Accepting isn't the same as giving up...or as ending.

I miss things so small
Saying how much I love my kids
Knowing someone is watching
Behind the curtains
Feeling it all just as much
I look right to see the complimentary smile
And find only an empty rocking chair.
The nights are so damn long
Quiet
Strange
Soft in all the wrong places
Missing moments of hard and
Times of touching a togetherness that
Only couples have

I watch you, who do not know what you have
And ache
Because no words will work
To explain the empty
That could be
Around every corner
That awaits us all
In every moment
Whether our not our eyes are open
We all come here...

I just miss your face splitting smile
Your almost squeaking laugh
Side splitting squeezing tears out
Because you always knew
The value of a laugh

But the train calls and the cars pass
We have an incredible amount of crickets
The deck is almost finished
My hand clasps on nothing
I have no shoulder to rest my head on

I have moved somehow beyond mad
And made a home near empty.

Message

The message
Isn't that the left side
Of my bed is cold

The message is that at one time
It was warm

What right have I to
Any moment of sorrow
That feels endless
Sorrow, yes
But ending in
A memory

A silent film moment of
Squinting eyes in a photograph
Looking deeper than the ocean depths
Seeing fears and fat and flawless imperfection

Yes
My eyes burn
As does my heart
But I have a message

I have the marks a mind makes
On you when you are loved
I am not who
I was
Nor will I ever be

And the holes left here
Are not the barren chasms
Of mine field battles

They are acid burns
From tears shed inside
Connection. Salt unkissed
Can burn as surely as sun rays
Licking uncovered arms and nose and cheeks

I will wear my holes and burns
Badges of battles won
Through loss
And dance down dirt pathways
On bare and filthy feet

Forget a hand to hold. I know these
Moves myself.

And will always reach out
For your ethereal invisible essential
Self that floats
Forever
Beside me.

My message is
I may sleep alone
But I will never dance
Without you.

continuing saga??

So. It is October again. The month of diagnosis. Last year, people said not to dwell on the "minor" milestones...which I hear. I don't agree that any dates this month are minor.

Regardless, I suppose I am doing better. I am aware that I am healing because I am starting back into routines that used to be easy, or at least things I didn't even think about, like reading to the kiddos every night. The strength for some of that "standard" stuff just wasn't there. It wasn't any sort if discernible weakness. It was just a wall. It got to a certain point in the day, and I had no more "function buttons" to access.

I guess that, as this becomes clear, I am able to notice other places where I am becoming aware and able again, as well as the other walls that still remain. The odd thing, however, is the lack of definition. I sort of see the walls. I definitely feel them. Yet I have no idea what they surround...what they are blocking. I can make guesses and those guesses are likely pretty close to the truth. Except whatever truth might have begun in those spaces could have morphed into anything this past year and 5 months...

I used the word "bored" tonight. I hate that word. It is the nails on the chalkboard of my soul. But there it sat, grinning like the Mad Hatter, drooling and hopping on my chest. I have some book ideas and now that I got paid, I can download them to my kindle. I watched one of my shows. I noticed a buzzing empty where inside parts of me used to be. And I just sat and stared into space. I even cleaned a little...sort of...

I remember how things used to be before John and I feel confused. I worked, I read and saw movies and went to bars alone... I went out and searched for connections. I volunteered or just did stuff. I do stuff with my kids now...we go to festivals, the library, the park, the mall to hit the play area and get DQ...we are planning a hike or drive to Shenandoah and the pumpkin patch. But most of this is to give joy to them. I get joy vicariously, but it all still leaves me quite empty. A confused sort of empty. I am not sure I am explaining this well. I suppose I just feel like a long time underlying purpose to my life before was a longing to find this person to connect with...and now...now it's like I just search for momentary pathways to smiles, which enable one foot to land in front of the other because I just don't know what else to do.

I thought I wanted to date...to find connection again. In retrospect, that's kind of funny. I reached for any hand to hold, for any way to feel connected, not alone...the alone of being a widow, of being without him, was more terrifying than any bad choice I could ever make...that's how it felt. But my last date was such a foolish grasp at hope with my eyes closed that it felt as if the universe sucker punched me while drenching me with ice water and stabbing me with shallow daggers in the kidneys. Seriously. The risks I took in one day, with my body and my life and my kids...it was beyond dumb. We were lucky to the moon and back that nothing worse than an accidentally stepped on laptop resulted.

