Happiness is often a struggle, which really shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. One thing I've been "working on" this year is being my own happiness... trying to remember what made me happy before him, and get those things back. Or, happy with him, but that I can do on my own.
One thing I always loved was getting out of a town. Give me a 3-day weekend and I'm a happy camper. Go north, south, east - wherever my friends are or they want to meet me, I'll go. And, of course, so would he. It makes it more complicated that he was the destination for some of those roadtrips, he was with me for others, and our major roadtrip we took together. So as much as this is happiness, it's also melancholy.
My friend convinced me into 2 roadtrips this fall, in addition to a college reunion. This raised the additional problem of what to do with the house, since I developed an anxiety in leaving the house in the months after he died (people asking to come take things from it whenever they want will do that to you). But for the first time in almost 2.5 years, I wasn't anxious.
It helps that I took 'him' with me. It helps that brother checked on the cat. It helps that I have a homebound neighbor who notices everything. And I gotta think, yes, it was just a matter of time.
And yes, this is a huge step for me.
And then, just to nudge further...
I had the pleasure of having dinner with 2 good friends. We caught up about everything, and at one point the husband said to me, "Reading everything you write and hearing about how people have treated you, it just makes me think, 'It's time to be AJ.'" And that's as clear as anyone's ever put it, and as clear as they can. I've done enough, and it's time to be me.
And I took that attitude with me into that weekend and the next. I was me - I was the me I was before him, the older woman he made me, the wiser woman losing him made me - but I was just me. And that's all I can be.
Meeting him changed my life, losing him changed it more, but at the end of the day the only person I can be is me. I can't change that for anyone. I can't change my grief for anyone. I can't change my lifestyle for anyone. I'm just... me.
And somehow, that put it all into perspective.
I started out talking about happiness and this is what it boils down to: I'm happiest when I'm just being me. When I've been driving this fall, and just me, I've been happy. When I've been sitting on my couch with a good book, I've been just me and I'm happy. When I'm with a friend at happy hour, I'm just me and I'm happy. I can accept his loss as a part of my history and it's changed me.
When people try to tell me how it changed me, should change me, or what I need to do differently now, I get confused, mad, and lose my way. When I look to other people to reflect what I think should be my happiness, I get disappointed. But when I'm just me, I'm happy.
And I love that I'm finding 'me' again. Some things I've loved forever - roadtrips, books, football - other things come from him - beer, our deck, food. The new me isn't the old me, but it is working into a combination of the two, and this new identity is as much a part of me as referring to myself as 'widow' rather than 'wife.' It's accepting what's happened, working it into my life, and discovering my new happiness.
Because at the end of the day, we all need to be our own happiness.
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