There's something gorgeous and so blessed in being able to enjoy my morning time with no demands on my time. I never wanted kids, but this is when I appreciate it most - when I can do exactly what I want to do.
This blessing is also made possible by my job - my crazy, odd hour job that makes people think I work "all the time".... because I'm usually working when they're not. But that means when they are working - i.e., mornings - I'm enjoying lazy coffee time.
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Saturday, April 12, 2014
The Fourth Year
Today is the 4th anniversary of his death.
And the 4th year was crazy.
When he died, I got lots of the same sentiments from people who knew-but-didn't-really-know me. They were good sentiments coming from a good place - oh it hurts to lose someone you love, you are so young, you will love again. The stress I always heard on those sentiments was "I want you to love again because that will tell me you are okay."
Then there were the people who knew-me-knew-me. People who knew that when I let him move in 6 weeks into our relationship, around the same time I generally started kicking people out, I was letting him fully into my life. People who may have not known the moment when it happened, or even the month, but when they realized he was considering this to be his home as much as my home and I was welcoming it, that this was for real. That that was my moment of no return.
I remember being in my Gram's apartment and commenting that I was 3 years old when my Grandpa died. She unhesitating, for the first time in my life, knew my age - I was 23. That was my moment when I realized how great a loss she had suffered in losing him. I can't imagine living 20 years without the love of my life, and here I am at 4.
Crazy how time goes by.
And you just wake up and do the day, and the day becomes the week and the week becomes the month and next thing you know, it's been a year.
The way we as humans count time means by the time you commemorate the first year you've had your year of firsts. So now, I've had my year of fourths.
Fourth birthday without him - I've given up trying to make it special, I simply can't enjoy it as much any more. Fourth anniversary of the day I realized I might actually survive - I was in the midst of brewery training, going home and bawling every night because he wasn't waiting at home to hear all about it. Fourth Turkey Day I almost skipped. Fourth Christmas I should have skipped. New Year's Eve was a new thing - voluntarily working - and I enjoyed it. VDay was nothing special, altho I think I took him to work with me. And his birthday was more celebrating and raising a glass than sad.
As I've been approaching the fourth anniversary, I've been shocked at how together I am. For those who knew-knew me, they understood that I don't let people into my life and how deeply attached I had been to let my life and my identity become so intimately entwined with another person. The ones who understand still hold their breath when I say his name, knowing it's a deep piece of my soul.
But sometime in the last year, I've been able to address him as a piece of my soul. Not a piece of my past or my missing spouse, but simply a piece of me that exists someplace else now. And this is when it gets tricky. Because I spoke with people after he died who weren't sure about the whole life-after-death thing. They didn't know what death meant, where we go... they had no frame of reference or belief structure for it being anything other than a horrific ending.
But one thing that I got from him as much I brought to him was the concept that we do go "somewhere" when we die. And label it as you choose, but we both had a strong belief that those who die go to a different "plane of existence" - his phrase - and maybe they look down on us, maybe they drink at Fiddler's Green, maybe they become angels in the choirs. We didn't know but we both felt there was Something.
It's the Something I feel more strongly now. As I piece my life back together, reacquaint myself with who I've always been and how I've changed for having known him, as I've shifted my direction back to a singular I rather than a plural We... I feel him, on a different plane, encouraging me, egging me on, reassuring me, and being amazed at me. He's said so many times in the past year that he didn't even know how strong I was, until this year. That he always knew I was something special, but this, this is something new.
A piece of healing is doing the act of living - sleeping, eating, breathing. Once that was achieved, I could venture into thinking. Thinking led me to a life I choose for my single (widowed) self, letting go of some dreams that I would've only enjoyed with him, and creating others. It wasn't the letting go that was the hardest, it was the first tentative stop towards "Hey, someday..."
In the Fourth Year, I entertained the possibility of returning to a job of my choice, had my boss/friend see it in me and push me to go for it, grabbed at a dream and got it. Getting it meant my daily life changed, in ways I wouldn't have chosen if he'd still been here. And he encouraged me, throughout it all.
The Fourth Year was the year I started dreaming again. I always have believed in Faith, Hope, and Love - I had that passage read at his funeral. My Love came back to me fairly quickly, after he passed. Faith I clung to by a thread. But Hope, Hope has been elusive. Hope means dreams, a belief that one can achieve, that there is a future out there. This year, I started seeing what my life could be like. I've become happy with my daily existence, my 50 hours of work as well as my 118 hours of free time. I can recognize that my choices and abilities have brought this to my life, and my choices can bring me a future.
When one realizes - as some do - how much my future was tied up in Us, one realizes how amazing it is that I can conceptualize a future of Me. How much it took for that to no longer feel like a betrayal of Us but rather Just Me.
And this is where the crazy kicks in.
It was three years of surviving. The third year my backbone came back to me and I started asserting my will again.
The Fourth Year, I started acting on my backbone. Getting back to a job I love, letting go of relationships and habits that are bad for me, being strong enough to have dreams, believe I am entitled to have dreams and a life of my own, and that doing so is not disrespectful of his memory, because he can come with me anywhere I go.
It's a crazy, crazy idea, when you recognize that almost 6 years ago I willingly merged my life completely with his. It's a crazy, crazy idea, when you realize how much that took. It's even crazier that we were two people who never thought we would have that person who loved and supported us 100%, risked enough to grab at the chance, and then lost it all without warning. Craziest that we still have our 100%. And simply unfathomable that I could ever again stand on my own two feet, make my own life happen, create my own dreams & somedays, and he would support me through it all.
