Life After Death: Blow Me.

 

29 Birth Days...24 Birth Days celebrated together. 

One of Marc's favorite jokes on his birthday....a cake with a candle captioned with "Blow me". Remembering his humor and how he could turn ANY and EVERY  thing into a dirty joke still makes me shake my head and laugh out loud. 

The birth days are a painful reminder of the death day. Yes, I understand that many of you will find that statement to be morbid or perhaps even twisted sounding. So, feel any way you like about it, does not change the truth of what I have said. Our society is one that celebrates the day of our birth (most do anyway) and once the person has left this world, the celebrations usually end. It seems as though once they have left this world, the day of their birth no longer warrants celebration. Perhaps it is the pain we wish to avoid...the pain of the reminder that the person we loved, celebrated, and cherished is no longer here to join us in the celebration so we .... just .... stop .... celebrating.

Why? Why don't we continue to celebrate the day of their birth? One would think that celebrating their life and the love you had for the person who is gone is a loving way of living with their memory once they have gone. Today, I don't want to cry for the loss of my husband, my friend, my companion. Today I don't want to feel this swelling pain in my chest that I am feeling because this was our day of celebrating the day of his birth, the day of celebrating our life together and our day of celebrating the future ahead of us. 

Yes, I'll still cry today, I'm crying as I type this, but I will also celebrate today. Marc and I would be planning on a nice dinner and brews for his Birth Day. Tonight, I will lift him up in a celebration of his birth and maybe, just maybe, it will help to take away some of the pain in my body of knowing he will never sit next to me again to share a birth day dessert together.... Today I will celebrate and if you would, I hope that you too will celebrate Marc's special day. Anyone who cannot understand my request, well.....all I can say is, blow me. 

Fealty

As of late I have been pondering what it truly means to love someone. What exactly IS love and exactly what are MY expectations in regard to loving and being loved? How do I gauge if a person is the right fit for what I have to give and what I expect in return. We like to say love is unconditional but in reality, love has conditions. If we love someone, we want to be loved in return. That is a condition. Ultimately we need love to give love. Otherwise, as humans, we will be deprived of the thing we most need to be compassionate and empathetic human beings. But I digress, back to what I think it means to love someone, this is what I came up with...

When you have chosen to enter into a relationship, whether it is friendship, family, marriage,  there is an unwritten contract you have entered into. Essentially the contract is an agreement that you will be good to each other, that you will not purposely hurt or betray the other person's trust in you. When you love someone you have sworn fidelity, loyalty, you have a commitment of faith and truth... at least that is what you should have. Yes, I realize I've broken it down into simple terms. Sometimes simple is the best way to begin things. 

Dictionaries have attempted to define love for us. They have failed. They have failed to define love because love cannot be defined merely with words. No, I am not holding a claim to know any more or to know any better than those folks at Merriam-Webster, but I do have my own take on what Love is. From my perspective, if dictionaries are going to offer up words to help with the definition of LOVE they should consider the word "fealty". Look it up. Don't make me do the work for you, if you don't know what it means, look the word "fealty" up and then get back here and finish reading this entry. Hurry, don't dawdle, m'kay? 

Fealty is an old word, and in its strictest definition is a reference to vassal and Lord. If we attempt to explore fealty in its strictest definition we might feel a bit ruffled at the idea of someone "lording" over us. However, in any loving relationship doesn't each person essentially rotate the roles of vassal and Lord?  For those of you with a dirty mind, put the whip down, quit the distraction, get out of the gutter and get back up here with the rest of us and pay attention. 

Where was I? Oh. Yes....Fealty isn't merely pledging our loyalty, it is also the assignation of the relationship being sacred. When we want someone to know how much we love them we generally work hard to prove our devotion, our loyalty, our trust, our faith in them, we show tenderness, and kindness for the other person. If the feelings are mutual the person we love will in turn do the same for us. In the course of this relationship, depending on the situation, we each take turns in the roles of leading or following. We take turns in order to maintain the sacredness, to lift up the importance of how we feel about each other. We defend and we protect. If you have assumed a singular role in your relationship, whether it be vassal or Lord, then the love is clearly out of balance and likely one-sided. If your love is one sided, if you do not feel the other person is also working hard to show you their devotion, their loyalty, their trust, if they are not providing you with the tenderness and kindness that is genuine and freely given, leave. If there is a lack of fealty on your part or theirs just get out. Hotfoot it out of there like your life depends on it, because it does. 

