Keep On Keepin' On

TODAY, this morning, I woke up and the first thought that ran through my head was: “Oh, hurray, I am still here!”  I feel hopeful and good and positive.

WOW!!!! 

Three years ago, I was waking up thinking the opposite.  I was thinking thoughts like: “Oh, shit, I’m still here.”  I was so sad that I just wanted life to be over, to join my darling husbands. 

This is really big for me.  I have spent the last decade in grief, full tilt boogie grief it seems.  I use the metaphor that having a spouse die is like falling down a deep dark well.  As you claw your way up, you start to see the light and the light begins to grow in size the longer you cling to the sides and make your way upward.  Well, I had just approached the top of the well I had fallen into after T’s death when Dave died and I fell all the way to the bottom again.  I didn’t even try getting out for a while.  I just laid down there and wallowed.  So, for me to feel that it is good, even great, to wake up in this world, is big! It’s a milestone.  It makes me smile. 

Now, if you have been reading my blog, you will have read that I try to make myself feel better by adding a new man to my life - to fill the emptiness.  Well, my happiness today has nothing to do with any man.  I am on my own, I live alone, I make plans alone and I am finally okay with being alone.  Hallelujah.  I have worked hard to be okay with flying solo and being a widow without a partner. 

So what have I learned about grief?  That time and self-care, self-love will help you through.  That you can get to a place where being alone is okay.  That you will survive despite your wish not to.  That life can once again be a source of joy and excitement. 

Does this mean that I have forgotten my husbands?  No.  Definitely not.  I think of them everyday.  I miss them all the time.  I honour their memories and their important dates.  I keep in contact with their parents.  I have them forever more.  I am blessed to have had them in my life.  And I know that I will have moments of grief, even paralyzing grief, in the future.  Maybe even today.  It never goes away.  But it doesn’t hurt as much as it used to.  

Surviving - and Thriving?

Well. At least I’d like to be thriving. I am surviving. Surviving grief. I have lost two husbands. The second loss nearly killed me. It was cumulative. I am just coming out from under the burden of the grief to find an insecure, needy, under-confident woman who is fearful and cowardly.

I read widow blogs with relish. They feed me. They help me to feel less alone, less of a failure, to feel okay with my grief process. No one else understands like another widow understands.

However, I at times still feel like a failure. I, unlike many other widows, do not feel that I am becoming someone better, stronger, more confident post-death. This is not the case for me. I feel less than I used to be. I feel “less-than”. I am not as strong, not as confident, not as out-going. I am a shadow of myself. I am an empty shell. I have less energy, less interest in life and less ability to cope. I am needy and insecure. I am lost without my husband, my partner in life, my soulmate. I do not know how to be in the world. My children are grown and gone. I am 53 years old and still have many more vibrant years ahead. Will I ever find that vibrancy?

On the Road Again

Well. It is summer in Canada. A short event. I am a teacher so I finally get some time off. I am once again on the road. Last summer I went down the west coast from Vancouver to LA and then over to Las Vegas and back up to Calgary. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to road-trip my whole summer away this year.

I love the freedom of the road trip. No day-to-day drudgery of life at home without Dave. No physical reminders of his absence. No music festivals without him, no time at the cabin without him, no barbeques without him, no summer patios without him etc etc.
I am running away from my missing him. And I am totally fine with that. I don’t want to live in it. I want to avoid it. I want to miss him in a way that doesn’t trigger the past. I want to create new memories of new places. I want to see the world on my terms. Besides, I love to travel. I love to see new places.

So, this year, I am on a cross-Canada road-trip. I have driven out of Alberta, across Saskatchewan and Manitoba and am now most of the way through Ontario. My goal is to see and experience the Atlantic Ocean. So several more provinces and one state are yet to come!

I have the lovely opportunity to travel with my half-sister. She too is a widow. We have never spent this kind of time together. It is a new experience for both of us. She is 16 years older than me so had left home by the the time I was a real kid with memories. So far, so good!!

Across the praireis to the Canadian Shield, we were able to visit and stay with several people that I haven’t seen in years. Some were her friends and family, some were mine. It has been interesting and somehow soul nourishing. These people knew me long before either of my husbands. They knew me as me – alone and on my own, as I am now, and they totally accept me for whom I am and have become.

There is something very special about re-connecting with people you grew up with. There is an unconditional acceptance that is hard to find elsewhere. At least that has been my experience. It is hard to articulate the experiences I have had with people from my long-ago past.

Now, we are away from anyone we know for a while. We are staying in motels and watching this big beautiful country pass by. We talk and talk and sing and remember and look out at the beautiful views.

