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.

Not Guilty

I often find that I have trouble recalling the life "before Brian was sick" because he was well and then "sick!" just like that. I know cancer doesn't happen that way but the diagnosis felt like that.

I keep striving for those memories of us that make me smile... sometimes I think his death watered them all down. I also think about all the things he remembered that I didn't and I could ask "what was the name of that place where we had the great dinner..." and he would know.

So when he died some of my memories went with him...memories he carried for the both of us. I hate that feeling when I can almost remember but not the full thing. I worry a day will come and he too will seem so very far away.

I sometimes lay in bed and try to conjur the feeling of him in the bed beside me. The curve of his back. The way I would fit myself around him and rest my mouth on his shoulder blade. I used to kiss him awake. I try to make myself remember that.

Yes, it often makes me cry, but I want to keep him, keep that memory of how I woke up every day. So I bring it back every so often so it won't leave me. Because...he was just here...only 1 year and 8 months ago. Sometimes it feels like an eternity.

There is tremendous guilt associated with moving on without him but life hasn't given me an option. I don't want to remain stuck in my grief because it is such a debilitating place to be, yet the guilt associated with moving forward brings feelings of betrayal.

Trying to keep one foot in the past and one foot in the future is a challenging place to be. I wish it was different, maybe one day it will be.

Moving forward without guilt is one of the hardest things to do...maybe impossible.

Then I tell myself that I have to live a life that Brian would be proud of, and he wanted me to be happy, not guilty.

What would Brian do?

I'd like to say that my experience as a widow has given me the courage to make changes fearlessly - life is short right?

Clearly I've learned that lesson! The truth is, I was prone to make big changes before Brian died, and that hasn't changed much since.

Actually, that isn't quite true.

My thought process prior to making a change is what's different. Before Brian, I would consider the pros and cons, and move fearlessly forward not a doubt in my mind.

After losing him? I still do it, but not nearly as fearlessly as before. The risks are just different and the thoughts that go through my mind are less optimistic and have a similar flow:

What if I die?

My luck hasn't been so good in recent years.

What if something bad happens?

Life is short.

It's only money, you can't take it with you.

I could get hit by a truck tomorrow (my favorite).

Is this a life or death decision?

My family/friends will think I'm irresponsible.

If I get cancer and am lying on my death bed will I regret not trying...?

What would Brian do?

If I'm not having a good time, it's my own damned fault.

Why the hell not?

The thought process isn't identical each time, sometimes I end up with a different decision. Most of the time though, I end up in with a "let's do this!" sort of decision. But not before I hit the "what if something bad happens" question and take a good long pause. That one, that's the big one.

I never thought of that before Brian got sick. It never occurred to me that something REALLY bad could happen. It just wasn't on my radar.

Now? Now I know better. Bad, bad shit happens. It happens a lot.

Fortunately a few years down the road, I'm not letting it change the outcome, it just changes my thought process to get there.

What if something bad happens? It may. It can. It has. In fact, it will. But I have no control over that. I can't let the possibility block my path forward.

What would Brian do? If I'm not having a good time, it's my own damned fault. Why the hell not?!

Let's do this! :)

Acceptance

Since Brian's death, grief has created a long struggle between the desire to overcome daily challenges and the need to accept the realities that widowhood has brought into my life.

The concept of acceptance when applied to Brian's death was not okay with me. Somehow I felt that accepting his death was a horrible combination of giving up and giving in to the pressure I felt to be "better."

The way people said the word always sounded so FINAL to me.

So, instead of heading toward the horrifying land of acceptance...I stubbornly planned around any roadblock that would slow what I thought was forward life progress, but I trudged forward with no clear destination. I think I believed that if I kept moving I could outrun the need to accept the fact that the man I loved was not coming home.

One woman I met just a few months after Brian died shared this idea with me, and I have never forgotten her words. When she was surrounded by the pain of either loss or loneliness after the death of her husband, she would challenge herself to "rest in the middle."

She allowed herself to not know the answer; to sit in the stillness; and gave herself permission to not ask why, when, what or how.

This was a foreign concept to my stubborn, planning, determined mind. I remember wondering HOW exactly she did that.

Since resting would require being still, would acceptance sneak up on me unbidden while I wasn't busy doing?

What I can see now, that was not so clear then, is that I was terrified of being frozen in grief. If I stopped, what would happen to me? Would the darkness swallow me up? Would accepting Brian's death mean he was forgotten? What would I have to let go of in order to meet the acceptance criteria?

I have struggled with this answer for almost two years, and it has taken me every bit of that time to find a path towards acceptance that didn't feel like giving up, or somehow failing Brian.

Eventually I embraced the concept that my life is a tapestry. By making my every relationship, word, effort, endeavor, friendship, challenge, and tragedy a part of my life work...nothing is ever left behind.

Accepting Brian into my life tapestry, and weaving a pattern with his love so beautiful that it becomes a piece of the whole that is noticeably more vibrant than many others, gave acceptance a purpose.

His love shines through my weaving, but only if I can allow him to become part of me instead of an idea outside of myself. That thought turned out to be a form of acceptance I could live with...and a worthy place for the kind of love Brian and I shared.

Every day we are faced with choices about what to add to our own piece of life art. Your loss will color the final product, but so will your love.

The lost moments we so long for are often the smallest gestures, the quietest moments, the most unimportant seeming details...you are still creating those every day, and are slowly stitching them into your own personal tapestry.

Stitch with flourish.