the universe is yelling...

Since I was about 16, I have felt sexy, but unlovable...you might think that could be a good feeling, and it can be.  But not if it is sustained.  And not if you are romantic at heart like I have always been.  It leaves you feeling lonely, dirty, and hollow...for years I fought to find worth in me.  John tried to help me see how beautiful I am but I even doubted him.  And now he is gone...and I have to try to believe in myself and my worth all over again.  But things in the universe are colliding to help me see that maybe I have been gorgeous and lovable and sexy and so much more, all along...

For years, my relationship with my husband has (had?) been twitchy.  Awkward.  No, scary for me...sort of.  I lost weight for the wedding in a slow and healthy way and when we were married, I was the strongest and thinnest I had been since high school. Not that I was ever very heavy.  Just curvy.  When I got pregnant right away we were ECSTATIC.  I was several months along and a friend even complimented me saying she could barely tell I was pregnant.  I was the opposite of what you might think: so upset!  I stuffed my face thinking I WANTED to be pregnant and LOOK pregnant.  Then my mom died.  And one after another all these big stresses lined up and the weight decided it would stay.  I spent the better part of the last 7 years pregnant, breast feeding, and/or severely stressed out. 

Needless to say, I lost weight and gained it back again.  And I was safe with John.  He was completely AMAZING in bed.  Really.  And he loved me.  Even if I had a big belly.   So I figured I would lose the weight some day and even if I didn't I had this guy who could make me go completely berserk and I knew we would find that again someday.  And cancer took him.  This lover, listener, this man who was annoying and amazing all at once, who taught me what it meant to argue and fight and not have your tender feelings move even a nanometer.

Now I am almost 40, as heavy as I have ever been, and I need to see my beauty.  A friend who saw a picture of me years ago, I can't remember who she was, recently told me I don't seem to age...Except for the grays I am getting, that seems pretty true, more or less.  I remember my Nanna was quite an attractive lady.  My mom, not so much, for all the drinking and years and years of self hatred.  When she was young, though, va va voom!!  For lack of a better term.  Seriously, she was a hotty! So I guess I have good skin and aging genes.  And, like the nasty bumper sticker I saw years back in Bishop's Corner (West Hartford friends know where that is), "I may be fat, but you are ugly and at least I can lose weight".  So, I need to see myself as beautiful, just a little on the big side.  And remember that I have built a lot of muscle along they way, as Aiden tells me.  It is the good kind of fat.  He says that when he pokes me in the belly and it isn't too squishy.

This is too much info, I know, but what the hell.  I often give too much.  And how can I remember any of it if I don't put it out there??  But listen....I am a warrior.  I have lived through date rape, rape, rejection, loneliness, verbal abuse, self abuse, abusive co-workers and bosses, and all I want to do STILL is LOVE and be loved...to forgive.  To give and receive...those are the only things that matter.  I believe that.  I always did.  And have always fought to keep on believing that.  When I told my first "love" how I felt and he said "thank you", and when every guy seemed to love my best friend and only want to sleep with me, even though she cheated on every single guy she ever dated, I fought to maintain my connection to love.  That is all that matters.  I am a teacher because I adore kids.  There are not bad kids, just bad choices.  We all make them.  Kids need our guidance to learn better.  Really, adults do, too... I think my biggest sins have really been against myself...hating myself, hurting myself.  And I don't want to continue that...I choose love.  Still.

different type of night terrors

I find I can do okay through the day.  Sometimes I do well- keep moving, kids laugh, if I sit I read...other days I just barely scrape the bottom of the barrel that is my heart.  I still feel guilty for using the t.v. the way that I do.  I hate t.v.  Didn't have cable for years before I met John.  But it does help keep the kids more or less out of trouble...

And then the night comes.  If I don't have wine, or a book to wrap up in, or company to help me smile and usher the time past with, well, presence and care I guess...the night creeps into my bones.  my heart.  it pricks the back of my eyes.  I feel like if I go to sleep, the time hurries forward and carries me farther from the days when I could see him, hold him, kiss him.  I want to go backwards, not forwards.  But that is just asking for trouble...