So here I am. Tired, but not sleepy. Bored. Numb. Trying to make some healthier choices, for my body and my heart and my family. Trying to move forward slowly while searching for a way to unstick the stuck feeling that pervades my heart. Trying to keep on trying.

And so it goes.

realizations after 16 months

I have recently come to realize that my internal barometer for making healthy, safe, smart choices may have been significantly damaged after John's death. I am 40 years old. I'd be a liar if I said i have lived a sheltered life. Some of my issues were born of things beyond my control,  but I will be damned if I will relinquish all of the power that comes with owning my multitude of asinine choices. Seriously. I did some ragingly unsafe, stupid, selfish things in my day. You are going to have to trust me on this. I won't elaborate now.  Because my point in reliving and rehashing my idiocy is to remember that if you laid it all end to end, there is no way the path should have led me here: relatively stable, mostly healthy, elementary school teacher, mother of 3, and regular church goer. But it did.

I somehow found the mental and emotional fortitude to live the OPPOSITE of the moderately  Machiavellian ethical teachings I grew up with, to not hide from my mistakes no matter how ugly, ratty, or familiar they were...because when you hide, all growth stops.

To be honest, a significant portion of this last year of blind misjudgment has likely been an active choice on my part, on some level. With John gone, no matter how much I love my kids, myself, life, my job...nothing was real and nothing truly mattered. I was living in a flattened out world, with thinly sliced wood fiber able to burn and blow away as the foundation and partner in crime for every choice. Once again, it seems there is an energy around me that I am able to touch or tap into. Because I made it through still wanting to love and learn and fight and grow.

But I guess I finally realized that as lonely as I am, I am not ready for someone new. Not because I'm not open to love. Not because I'm afraid I will be trying to replace John. But because the crushing pain of losing your chosen family, your life partner, leaves you a paper doll wandering in a cutout world. A razor thin slice of working brain. Able to be leveled by the slightest need. Confused and unclear, vulnerable and clueless, desperate to be filled out, fleshed in, touched by the Blue Fairy's wand, a wish repeated: I want to be real...make me a real woman. My heart would beg this, of anyone close enough to hear. I wanted to be seen, because I was invisible. He was not there to see me. Could I even BE seen without him?

So no, I am not ready. But not for the reasons you might think. I am not ready because losing him was like an internal explosion of epic proportions. My soul shattered. My heart liquefied. A disaster that huge causes a rapid changs to the surface of anywhere it touches. There is no quick rebuild. There's no switch to flip. Redefining who I am, what I believe, how I feel, what to dream about, hope and wish for, how to find my stride and rhythm in a dance excluding him...each of these will take time. There is no way to know how much. It has already been a year and 4 months and I am only just now beginning to accept that I must keep breathing without him beside me.

Sometimes it is the little things that are huge

Tonight, I am experiencing a strange phenomenon.  I see that I am 40 years old.  That is neither old nor young, in the scheme of things.  Yet I know that I have fought a battle since I was about 18 years old.  Literally.  I moved out of my mother's house at that age.  My grandmother laughed at me, saying I'd be back my Thanksgiving.  I wasn't.  I knew I wasn't ready to be on my own, but I also knew I wasn't willing to stay where I was.  So I broke ties and got an apartment.  I remember thinking how damn expensive milk was!  So I stopped putting it in my coffee, and for years drank it black with sugar.  I made some very responsible choices at that point in my life, but not very many.  Really, I'm lucky I survived.  Mostly, I was a totally irresponsible little ass.  I even contemplated putting myself in an institution.  However, I had a roommate who actually institutionalized herself, and as far as I could tell, she was way more screwed up than I was.  So I figured I'd try my back up plan.

That worked out well, and I made a lot more responsible choices, but I still am surprised I survived.  My idiocy exceeded my common sense and good choices by a significant number still.

My point here, is to note that TRULY learning to take care of myself, without pulling any punches, took YEARS.  It took good influences, a crap load of mistakes, smart choices, chances, adventures, pain, more pain, confusion, being an asshat, dealing with asshats, longing for asshats, battles and reading and tears and, did I mention, a boat load of idiocy?

And then I decided that I really had been an idiot.  And I tried to lay off the dumb things I was doing and try and figure out a better recourse...perhaps even try to PLAN something.  And then I met John.  And he invaded my life in ways I never dreamed possible.  Such a perfect combination of gentility and passion was what we had, that I didn't even know what was occurring.  I remember my roommate at the time worrying that she was going to lose me to "the M word"...I was so befuddled, I actually stood in her doorway, trying to figure out this word puzzle...and came out with "I M-ove him?" (pronounce love with an "m")  She was talking "marriage" and I was just hoping it was some version of love, not even dreaming there was a future with me married!