Love isn't words, love is action, love is having faith in the other person that they are deserving of your trust, your honesty, your submission and your strength; love is the decision that you will offer an unwavering devotion, love is fealty. 

Grief is Complicated

Hi. It isn't often that I actually share my blog posts. More often than not I write my thoughts down but never hit the "publish" option and my posts sit here in this virtual box never to be read by anyone but me. Today I was writing about my rollercoaster of emotions in regard to holidays and how brutal they are for me emotionally. After writing my thoughts down I began to read a few other posts that I have kept as private. This morning I'm going to share an old post with a new post.

December 18, 2019

Gone are the days of feeling safe and loved when I felt my husband's hand slip into my own hand. It has been three years and 6 weeks gone by since he last held my hand. Twenty-six years ago Marc slipped a gold ring onto my finger... in that moment, it never occurred to me that I would be sitting here, three years after his death, talking about finding myself single again.

The past three years have been a concentrated journey of self-discovery. Trying to find who I was after literally having half of me suddenly cut away, without warning, has been all uphill. You know what I have discovered? I've discovered that the changes I have gone through have not lessened me. I have been made stronger and softer simultaneously. Stronger in that I know I am strong enough to survive this world and that I will come out with my head high and a smile in my heart, softer in that I seem to feel...everything, with more intensity than should ever be possible.

Grief is complicated. It doesn't go by any rules and if you have any expectations of grief, it will most definitely shatter everything you thought you could expect, know, or attempt to define. Three years have slipped past me and as I sought refuge here in Florida I discovered a version of myself that is closer to who I most wish to be. A version of me who knows that life is fleeting and that when an opportunity presents itself, you jump to grasp it, that love can be felt on a level far deeper than I could have imagined before, that I am okay. I am okay and know that my strength is my own and is not reliant on anyone else, no single person, man or woman.

Life is fleeting. It is a true statement and the idea that we can plan for a future, well....we can, but that doesn't mean the future we plan for will unfold. Whatever my future becomes it will be an  uncomplicated, spontaneous, calm and drama-free (which it has been for years - ain't nobody got time for that!) life. Keeping my life simple and easy has brought peace to every aspect of my life.

A few weeks ago a friend called to catch up. As per our usual we find our way to talking about life's ups, downs, ins, outs, and all the dust bunnies that come with it. In our conversation we talked for a long time about relationships and he said to me that someone had once told him that (paraphrasing here) that this time around, relationships should be easy. I couldn't agree more. There's no time for anger, for grudges, for power plays, or a failure to communicate. Life is too precious. We talked about need versus want.  Wanting something does not necessarily signify a need. We talked about how we have become accustomed to being alone. We talked about the loneliness that comes not from being alone but from remembering how it felt to love and to be loved. I hope he finds love. He has so much kindness and love in his heart, he deserves to have someone to share that with.

July 5, 2020

Three years, eight months, 0 days if I am counting in years, or if counting in months it has been 44 months, or in weeks it has been 191, in days it has been 1338 days since Marc's heart beat its last beat and his lungs took their last breath. Why then at times, after what feels like it has been an eternity, does it also feel like it was just yesterday?

Holidays are painful. Holidays are gut wrenching because with the death of Marc all of our Holiday traditions also died. Over the past 3 years and 8 months I've had friends and family invite me to their Holiday celebrations. Each invitation is a testimony for the love, concern and compassion people have for me and they invite me because they imagine I must be feeling alone and their intention is to reassure me that I am not alone. Sometimes I say yes and sometimes I politely thank them but opt out of attending the festivities. It feels as though all I have to offer is a pervasive sadness and I don't want to be "that" person at a celebration. For those who have invited me to family events, whether I have turned down your invitation or not, please know that the invitation meant more to me than you may have known. Being invited to be a part of your family and your celebration, opening your heart, your home and your family to me makes me feel loved, thank you for that.

When Holidays come around and I am invited to celebrate with friends or family I am reminded that I did not just lose my husband, I lost my "family". Family is who you choose to create a life with. Sometimes it includes children of your own, sometimes it includes the children of the person you fall in love with, sometimes there are no children at all. Family is who you create your life with.

Marc's death left more holes in my life than words can articulate. It is my hope that one day I will begin to enjoy new traditions with someone I love. It is my hope that one day I will find my "family" and then Holidays will again be joyful and happy occasions in my life. New memories will be added to the old and they'll be filled with love and laughter instead of heartbreak, loneliness and pain. It is my hope that one day, I'll be spending my holidays with the person who holds my hand knowing that holding my hand makes me feel safe, loved, and at "home" with my family. Maybe. One day.