I heard from someone, connected with someone, from my past.  And it has made me wonder about so many things...John got past my defenses because he was patient, diligent, good hearted, stubborn, a talker as well as a listener...he saw something shiny in me, something special.  When I thought I was just that girl that no one could ever love.  When I thought the only thing about me that interested guys was what I gave away too freely, searching for acceptance.  This past person, I forgive them their indiscretion to me.  It was so long ago, I was barely more than a child.  What happened was far from violent, but it corroborated the ideas that my mother and grandmother slammed down my throat...that I was dirty, unworthy, bad.  My grandmother used to call me a cow...which in America seems confusing and a bit off, but apparently in Lithuania, if you call someone a farm animal, it is the lowest of insults.  Awesome.

Now that John is gone, I have to, at some point, think about dating again.  I feel like I will never ever be ready,  EVER.  So I feel like I need to start thinking about it far sooner than anyone would be able to make sense of.  Because I don't want to depend on the work that John did before, or require some new guy (ew, what a shitty thought...sigh) to cut a new path.  I want to carve my own path.  I want to find the worth than is in me by looking at my life, paying attention to the amazing man who loved me so much and trying to figure out just WHY he loved me.  From my own perspective.  Because even when he was alive, I questioned that love too often.  Nothing he did really lead me there...not in so many words or deeds...he was forgetful and your typical guy in many ways needing anniversary reminders, ideas for gifts that he forgot to pay attention to when shopping.  But he would always get up and even cross the room to get my glass of water that was just barely out of my reach because I had just gotten comfortable.  Even if he was already comfortable.  Even with that floating on the surface of my soul, I still thought he couldn't REALLY love me, not enough...I wasn't a coach, didn't know diving, barely got to learn a barani before I got pregnant and couldn't bounce trampoline anymore (that is a front flip with a half twist).  I was never an athlete.  Sure, I was athletic, I could throw and catch across just about any room and often did, I liked to bike and walk and swim and hike and camp and all that...but he just did pretty much all of it crazier and, well, better than me.  So even up to the end, I still wondered why he loved me sometimes...

Where ever I go from here, I need first to honor him by loving me.  By believing that I am amazing.  I must be for someone as crazy, cool, unusual, caring, and wonderful to have committed his life to me, to have given me his heart and his babies and all his belief...I feel sorrow that I struggled to understand that while he was with me.  But I know that he sees my heart open now.  It isn't enough.  But it is something.  Mostly because I know he always wanted the best for me.  He wanted to be able to take care of me.  When I hurt, he hurt.

So...I want to find out how to heal.  From far back.  So I can reach forward to whatever lies ahead with strength, compassion, imperfection, and hope.








Oh, I love you John.  So much it squeezes my throat and takes my breath away.  Our children are making this journey a bit easier for me, in ways.  (Not the house cleaning ways...that isn't going so hot, but I know you never cared about that, so...)  Help me do this.  Please. 

As our daughter says, I love you all the way to aliens.  And I always will.

All of it so our kids can see

And then night comes
the little ones snuggle into
the crook of my arm
breathe sweet warm air, that I
still consider baby breath, on the cheek
curls cascade or straight locks
invade my nose
depending on the child

And it's calm, quiet
And I realize, again, he will see
no more birthdays
for our babies
He cannot hold my hand

And I am crying screaming so loud
with my sound turned
off
so my throat tightens
and all I can say is

I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm so sorry
I love you

I have nothing to be sorry for

but I am sorry he is gone
   and I am still here
He was better than me in so many ways

I'm sorry I couldn't
kill the cancer
I'm sorry for all the stupid I have dumped and will display
and hope my alternating compassion can somehow
make up for it all

So all I can do is cry
silently scream as loud as I can
with my mouth so wide
my jaw hurts

And try to breathe, calm, settle.  And
remember I can also still smile, sometimes...

with me

since my two hour session with my counselor, I have felt John with me.  I can see his huge smile more clearly, almost hear him whisper in my ear.  almost feel his arms around me.

today at the dermatologist, the sweet girl who brings me in and orders my meds asked how things were going...I tried to smile and not say anything, but she is very kind...so I had to say the two worst words...the ones I say that rock me to my core.  they don't always make me cry.  but they do make me feel like dying.  do not mistake that for suicidal thoughts.  I do not have those.  i just sometimes wish i could die, because a world without him just seems so imbalanced....so wrong....i told her "he died" and she hugged me and i hid in the bathroom and cried.

and moved on

more or less...

"When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight." --Kahlil Gibran 

as our daughter says, John, I love you all the way to aliens...

brief progression

Today is my second without drinking. After fights and punching holes in walls and screaming tears yesterday, today there was an odd and tentative connection to strength...it was an ok feeling...and I got is Chinese food and dessert from Starbucks, and walked the dogs and even did yoga!

