I took the risk and kept going without him, gratitude for all those lovely hearts along the way that said I could do this…I woke today looking forward again.  Looking forward to something good, looking forward with happiness in my heart, looking forward without pain…and today that feels really, really good.