And so it was.  And making healthy choices, if not always believing in myself, was so much easier than I ever dreamed!  I had stopped smoking, stopped drinking, started bouncing trampoline, exercising more, and was reveling in the whole "not being alone" thing to a level deeper than I ever dreamed.  The drinking and smoking wasn't even a thing...he didn't ask me to stop.  I just didn't WANT to anymore.  I wanted to play!  His way...even though I couldn't keep up.

And.  Now here I am.  I admit to falling back into old habits that are hurtful.  But what I realized tonight is that it isn't about individual choices.  It is that he helped to take care of me.  I was on a journey, decades long, trying to figure out how to take care of myself.  And I was blessed to find a man who helped close gaps that would have taken years to fill and solidify and decorate on my own.  And now that he is gone, the flooring burnt with him.  So I have these odd and random holes in my foundation.  And I have to do the work I started years ago.

Yes, it is likely true that if he had never died, I would have still had to do this work.  But he supported that.  We were working on it.  It just was never urgent when he was with me...because if I found I couldn't get over a pothole, he'd hold my hand.  He would back flip over the sucker, take me on his back, and find a way across.  He's set himself on fire to burn a hole to the place I needed to get through.  Messy and sooty and sometimes painful, but effective.  My damn Green Lantern...no powers of his own but chosen, simply because inside, he was a good guy and willing to try.

And now, I have to do this all on my own.  I didn't realize how much work I have still to do, just on me...the foundation of who I am, who I want to be, how to do what I want and have to do...

I'm 40, and I have to learn lessons I started at 28.  Shoot, lessons I started at 18...who am I kidding?  Good lord, all I have to say is that I am so glad I had him!  I forgot how hard it was to be me without him.  Sigh.  I may not know a path, or have answers, or a plan...but I least I know I am so much stronger now.

At least there is that.

blurred perspective: loneliness or beauty?

I  know.
I know some things.
I know I am incomplete
unfinished
in motion.

I know I have felt the way the world works
when there is a home base
that does not waver
and arms
that will always hold you.

I know I have felt the way the world works
when there is
nothing
but long nights
lips laying on each other and not
another's
locking language inside
instead of locking together

I know the quiet moments
of silent screams and tears that stream
volcanic liquid searing not one single mark
on faces that deserve rivulets

I don't know where I am
I am sure I don't know where
I am going
I'm not even sure where I have been

I know that there are moments that
have stuck to me
like glitter on your leg
that you never meant
to hold onto
and instead of letting
these oddly formed annoyances
made of magic meaningless sparkles
flake off one spot
to stick
to another
you flick at them and they
persist
like lifting up lost but
tangible memories
from a life no longer yours, yet still stuck
to you, where you are now
with no visible connection
just
there, statically electric

so I leave the sparkle,
reach for a place where things matter
and connect
and still, the focus is off enough
to make me wonder

perhaps I have become
the lens of a camera
with the focus broken
and unbalanced

I'm sure there is still beauty
in those furry, fuzzy moments
but how can you decide any forward motion
when things are so balefully blurred?

you just might know what you
are seeing.  Unless
you don't

and either way
it
is
frightening


In which case
the path remains the same
as the choices are so few

and you walk
with a backpack full
of questions and fears
a woman alone across a river, empty hands
a sultry sunset scene surrounded by fertile lands
and untwined fingers
bare feet
skirt swaying in the breeze mysterious
and silent

I she searching?  Running?  ending or starting?

So much is about perspective...

what it all is: powerless

where are you?  where am I?
When I open my eyes
the skies
remain black
an incandescent crescent of

https://theiddm.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/grief.jpg

something missing
burns my broken retinas

something deep inside me
rumbles with what seems like
emptiness
and emptiness no food
will calm

testing facial muscles
to see if they work
since my lips
remain dormant
linear

too often saying "I don't know"
and meaning
love
pain
weakness
longing
hope
dreams
all of it...so foreign
to every step in my dance

it's a tango
with no hand to hold me
as I dip deeply
landing on my head

a novel unwritten
save for the ending
while the author begs
for a plot to apply
more characters
some relevant action
anything
to flesh out the all too often
empty moments

ethics without an application
theology without god
love stories without heroes
hands unheld and fingers untwined
pillows too fluffed beside me
and too many leftovers

it is the correct application
of
"it is what it is"
which just happens to be
a phrase
that makes my skin crawl.