Just breathe. Each tiny step at a time....and remeber even I screw up and do things poorly sometimes and that is part of the journey. It does not define me. I am more than what one or two other people perceive me to be...and when I think about how I was John's wife and how I am the mother to our three amazing kiddos, I know more than anything, I am defined by love, and strength, hope and kindness and adventure and a little bit of crazy...and I like that...

out of order, expletive ridden, and perhaps a little inappropriate...

with my husband dying at my side, why is it that all the men in my life are distant, nonexistent, disconnected, and scared of even offering comfort...it makes my heart break ten times more, as if that were possible, to see this brave and incredible man I love leaving me...breathing his life away...I am somehow expected to understand that I can't ask too much, because maybe then I will be asking them somehow to take on the responsibility of being a father to my kids or maybe they might have to think for more than one day about how this strong and loving man who was their friend is dying and that is just asking too much...because they can go home, all of them, and things are normal and fine and level.  Or, if you are in my family, you can just, well, do nothing at all.  Or lie.  And lie some more about smaller things, be petty, act like I am being childish for wanting to take responsibility for things...such a childish and selfish thing, to want to try to figure out some sort of financial plan for my future, for the future of my sweet babies...

and while I am at it you cowardly sons of bitches, there isn't ONE of you who is worth one one-hundredth of my John, you can piss off if you think I want you to be their father or their father figure...all I wanted was a connection to this wacky and talented and crazy guy...but I sure am sorry if I asked too much of you....you weak and useless shitheads...

yeah...this one isn't going up*...he's an asshole.  men are assholes and weaklings and pieces of shit and none of them are worthy of me and my kids...of course, that sounds like my nanna.  maybe the compromise is somewhere between them being shit bags and me being a worthless screw up...find a place where we all mess up and where no one cares... or, well, maybe they care but it doesn't matter...


*guess I changed my mind...in honor of a friend I've never met who I hear blogs whatever is on her mind, although she isn't usually like that...and who sometimes uses the "f" word too much...but I deleted mine, or at least changed them to sightly more "British" curse words ("piss off" always makes me think of Monty Python)

phase 2

He died May 22, 2013.  I became aware that he was gone at 5:20 in the morning.  For the next week, I woke up around 5:00 a.m. every day...Today, I did eye integration therapy with my wonderful wonderful friend/counselor...and I felt John with me.  Around me...really, draping his arms around me.  smiling.  His face right behind my eyes.

I found strength years ago from a friend who hated people.  He beleived I was smart and capable and good.  I learned to believe that, too...Until I didn't anymore.  And then when I found it again, it was when I was alone, and it came to me through chasing down kids who swore like sailors and teaching them that their tiny baby sisters with perfect brown complexions did NOT hate white people; working in a shelter where a teenager attacked and threatened me with a broom for hours before support came while I tried to stay calm, to calm her, to get all the other kids ready for bed and the only reason she didn't beat the shit out of me was the other guy working the shelter that night...I don't think I ever had my heart in my throat longer than that day...yet, I still lost it again...life and trust and hope and relationships seem to do that to me...do they do that to you, too?

I found it again, when I was alone, teaching my very own class of 10 year olds.  Far from anyone I knew, far from family, near the water (that often helps me, being near water)...and I found him then.  And for the next 12 years all he wanted was for me to keep it.  He encouraged me to keep writing, to try trampoline, to dive, to sky dive, to travel, to announce in front of hundreds (literally) while he set himself on fire, to find ways to own pain that went back to early high school so that I could also own letting it go...

You simply cannot control, or take responsibility for, what other people will say or do...as a child who lived through verbal castigation, I not only have triggers (what some call a tendency to over react), I also have a keen sense of waht others are sometimes feeling.  And a sense of responsiblity to find a way to keep the others in my life from feeling anything bad because when they feel bad it seems to come back at you two-fold...but that is not who I am, at my core.  And I would like to stop trying to function from that sort of mindset...I fear that will be easier said than done, but at least I know what I would like to try to be working on...

"The year of no judgements"...sounds attractive...comforting...there is no "right" way to go through this.  There is no guide book.  There are no straightforward answers.  I will screw up.  As will pretty much everyone involved, at one time or another, in one way or another...

Sometimes, I feel like you just need to watch the rain fall.  Forget the umbrella and closing the windows.  Just let yourself get wet.