beyond emptiness

I keep thinking about how we are coming up on four months.  That is hardly any time.  It seems like a thousand years.  I constantly recognize the need to redefine myself...a "solo" mom now...I need to focus on the balance between remembering John and keeping him with us and allowing myself to move on.  Neil just came to me a couple minutes ago with his lovey blanket that he calls Bee and told me that Bee is special...because Daddy got it for him.  I told him his daddy loves him, and he told me "No, daddy died".  I told him that he still loves him, even if he is dead.  It is balance again....

I thought about starting smoking again, but I don't want to mess with my ability to sing...I got earrings for all my cartilage piercings, and am wearing my belly button ring again.  I am contemplating another tattoo, one on my arm, that can't be hidden...something like a lotus flower, to remind myself of the ability of beauty to grow out of muck, a red one to symbolize love and compassion. Or a buddah knot...

 I know that most of us are on the same sort of quest, I just feel like my whole life has been a journey of searching for strength and for love. 

And I mean from the outside and inside...I think that is one of many reasons my weight is making me crazy right now- I love feeling strong and I just feel fat right now...my difficulty sleeping and whatever else is making me even gain weight when ever since John went into hospice, I haven't been able to eat like I used to.  I want to feel strong and beautiful, and I know that I need those things in order to move forward in a healthy way, in order to find love again...it is so damned ethereal with me...it is there and gone and I never know what will make either happen, not really...and now,some old friends have brought to my attention in a way I can't ignore that perhaps I am actually good looking...perhaps I was (am??) even beautiful...but I cannot find a way to separate that from the 60 extra pounds...that is a lot!  And nothing I do makes it go away...and I don't know why I am obsessing about it so much...I guess I was scared that John wouldn't even want me with the extra weight, and he knew what I looked like at my strongest, so how can I believe someone who doesn't know me that well, didn't see me through that stage, will think I am beautiful and sexy now??? 

And I remember, mostly everything is about attitude.  believe it, and being it will follow, one way or another...so I am working on it...

Then there are the practical things.  Things like, I need to get a brake light for the van, and haven't.  I just found out a tire has a slow leak and I should have gone to take care of that today.  Didn't.  The front of one of the drawers broke off Cilly's dresser- nails are poking out, and it is not a matter of glue or shove it back on.  The wood snapped, and there is no puzzle fit to try and force.  It broke.  I don't know how to fix it or what to do- do I get rid of the whole thing and get another?  It is big!  How do I get it out?  When?  If I do, what do I get in replacement?

And I smiled a lot at people in school this morning...I had to go in and do sub plans because Neil couldn't go to daycare today.  Her son is very ill...and I couldn't find any back up to help out today, so I had to take a sick day.  Which was okay.  But it was another "boot to the head" slamming me in the face with "John is gone". 

The Buddah Knot: Eternal Love and Friendship

the endless cycle of suffering or birth, death and rebirth within Tibetan Buddhism.

The inter-twining of wisdom and compassion.

Interplay and interaction of the opposing forces in the dualistic world of manifestation, leading to their union, and ultimately to harmony in the universe.

The union of wisdom and method.

The inseparability of emptiness (shunyata) and dependent origination, the underlying reality of existence.

Symbolic of knot symbolism in linking ancestors and omnipresence

Since the knot has no beginning or end it also symbolizes the wisdom of the Buddha

A friend said that I seemed happier to him than I have been.  I don't know that it is happy.  I looked up bulimia, to see what that was about, I want surgery to help make me smaller...I want out of this body, I want muscle and youth and hope and laughter...and I want love.  All I ever wanted was a safe place to love, where love was given and love ruled...not fear and judgement and hatred (either self or other), and in so many ways I had that with John.  I didn't really believe it existed.  And now I just feel so confused.  Because I know what a shit storm it can be out there, trying to find someone to connect to.  I have lost the place in the world where I am the most important person in someone's existence.  And I feel like someone put blinders on me...because I don't even know which way to move.  And I tell myself that not enough time has passed...it's okay to be alone and lost for a while.  But because of my personal baggage, my history, I need to keep facing forward.  Because my heart has always known what I want is connection.  Life, verbal abuse, poor choices, alcohol, self doubt, all these and more tried to beat that desire out of me.  But I would not give up hope.  That is why I say I am a warrior.  You can push me, to the brink, even, of extinction.  I will be afraid, angry, I will harbor self hatred...and I will never stop trying.  Life is a bowl of shit.  And it is also an amazingly wonderful gift...there is so much beauty, even inside pain...because in pain, there is a bridge to connection to someone else...and that is all there is...connection.  And it doesn't exist without acknowledging it.  It doesn't exist without fighting for it.

