soft breezes after all

when things are moderately quiet
and the wind blows sweetly
most of the dishes are done
bedtime comes softly

there may be a moment
where the storm inside settles
at least a little

the small stuff they say not to sweat
can that be the cleaning of sinks and floors?
can it be that we order out most nights?

the dogs wrestle and growl and make weird
small snippy noises
the refrigerator mumbles a muted
single noted tune

my daughter drew pictures all night
my oldest argued about homework and still
it got done

there were movies and video games
baths and mayonnaise hair goo
mud masks, candles,
lavender bubbles and books by Vonnegut.

there isn't a single thing
totally whole
but
like the wind
the moments are coming softly
tonight

Perhaps the power to find myself
to find some peace
to find a home
without him
persists

Perhaps it is possible
in the peace of a moderately quite night
after all.

How?

When does it end?  It doesn't...it just gets easier to manage.  Or at least, that is what they tell me.  And then it comes to light that the stupid things I have been doing, they have been enabling me to hide from my grief, postpone it...but like it says in Tear Soup, if I don't face it, then it will just crust over and get more messed up than it should have been.  Acknowledging this, I feel...a little less fear, but a lot more pain.

The reality is that there is nothing to hold me up as I go through this...there is me.  There is no one here who loves me more than anyone else.  Do not let your thoughts go to my kids.  That is different.  I know and love that they keep me smiling and alive and moving forward.  I do not take them for granted, nor do I discount them in any way.  It's just that it is a different thing I am talking about.

I think of John so much more now, that my stupid choices are done.  I think, too often, "I'm sorry"...is that the deep path to my grief?  Sorrow?  Some version of regret?  Feeling like there is nothing to fight for isn't right...I have the children we created, I have perhaps half my life left...I have to believe in myself, but without John that is quite difficult.  And every time I reach for someone else, and they help me, or I reach for them and they don't need me or reach for me the way I need them to, it gets harder.  I guess I have to stop reaching...but I need to be clear that reaching is not the same as asking for help...I don't, yet, know how to tell them apart, or to explain the difference...but I see the separation.

I suppose I need to be fixed from the inside.

But who can do that?  How can that be done?  The only way is for me to fix myself.  To open the door to the pain I have been afraid of, that I have been blocking...but the problem is that the pain I have been blocking is too big to live with.

If I hide from my grief, I am afraid it will get so big  I cannot handle it.  If I allow it to come through, in its entirety, I fear it will destroy me.  I have to say "goodbye" to the first person I KNOW would love me no matter what.  There is no one, not mother, not grandmother, not father, no one...that I truly found a way to believe in that with.  Until John.  And he is dead.  and now I have dating sites, dog poop, diapers, lesson plans, responsibility, pain, fear, loneliness, loss, I have life.

Without him.

working on my credo and my "commandments"

I believe that "religion" should be a set of values, ideas, or aspirations that set you on a path toward being the best person you can be.  I believe people should try to perceive and to create beauty in the world.
Beauty is not how a person or a thing looks.  It is how you love and how you speak and how you walk.  It is the way an experience or thing affects you, makes you stop and appreciate its existence.
I believe that belief is not what you find written by someone.  It is what makes your heart relax and what touches your center in a way that opens everything inside you to hope.

I believe that to let the rain touch my pores, to let my heart connect to the mist that caresses the crevices of each mountain nook, to take the time to notice the sunrise and the way the air can smell like different seasons allows me to live, without judgement, regardless of answers. 

I don't believe there really are answers.  There are questions cradled in the glowing sunsets, the sparkling sunrises, the crackling fires, and the smooth sleek tumbles of river waters, in each sorrow and joy we experience.

I believe there is nothing but what is here and can be felt, or created between each of us, be the pairing human, ursine, aquatic, somehow sentient, or solid and of the earth.

I believe it is for each of us to Find a path.  Hold a hand.  Touch something other than ourselves.  These simple things are what I believe in.  These connections.  These moments of clarity that breathe comfort into the indifference or pain which all too often engulfs us.  I do not believe There is a god or God, no Goddess or gods judging us, loving us, choosing among us, helping or hurting us...there is energy and I believe that this energy can sometimes respond to us, in different ways. There is expansion, growth, destruction, pain, death, sorrow...and love. If there is anything akin to being saved, it is feeling, finding, accepting LOVE. 

There is Divine Connection.

