so many thoughts, without him...The house that love built.

In my Building Your Own Theology book "We behold the stars and write our own meanings in them"

On meditation:  it is to live with insight, tethered by reality and to reality, while still finding grace and peace and happiness.  It is not an escape or a denial, or a special place.

As Bhante Sujatha said today, you cross a river on a raft.  The idea is to be grateful for the raft that got you here, and leave that vehicle at the river bank...walk away from it, you do not need to carry it with you as you proceed.

And then, inside myself, the quiet is something I treasure, but do not always seek.  I acknowledge and embrace the idea that there is no wrong way to grieve, yet when I seek happiness, I feel as though there is betrayal there.  Again, I think of him...I know that this is wrong.  He would not want me to feel that.  Yet, how can I feel happy without him by my side?  How can I feel comfortable and confident in a search for happiness when I know all he wanted was to live forever, to be involved in the happiness and the search for as long as the search was possible?  Yet, when I stop and think, he did that.  Just not for as long as he had hoped.  For really nowhere near long enough.

So I search my soul, and I see I carry loneliness.  There is also a deep and painful sorrow.  Bitterness.  Anger and fear.  And then...there is a vast space inside me where there is nothing.  When I find myself coasting through this internal desert, that is when I can laugh and smile.  I do so, however, without foundation.  Yet, I can still do so...

Thus I find myself wondering about that emptiness...that void.  And perhaps that is the place he lived inside me.  That is the part of me that he made his home.  That is where he built a house for love and hope and trust and kindness.  Because before him, there were many people and moments that showed me those things, but there was not enough to create a stage, to build a skeleton or framework.  And now that he is gone, that space is still there.  I do not believe (perhaps it is more that I desperately hope?) that it will ever go away.  Since it was created, it now lives.  Yet it is vast.  And now it is mine to create.  Or rather to decorate?  We were not together so very long...in the scheme of things.  I had him by my side as my partner for more or less 12 years.  That amount of time is incredible vast, in comparison to what I had prior...yet it is tiny.  And so, without him, I find that it is not so full of things that I can move forward comfortably with what he left me...I wonder if that is the difference between me, and widows who had their love for longer?  I wonder if that is why some can comfortably and happily go for years and years without feeling the need for someone to be by their side.  But I feel like I was cheated from so much...like the rug was taken out from under me...I had just really begun the journey of believing that I would be loved by someone special no matter what.

What I want most of all, is to honor the fact that he loved me.  I want to show myself that much love, too.  I know he would want that.  He always did.  He hated when I was in pain.  He hated even more being the cause of that pain.  I look at his photos and see so many smiles.  I remember when he would cry.  I remember when I would push him to admit to me that he was terrified of leaving, of dying.  I don't think anyone else saw that.  What a gift!  That he loved and trusted me enough to let me see his fear and pain, if only for a moment.  What an honor.

His friend tags photos of him with #badass.  And he was, in so many ways.  He was MY bad ass.

street luge

 And my sweetheart, my savior, the owner of my heart, the man of my dreams, a pain in my ass, the most oblivious person I have ever known, the best lover I have ever had...he was exactly what I wanted.  Our love was real and messy and wonderful.  And now it is gone.  I know it never really will be GONE, but it is not here, it is not now.

And I think that to honor him, I must embrace my pain and anger and confusion and sorrow, but mostly I must learn to live in that empty place that he was trying to make a home.  Because that is where the best of me lies.  I just have to wade through everything else, all those other feelings, to figure out how to get there.  I have to use those things, and more, to decorate in here.  Because to do other than that, well, that would be to deny him.  And I will NEVER deny him.  I will never replace him.  I will search for love.  I will search for ways to love myself.  I will search for others worthy of my love.  Because the most powerful and meaningful thing in life, as far as I am concerned, is loving and being loved.  So that will be my legacy to him.  I don't think I will get there right away.  I am still in the muck and mire of screwing up and being selfish and foolish and messed up...and that is okay.  that is part of the construction.  If I could acknowledge that my amazing love for him was imperfect and messy and hard right along with all the lovely and amazing and sweet and sexy and true, well, then that is how I will build this new house.  The one that feels like it has no foundation.

Because really, it has one.  It has an amazing foundation.  It is the house that love built.  It is the home inside me that he helped to start.  Would I rather he was the one there building with me?  Oh HELL yeah...but I don't get that.  However, to allow it to fall to ruin, to give up, to cave in...oh, that would be so wrong.  It would be so very disrespectful to him.  And on this journey, I know I am likely to make wrong choices and choices that are harmful to me in some way.  But I will NOT disrespect him. Not if I am aware of it or if I can do anything about it.

This pain is larger than anything I thought existed.  And the only reason I know I will get through it well and with love, is because somewhere, somehow, he is with me.  And I know I am strong, I am a warrior...but HE was and will always be a bad ass...and he is in my corner.

after skydiving..note the necklaces