We only live once.  If we are lucky, we hurt and love and change and grow over and over and over again.  I wish with all my heart I could have done more of those things with John, but I am SO glad I had him while I did....so glad. 

If he is out there, listening, I hope beyond everything I believe that he helps to guide me somewhere that my love and desire won't lead me to emptiness, but beyond it....

find

FIND a way to connect
to someone

I read, I write, I sing, I flirt, I talk, I wonder, I love...
I am searching, with every breath
with every other thing I do

searching for someone to connect to me
searching for some insight into my pain
searching for some tenuous connection to tie me
to the human race

my kids are connection
but not a high enough gauge
so I have to keep
reaching
searching

And perhaps, in honesty, my biggest fear
has been being as broken
and broken in the same ways
as my mother, my grandmother

I have two generations of women to break from
divorce, not death, severed their hearts
but they never loved again

And I even asked him, before he was too lost,
if that is what he wanted.
And, in love, I was even willing to try to give that to him
if that is what he needed.
But he said "no", that is not what he wanted for me, not what he hoped for, not what he needed

So the door is open to date again
someday
to love again
somehow

and I worry that any love I feel
will be a slap in his face
a betrayal

and yet I know I need it....
I know it is natural and normal and healthy
I know it is okay to want to

I know I am not ready.
And I know my tendency is always
to put my feet in the water
before I am ready
to see what it is all about...
check the temp before I get in

I flash back to sexy stuff too soon, just seeing what it's about...ending up so scared....
to loving and committing at awkward points too soon...
leaving proposal flowers on someone's stairs on Valentine's Day when we weren't even really
dating
but he fell asleep with books in his bed and woke up three hours before he needed to and made me coffee!  I could live with that, if he said yes.  He didn't.

so this is my pattern...there's more, but you see....this is how I learn the world.
Not done dealing with this episode
I embrace the next too soon
to try to figure it out.

Perhaps that is why I appreciate change
instead of fearing it
Not that this change hasn't broken me
chipped my heart so deeply
more than light
seeps in

There is brokenness and sorrow and pain and lonliness
like I never experienced
But I have been here before
in many little episodes
many different times
over the years
I know the mess

I know I can
I know I will
I also know it will be messy
along the way...

I'm on the path
and I will not stray.
I may not feel right saying "I got this", but I sure as hell
am not
getting off...not literally anyway.

group

I went to group tonight.  It is the "Young Widows/widowers" support group at hospice.  There were supposed to be nine of us and there were, I think, seven.  It was good to be in a group of other widows.  I secretly hoped there would be a guy or two.  But it was good that there were just women.  And the facilitator knows someone from another group whose child was coached by John.  And again, his life and energy makes me feel a little extra special, just having been connected to him. 

He was so magical, in so many ways.  Something I always tried to do was to embrace the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Because of "Good Will Hunting".  Robin Williams' character talks about how it is the little weird, annoying stuff that makes it real:  farting so loud you wake yourself up and he accepts the blame for the butt blurt.  And you cannot hide from it.  Because if you try, it will all come back to bite you.

I still helped make people laugh.  I guess I am good at that.  Not exactly the "class clown" but sort of.  My bear (don't ask, I won't elaborate) might say that is attention getting behavior.  Maybe.  But it makes me feel good and I like it so....

Someone said tonight that she misses being the most important thing in someone's world.  And that is SO RIGHT.  That is what I am reaching for.  And that is what, in my fairly messed up view of myself and the world, I think I will find through sexting and flirting with these old boyfriends. 

And online I read these pieces about how young girls are posting sexy things that make some mothers see them as slutty, nasty, not worthy.  And then some friends responded by sharing other pieces about how those girls, they are not slutty and nasty and not worthy.  They need someone to pull them aside and talk with them about the amazing things they are worth and have to offer.