And that's what happened, in the Fourth Year.
And the 4th year was crazy.
When he died, I got lots of the same sentiments from people who knew-but-didn't-really-know me. They were good sentiments coming from a good place - oh it hurts to lose someone you love, you are so young, you will love again. The stress I always heard on those sentiments was "I want you to love again because that will tell me you are okay."
Then there were the people who knew-me-knew-me. People who knew that when I let him move in 6 weeks into our relationship, around the same time I generally started kicking people out, I was letting him fully into my life. People who may have not known the moment when it happened, or even the month, but when they realized he was considering this to be his home as much as my home and I was welcoming it, that this was for real. That that was my moment of no return.
I remember being in my Gram's apartment and commenting that I was 3 years old when my Grandpa died. She unhesitating, for the first time in my life, knew my age - I was 23. That was my moment when I realized how great a loss she had suffered in losing him. I can't imagine living 20 years without the love of my life, and here I am at 4.
Crazy how time goes by.
And you just wake up and do the day, and the day becomes the week and the week becomes the month and next thing you know, it's been a year.
The way we as humans count time means by the time you commemorate the first year you've had your year of firsts. So now, I've had my year of fourths.
Fourth birthday without him - I've given up trying to make it special, I simply can't enjoy it as much any more. Fourth anniversary of the day I realized I might actually survive - I was in the midst of brewery training, going home and bawling every night because he wasn't waiting at home to hear all about it. Fourth Turkey Day I almost skipped. Fourth Christmas I should have skipped. New Year's Eve was a new thing - voluntarily working - and I enjoyed it. VDay was nothing special, altho I think I took him to work with me. And his birthday was more celebrating and raising a glass than sad.
As I've been approaching the fourth anniversary, I've been shocked at how together I am. For those who knew-knew me, they understood that I don't let people into my life and how deeply attached I had been to let my life and my identity become so intimately entwined with another person. The ones who understand still hold their breath when I say his name, knowing it's a deep piece of my soul.
But sometime in the last year, I've been able to address him as a piece of my soul. Not a piece of my past or my missing spouse, but simply a piece of me that exists someplace else now. And this is when it gets tricky. Because I spoke with people after he died who weren't sure about the whole life-after-death thing. They didn't know what death meant, where we go... they had no frame of reference or belief structure for it being anything other than a horrific ending.
But one thing that I got from him as much I brought to him was the concept that we do go "somewhere" when we die. And label it as you choose, but we both had a strong belief that those who die go to a different "plane of existence" - his phrase - and maybe they look down on us, maybe they drink at Fiddler's Green, maybe they become angels in the choirs. We didn't know but we both felt there was Something.
It's the Something I feel more strongly now. As I piece my life back together, reacquaint myself with who I've always been and how I've changed for having known him, as I've shifted my direction back to a singular I rather than a plural We... I feel him, on a different plane, encouraging me, egging me on, reassuring me, and being amazed at me. He's said so many times in the past year that he didn't even know how strong I was, until this year. That he always knew I was something special, but this, this is something new.
A piece of healing is doing the act of living - sleeping, eating, breathing. Once that was achieved, I could venture into thinking. Thinking led me to a life I choose for my single (widowed) self, letting go of some dreams that I would've only enjoyed with him, and creating others. It wasn't the letting go that was the hardest, it was the first tentative stop towards "Hey, someday..."
In the Fourth Year, I entertained the possibility of returning to a job of my choice, had my boss/friend see it in me and push me to go for it, grabbed at a dream and got it. Getting it meant my daily life changed, in ways I wouldn't have chosen if he'd still been here. And he encouraged me, throughout it all.
The Fourth Year was the year I started dreaming again. I always have believed in Faith, Hope, and Love - I had that passage read at his funeral. My Love came back to me fairly quickly, after he passed. Faith I clung to by a thread. But Hope, Hope has been elusive. Hope means dreams, a belief that one can achieve, that there is a future out there. This year, I started seeing what my life could be like. I've become happy with my daily existence, my 50 hours of work as well as my 118 hours of free time. I can recognize that my choices and abilities have brought this to my life, and my choices can bring me a future.
When one realizes - as some do - how much my future was tied up in Us, one realizes how amazing it is that I can conceptualize a future of Me. How much it took for that to no longer feel like a betrayal of Us but rather Just Me.
And this is where the crazy kicks in.
It was three years of surviving. The third year my backbone came back to me and I started asserting my will again.
The Fourth Year, I started acting on my backbone. Getting back to a job I love, letting go of relationships and habits that are bad for me, being strong enough to have dreams, believe I am entitled to have dreams and a life of my own, and that doing so is not disrespectful of his memory, because he can come with me anywhere I go.
It's a crazy, crazy idea, when you recognize that almost 6 years ago I willingly merged my life completely with his. It's a crazy, crazy idea, when you realize how much that took. It's even crazier that we were two people who never thought we would have that person who loved and supported us 100%, risked enough to grab at the chance, and then lost it all without warning. Craziest that we still have our 100%. And simply unfathomable that I could ever again stand on my own two feet, make my own life happen, create my own dreams & somedays, and he would support me through it all.
And that's what happened, in the Fourth Year.
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