This is one big, beautiful world we live in - and it is so good to be reminded of that truth.

Long Lasting Grief. Where's the Long Lasting Relief?

I’ve read many a blog entry over the last year or so and have always been amazed, scared and a little doubting of how long the grief lasts. I would think: how could the second year possibly be worse or as bad as the first? Well – now I am in my second year - I am at 1 year and 3 months and I still feel like shit. I still feel grief very deeply. It doesn’t limit my ability to function like it used to, nor do I lose control as waves knock me over, but it is still there every day. I still feel so raw and wounded. I still feel the weight of it. It is like I get up in the morning with this metal weight chained to my body. I drag the damn thing everywhere. Everything is effort. I tire easily. Some things are just too much effort, so I don’t do them. I lay down instead. It is all so much work. All the details, all the paper work. The endless cooking, eating, cleaning, bathing. It feels tedious and pointless.

Then there is the expectation to be “over it”. This comes from my friends, colleagues, and family and even from myself. Others don’t seem to understand that I am still struggling. That the pain is just beneath the surface. That joy is a lost quality. That the future is a huge unfathomable wasteland. That the present feels unmanageable.

I actually watched the news last Friday night. (I do have glimmerings of interest in the world. I do make an effort to ask others how they are doing.) In the news is the idea some guy calculated, that the world was going to end the next day. I was shocked at my internal first reaction: relief and gratitude. Oh my god…

Someone, please tell me that it gets better: that we find a reason to live and live fully.

Isolation - It's Starting to Melt Away

It has been a very long time since I wrote anything in my blog. I have been isolating myself and hiding either in my work or my bedroom.

I have been working 45 to 60 hours a week, and then I crash and lay in my bed watching mindless tv, playing solitaire on my laptop. I do not call anyone, I do not answer calls, I do not answer emails, I don’t go out anywhere. I have been isolating myself big-time.

I went to an open AA meeting last week with a dear friend who is a recovered alcoholic. The idea being that I might get something out of the sharing. I did. It was when one alcoholic talked about the self-pity and the isolating behaviours she went through after stopping drinking and the effect it had on her life. I swallowed hard, I had tears welling up in my eyes. I related 100% to all that she was saying. I left feeling that I now need to put some of those work hours into me. I deserve my time and attention and so do others. I need to reach out and go out no matter how much I don’t want to. Why? Because I am truly unhappy shut up in my room. I truly am miserable and my lifestyle is not helping.

So here I am. I am like the bear, slowly waking and returning to life after a winter of sleeping in darkness. I am a little bit grumpy and hungry for something different than my own self- pity and grief.

Hello out there.

Running Away From Home

Where do I start? So much seems to have happened these past few weeks. I will have several posts to “get it all out”. I find I am constantly composing and writing in my mind. I have titles for experiences and photos. I could say that I am becoming a writer – but if I am more honest with myself, it is that I am not really engaged in my experiences. I am an outsider: observing, evaluating and recording. This is where I am right now. I am not truly engaged – everything is an expose for Dave – “Look, Dave, there is a field of strawberries” etc and I describe it all to him in my mind. It’s the endless days that I cannot share with him and I need to record it all to tell him when he gets home – only, he’s not coming home.

He’s not here with me on this epic road trip. I miss him. I wish he were by my side, seeing all that I am seeing,

My daughter, bless her, didn’t want me alone for this 24 day journey so joined me for the first 10 days. We traveled 1500 km down the Pacific coast from Victoria BC to San Francisco CA. We had a great time together. We laughed, talked, sang, played and romped like children. She listened and empathized as I talked about Dave and remembered him. We live on the prairies, beside the great Rocky Mountains, so all these seascapes and beaches and sand dunes are a real novelty. We enjoyed it all.

Yesterday, I left her at the San Francisco airport and am on my own now. Now I really miss Dave. I have 17,329 of his songs on my iPod. It is a comfort to listen to his music. While he was dying, I uploaded many of his CDs. The ones that had meaning for us: the ones we listened to together as well as others that I thought that I would like. We had the same taste in music. There was very little that we didn’t like together. So I am enjoying the music as well as feeling that a part of him is with me.

So – traveling alone – hmmm – haven’t done much of that in my life – a couple of weeks in Italy a few years ago, but I emailed Dave every night to tell him about my day. So now I have you, my dear blog. Any readers; thank you for ‘listening’.

I am spending a lot of time on the computer – catching up on 10 days worth of widow blogs. I missed my widow blog friends. They are such a comfort to me. I must get out for a walk on the beach.