And I connect to myself there.  I went the route of sleeping around to find love and worth and hope.  And mostly all it lead to was shame and hurt and pain.  And it was when I shrugged off that shroud that I met John.  And nothing was what I thought it was.  The difficulty is that I very rarely felt like I was the most important thing in his world.  If I think about it, I totally believe I was the most important PERSON in his world...but coaching was his everything.  And I wouldn't have wanted or asked him for anything different.  Okay, that is a little untrue... I did want it to be different, to some degree.  But that drive is what made him so magical.  Annoying, hard to talk to, often intimidating, but magical.  It was how he connected to others, helped them, inspired them...it gave him his flame, his unique flare. 

And then I think about how there is simply no way I can be that woman who existed pre-John no matter what I do.  I worry that I will become her, in ways.  And there are parts of her I will most definitely need.  And I so want to have that physical connection again.  And I think I might be able to understand that a few times without working toward that place where I can be everything, or the most special thing, to someone. 

I told the group how I read two of the three Shade of Gray novels and the facilitator was all like, "why are you torturing yourself like that??"  I don't know....it is moderately better than drinking too much?  That was my response.  And her counter response was that we hope to grasp for things that are not addictive.  Ha....yeah....like that won't happen.  At least to some degree...addictions replace, supersede, DEMAND attention, regardless of everything swirling around you....so grabbing one helps not always think about the pain and loss and emptiness.  Plus, flirting with old loves has helped me feel sexy and beautiful, which are things I was longing for when John was still alive. 

But now, Tuesdays I will have the Building Your Own Theology class at church, Wednesdays I have choir, and then Thursdays I will go to the widows support group.  Not much sex in sight, but lots of good ways to help keep my heart and mind and soul nourished and keep things moving...so.  Yeah.  Still wish I could get some.  But I will take what I can get.

made me a momma

feeling lost and alone
so fiercely
I toss and turn in the bath

and I realize what I want
is a love poem

for my son

When he was a baby,
my world was his face
brimming with varied borders
because I couldn't
look away

his feet entranced me
I stared at them
in the dark
marveled over the fact
that
I
made
them
in my belly

every noise he made
I put him to my breast
till nothing would provide him peace
but momma's milk

when he was two
he realized
"I angel?"
yes, I call you Angel.
"I sweetie Pete?"
yup, I call you that too
"I kookah munga?"
haha! yeah, when you are goofy, I call you kookah munga.
"I Aiden"
yes.
And you are my love.  My magic.  My happy thought.

When he was four, he promised he would hug and kiss me
forever

He is only seven
and I try not to make him
the man of the house

because his father died

He lost his two front teeth
and yells at me when I giggle
at his newly formed lisp

His baby sister still snuggles like perfection
wrapped in magic
and finally his baby brother wants
to sleep with me

but he won't let me kiss him

and his hugs are brief whisper surprises
smacking together sideways
always when I am unprepared

spilling the golden hope and love and life from his eyes
into my heart
filling my bucket
to the brim

sucker punching coffee cup of tears

“When a stargirl cries, she sheds not tears but light.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl

the anger has simmered
long enough
apparently

because the blackened air
smelled of autumn
and made me breathe
deeper

I listened for something to sound off inside
the sorrow
the solitude
the loss

Really- I listened and looked and waited, wondering

But there was nothing
there

And it matches what is
here

So it makes sense
from nothing to
nothing

except it is like the world sucker punched me
ripped out my intestines,
punctured my lungs
and it is an all-of-a-sudden kind of pain

so it becomes apparent
that the anger simmered long enough
and the tears were done cooking
percolating
because they just started pouring over the edges

filling empty spaces

At least that is one cup
I don't have to philosophize about
because I am damn sure
the thing is more than half
full.

mundane. nothing. everything. JUST.

I told Aiden tonight that sometimes now, I'm not so weighed down with the sadness of having lost Dad, but when I feel that, and I see his photo, I just get so confused.  I have such a hard time understanding that he is no longer a physical part of our world.  Even beginning to understand a world that doesn't include him just seems made up.

I know that if you spend too much time focusing on what is wrong, then you become that wrong, far more than you need to.  And I think to myself that I am nothing now.  I am nothing without him.  But I know that is wrong.  In fact, because he is gone, I am everything.  I am the only thing.  Our three small humans need me for everything.  As do our pets.  Tonight, I read both library books the kids brought home.  And Neil was screaming for his current favorite movie, Delhi Safari, which he calls Jaguar 'fari.  I set up a night movie schedule though, to avoid these issues.   We are still implementing it, so these are the growing pains.  I just decided I wasn't playing his game, so I laid down on the mattress on the floor in Aiden and Cilly's room where Neil has been sleeping for weeks now and started mimicing him hollering for his movie.  Which he thought was great fun!  And then I decided to see how long I could hold the vowel sound in "Classical Baby", Clasicaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal...but I never got to "baby" because Neil started laughing so hard and flopping on my back and I started laughing...and we were all just a big pile of stupid and silly and laughing.  And I see, there, how much they need me.  The real me.  And I see how much I need them.

