mending

Yes, I can feel my heart mending. Not healing, really, because I don't think it will ever be completely healed, but it will mend and have a permanent scar upon it.

But in the mending process I'm also finding out that it's growing a bit larger.

 

You see, I have met someone and we are truly enjoying each other and learning to care for each other.

 

I used to wonder how this would happen, especially since my heart was damaged beyond repair. But I get it now.

 

I thought that growth had stopped when Brian died, but I was wrong. It did stop...for a while. 

 

For almost two years, actually.

 

But now it's starting to grow. I can feel it stretching to a bigger size and I have to say that I LOVE the feeling.

 

Who knows where this new relationship will lead, and even if it doesn't, it will have proved to me that my heart is capable of growing in spite of its horrific loss.

 

It will have proved that I can move forward and that life can still be enjoyed and even celebrated for the things we encounter and learn. 

 

Don't get me wrong...Brian will never leave my heart...ever. He will just stay in a certain part of it from now on...and I'm sure he's just fine with that.

Love: ability or liability?

I’m on the fence about this one. And I’ll tell you why. I know you must be thinking that it’s because I’ve loved and lost...and that’s partially true. The truth is, I think I’m on the fence about it because I’m old.

I have loved. And I have lost. And, when it comes to love...I’ve gotten old.

I know that many of you are sitting there rolling your eyes and getting ready to hibernate your computers, thinking, “33? 33? And she says she’s old?”

But I think, when it comes to love we tend to age pretty quickly.

Since I’ve been trying to build a love life the second time around, I’m less open to new things. I went from losing my husband...to wanting to fill that void in my life...to learning (the hard way) that that wasn’t going to happen...to learning (and loving) how to be by myself...to trying to learn how to be with someone else again.

I went from feeling like love is a liability...to learning that it’s an ability.

The truth is, I actually think that most people my age (and older...and some, maybe younger) probably feel the same way. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been widowed, divorced, or never married: If you have made it to a certain age and have found yourself single...we’re probably all in the same boat.

I’m less bendable (mentally and physically). I’m more patient about learning about myself and somewhat less patient about someone else learning about himself (bitchy, but true). And I’m slowly getting to the point where I just like my life...even though it wasn’t the life I thought I was going to have.

Previously married or not...isn’t that kind of true?

In my first, vulnerable single days after 32 (yikes)...love was a liability. There was so much at stake. My sanity, for one. Breaking up or something not working out would have been enough to send me into a tailspin of epic proportions. I fluctuated between not having the time or heart to deal with someone else’s shit to not wanting someone else to have to deal with my own. I flopped around, like a fish out of water, hoping that someone would have the heart to gently throw me back in.

Relationships didn’t work out. And, true to the cliché... “it’s not you...it’s me.” Love meant heartbreak. Abandonment. Happiness, but with a price. It didn’t matter how much I was loved...I sabotaged anything I could get my hands on.

In short...I was the liability.

Golly, I wish I had thought to put that on my online dating profile. Just think of what a hot ticket I would have been.

There came a point (and truthfully...I don’t know when it happened) that that stopped. The ability to love grew. Like a toddler, it learned to walk. And in the childhood phase it learned to run. I like to think that it’s a teenager now: It’ll test you, but ultimately it’s something you might like in a few years so you should take a risk and stick with it for a little while.

I’ve started thinking that the ability to love is not something you just have. It’s something you learn. And sometimes relearn. And sometimes try and abandon while you’re relearning. And sometimes come back to on New Year’s Eve when you’re frustrated with being alone, have had too much wine, and register for eHarmony when you swore you would never do it again.

The point is...I don’t think that the ability to love just happens. Just like any other “ability” you have, you have to learn it. You didn’t just walk out of your mother’s womb...you had to figure it out. You may be a musical genius, but that didn’t happen without some effort.

Superman didn’t know what the hell to do with that cape the first time around...they just didn’t include that part in the movie.

Forever young

Okay...okay...I know I'm far from what our society considers "old."

I'm 33...and had just turned 32 two weeks before Brian died. He was 32 when he died.

Even though I am not "old" I can't help but despise each year that passes without Brian. I remember when I surpassed him in age, and *gasp* I was a year older than him...

I will continue to get older, while he will stay forever young.

I look at photos from these last two years and see the new wrinkles and gray hair that he never saw. I look at photos and know that one day I will look far different than what I looked like when he was alive.

But as much as I despise old Father Time...and the wrinkles that come along with him...

I love knowing I have them from the smiles I've been able to have since his passing...the "are you serious!?" faces, the laugh til your face hurts, the sitting in the sun content smile...the squinting lines from all the moments I shed the layers of grief and loss from my being.

As Brandi Carlile sang her song "My Story":

"...All of these lines across my face tell you the story of who I am. So many stories of where I've been and how I got to where I am..."

So I'll embrace the lines, the stories and the wrinkles I will continue to create as I get older.

Moving on because he was here

The minute I knew Brian was dead, time has never again made any sense to me or straightened itself out.

It's amazing how I can feel like seconds have gone by since I've last seen him, while at the same time feeling like it's been an eternity since I've heard his voice. Days get confused, milestones and memories start to overlap and get confusing, and worst of all - when time stopped for me, it continued on for the rest of the world.

Lately, I've been feeling so far away from the day Brian died. Not him, but that day - so much life has happened in between since then that it feels light years away. I keep having flashbacks of that day while feeling so far removed from it. Like I've gotten used to this day to day without him that sometimes I hardly remember where I was before. It's a horrifying feeling.

But then I step in the shower and see a bottle of shampoo...one still remaining from the few that were bought mysteriously and stocked in my house after Brian died, and I realize that it wasn't that long ago...

He was just here.

Or I walk past the closet where some of his shirts hang that still carries the scent of him and remember that...

He was just here.

It's a hard truth to face to know that time will continue to move forward without Brian. That each day we all get a little further from him, less people will think about him, and we will continue to grow and change without him. And no matter how far away he feels, and no matter how much time doesn't seem to make sense...

He was just here.

Brian's little brother Edwin got married this weekend. There was no best man because that was Brian's job. Edwin wore Brian's shiny black shoes. He may have lost his big brother, but time has marched on and he married his love, starting a new life without his brother to give him away.

From the American flags in the flower arrangements, to Edwin's shoes, in his eyes, overflowing with love for his new bride...

Brian was just here.