My idea of 6 Ethical Commandments, or perhaps Guidelines
1) Treat all life as sacred
2) Show compassion in all you do.  Remember to include in this both yourself and those you dislike
3) Speak and act honestly whenever possible
4) Accept and respect the idea that there are very few right and wrong thoughts/actions; rather, most  
    often there are ones we do understand and agree with, and ones we don't
5) Be brave enough to ask for help when needed- allowing others to do for you is a blessing because 
    it fosters Divine Connection
6) Share whenever possible, for this also honors Divine Connection
 
 

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

nothing shattered

let it go
let it slide through
your fingers
and watch it fall
to shatter

there's a quiet hum
inside
while you reach for things to make the pain
more physical than
emotional
and suddenly
the outside begins
to whisper
as the rain rolls in

squeezing my eyes shut
biting my lips
curling my toes and really?

nothing matters
there is nothing
i am nothing
i have nothing
and it is no one's fault

and that
makes nothing
easier.

too much, too real...i have nothing

this just fucking sucks.  I feel like karma has to be kicking my ass.  and I know I did some stupid bad shit, but not like this!  and then I think about my kids.  what the hell did they do, to lose their dad?  it's just so hard to think outside of the story I thought I knew, where I was the lead.  we are all the lead in our own life story.  of course.  except for how self centered and selfish that seems.  and I just keep coming back to the idea that it doesn't matter.  nothing matters.  nothing.  and nothing is real.  and i realized, crying in the shower, that I only truly had him by my side, in a way I trusted and believed, for five years.  he had cancer for the last two and a half or so.  in that small time we did have, my mother died, i had three babies, gained 60 lbs, had my school under review with a crazy messed up principal at the helm...he never stopped being attracted to me...trying to be there for me...loving me...

he sucked.  I need to be honest.  he got turned on whenever I was close, but he was horrible at saying kind things to me.  I literally had to teach him, almost word for word, the sweet things he could say.  He never even really used my name, which was something I have always loved, my name.  He didn't say it often, he didn't type it often.

He was also amazing...he never pushed or demanded or whined about anything I wasn't ready to share...but the long and the short of it is that I did not have enough time with him

And how do I go through life feeling like that was not a punishment?  It was not about me.  okay.  I do get that....but then why couldn't I have found someone else to love?  I loved him, he loved me...and all I want is to take a knife and carve out my heart, my center, my soul...because he is gone.  yet knowing how positive and strong and amazing he was, I cannot allow that desire to even begin to manifest.  yet not allowing it to do so feels like a betrayal to how much love I felt, feel, for him.

I hate this.  I cannot say it enough.

and I also do not want to be alone.

and I hate the stupid idea of having to "date" again...what a load of shit.  I want to kiss and hug and make out, and let someone touch me...and if they can make me think, and laugh, and hope, and tingle, then maybe they can meet my kids...and after that, who the hell knows?  becuase how fucking long will it take to make all that other shit happen at the same (basic) time!?  If I believed in "god", which I don't, this is where I'd say "for god's sake", when the hell do I get a break??

The other thing I keep thinking, is how there is so much in my life, but simultaneously so much nothing.  I am "on" from 6:15 or so in the morning until 7:30 or 8:00 at night, if the kids more or less go to bed without a struggle.  I have three nights a week, right now, where I am doing something for me- for my soul, my pain, my creativity...but even those things are hard to keep up with.  because if I had my way, I would have quiet time to cry and sleep and cry some more and remember him.

I sincerely wonder if that is a good thing to desire.

What I know, is that there is nothing.  There is nothing for me.  I am speaking of me, the Woman, not the Mother.  The mother part of me is doing okay, is seeing the lovely value of the amazing friends watching my babies and being good influences, trying to live with the anger rules, trying to show Aiden how much I love him by articulating that love is shown through NOT hugging when he doesn't want a hug, through random gifts, through tiny gifts of peanuts and being willing to not force him to hold my hand when I wish he would just never let go.  He has to grieve John in his own way and I can't make him fit my heart or timeline or anything, really.  I just need to always be in the sidelines showing him I care.

I mean the Woman...that part of me always doubted...she has been betrayed and hurt and broken in so many ways in so many places...why is it that this is a truth for so many of us?  I watch characters kiss on t.v. shows and my whole body aches for some sort of physical connection, tenderness, love...and I have so much painful jealousy of those who have that kind of link, especially when they don't acknowledge it.

And so I say again...I have nothing.  I feel like just too much nothing.  Not only do I wish I were and miss being the most important thing in someone's life, but I wish I had someone to focus on, to love, to turn on, to keep safe in my grown up arms...I wish I had someone who sought my shoulder and my understanding and approval, support, something...I wish I mattered in that special sexual secret sensual way.

John's love was a gift.  He sucked and he was amazing, all in one package.  I never ever would have traded him.  Life took that choice away from me...and I don't know what the hell to do with the remnants of that....

what if it doesn't matter?

broken
falling
tearing at things that are only
partly there
and all the world around you is calling
for you
to fix this, make that better

the place where things should be able to be
fixed
is a very large hole
so what, pray tell, is the next
step?

This hole ingests
things that care
the parts of me that find a way to hope
but then,  the fact is
that empty space
calls for something
to fill it

and what fills holes better than
large
amounts of hope

and hope made flesh
gives gifts that grow, multiply

So it seems
what I need is
hope
made flesh

till time stalls and something sad
seeps into every single cell
and there's
no flesh

but the memories that fill me, memories of him,
make holes
in the whole heart
that he helped heal

So my only question now
is
now what?