I know it is dumb and gross but I find myself wanting to start smoking again.  And I wonder how much is slightly attached to the original reason I took up the stinky habit back in the day- a quiet desire to shorten what is so hard, to cause small and regular harm.  I quit twelve years ago, almost exactly a week before I met John.  I wonder too, if it is part of my stumbling and foolish attempt at figuring out who I am without him.

Drinking, smoking, flirting, writing, crying. And when I breathe through my nose, I am usually mad or tired. Now I find I am simply swallowing my smile. I am tired and numb. Lost, angry, confused, lonely, grabbing at straws, watching the world continue around me wondering when I got off, and how I can get back on...or maybe it is more like I am on some ride I never stood in line for. Yeah. That is more like what it is...

I still wish so deeply for something to be easy.  I wish I could just be the mom.  But I'm not.  I am not "just" anything.

the desire to be desirable

the title is a quote from the widows voice.

when you feel desirable, you feel beautiful.  You feel alive in a special warm secret way.
like an inside joke
but it isn't a joke
and it is inside your body
your being
every move you make
each laugh and goofy game
each stretch each step

and the odd thing is how sometimes
when you have it
you deny that it is there

at least I did.
there wasn't a moment when he didn't want me
if the energy had been there

and I rejected it, at times,
because I was afraid of my body
afraid it wasn't thin enough, strong enough

and the rub is that now that he is gone, I realize he was honest
he did think I was pretty...and that word that seemed not enough
was everything
he used "beautiful" for the lines of a diver
I always worried he thought his divers
were more beautiful than me

but to him, I was everything else in the world
everything desirable

and I wonder about lust and love and longing and need

how love scares people away
and lust draws them together
and how it should be so different....

I think about how we long for something different
even when we have what we need and what we want
and I wonder about sensation
and history

and I think of the time so long ago when I played with the idea of dreams
and my "little brother" took me to a magical place
in my mind where I could see myself without time
and I saw a wood nymph, felt her limbs as mine
running free and barefoot
dancing on the breeze of youth and hope and everything eternal

and later I became pain wrapped in lust and longing and fear

and later than that I fought to find the hope that comes inside love

and I loved so many of the wrong people

and then he loved me.

and I wonder how to move forward
knowing I have kids, and am not
a kid
and I want to embrace that wood nymph
who laughs and runs free
and doesn't care who sees
special parts
sweet secrets

but secrets are tied to hearts

and how do you hold a heart
when someone else holds the hand
when someone else owns the soul

and really, how do we do anything other than reach
for what we hope for

even when it is nothing
when it is wrong
when it is gone

I feel like it is gone
before it began

eight years with a ring
twelve all together

and I am left with longing and emptiness
even when there isn't pain

and how do you reconcile all that?
the wood nymph, the mother, the teacher
the lover, the intellect, the poet, the fearful shy teen,
the enigmatic ethereal
center of your soul that wants to be strong
that needs to be seen
held
touched
loved

It's all there.  All inside every step
even the mundane ones
like wearing a sexy teddy under dirty jeans and a T that doesn't fit right
or a business suit

Only widows aren't supposed to want the teddy
the sexy, the desire, the love, the touches, the tenderness

but really, when you break it down
we are likely the ones who want it the most.
We know how it feels...we know how it moves
it left when we were in the midst of it all
ready to learn to live while it grew and matured
became something eternal
and was taken

and when something is taken before
you are done,
will you honestly try to tell me
you will be sated and not search for it, long for it, want it
again?  Perhaps in ways, too soon?

and how are you supposed to want and need
on some prescribed schedule?

I want him back.
and I can't have him

and how I crave the quiet want, the need,
the desire to be
desirable

because really there is nothing
wrong with that.

it is healthy
normal
natural

and so hard to find in the right
sort of balance.
too easy to find too much lust
too easy to feel too much love
too easy to fall inside yourself
and feel too little...

or too much