No One Writes Stories About Women Like Me

No one writes stories about women like me. My life has been a good life but it has not been the kind of life that leaves a mark in history or has changed the world in a way that the masses would notice or, for that matter, care. No one writes stories about a woman whose life was unremarkable to the world. Women like me, we write stories about our unremarkable lives. Women like me, we write stories about how remarkable our unremarkable life is.

It has been two years and 4 months since his death. In less than 10 days it will be Marc's birthday. Marc would have been 55 this year and I always believed we would be celebrating that day together. Believing wasn't enough because the Fates had something else planned.

As time passes I find myself making peace with the fact that celebrations with Marc will never again happen. Yes it makes me sad, but I am finding my way through the sadness and coming around to the place in my life that almost feels as though it could resemble something that others might assume is normal. What others might assume is some kind of happy.

"Let yourself be happy." Well meaning people have said that phrase to me multiple times since Marc died. I realize it isn't meant to sound critical, but it feels critical when I hear it. When people tell me to let myself be happy I feel as though I must defend my grief. It feels as though my grief is unremarkable and has a timer on it. There is no timer on grief, I believe it changes over time but it stays with you always. Trust me when I say, I want to be happy; it isn't that I am unhappy, people just assume that my sadness, my aloneness equates to unhappy. I am not unhappy, I am sad, big difference.

Grief, life shattering loss .... leaves you in a fog of sorts. A thick, smothering haze that seems to fill every cell of your being and trying to feel anything beyond the sadness and the aloneness is difficult. Every now and then I can see a shimmer of bits and pieces of the old me through the haze. I will never be the same as I was and that is okay. I'm okay with being different than I was because I understand being the same woman will never be possible again. Life is fleeting, I know this, and as time slips past me it is gradually becoming easier to imagine a future that includes a full night of sleep and to once again wake up feeling excited about the day ahead of me.  From where I sit, that feels remarkable.

It Just Is.

Contradiction. Today we set the clocks back but time did not rewind. It never does. When will the clock actually begin moving forward for me again?................................

..........................................here I am, 2 years have passed and still I stand in place watching time move forward and I feel like it has left me behind. I see myself moving, like the sands pouring through an hourglass, but it isn't me - I'm standing still. How can it be me that I see moving through time each day?

Two years.

I used to laugh nearly every day.

My life has changed in ways I never knew was possible. Over the span of the 23 years we spent together, life was not perfect. There were times that it would have been easier to quit. Despite those times, we found our way through the hard times and came out on the other side stronger, better ... more. We came out as so much more than we were before. Was life perfect? No. It was not. But we were stronger and we refused to give in. We never quit on each other. We refused to quit.

Marc and me, we had found a place in our life together where we rarely fought with each other. We laughed nearly every day and we rarely fought because we had discovered the gift of empathy. We found the gift of empathy for each other and it changed everything.

Now I feel so alone. Yes I have my friends and I have their love and their loyalty and their kindness. It is not my intention to take anything away from those whom I love and who love me in return because they mean so much to me and they shed light upon my days when I have difficulty seeing the light. Yet I still struggle.  How do I find my way back to a life where I can laugh again, love again, and know how to hope for a future again? I don't know.  I don't know.

Two years have passed and although I have moved through the hours, the days, the weeks, the months, the years, my grief has not. The grief has not diminished but I am finding new ways to live with it. This slow, aching grief has become a part of me. It has woven its way into the very fiber of my soul. I am no longer the woman I was but neither am I less than I was. This grief is not who I am but it has redefined me. I keep searching for a meaning here but I cannot find one. Maybe some things have no other meaning other than it just "is". 

Match This.

It has been a while since I've seen the inside of my blog.....

The other day I shared on my FB wall about how I locked myself out of my home at 4:30 am, on a work day. It was a complete shit show from my perspective but I had to find the humor in it because if I didn't find the ability to laugh, I wasn't sure I would get off my front step ever again. Here is the story I shared on FB:

My morning took an unexpected turn when I decided to take the trash out at 4:30am..... in my short little nightgown & bare feet. I only stepped 3 feet outside but I always shut the door behind me because Brisco likes to dart out of open doors.         

I stepped out, made sure the door shut behind me and deposited the trash, turned around, turned the door knob & it wouldn’t turn. Not even a little. It was locked up tighter than a flea’s ass over a rain barrel. In fact, all three doors were locked up tight as were all of the windows. FML. Did I mention there was a thick, drizzly fog waiting to let loose the rain clouds? 

I tried everything I could think of to jimmie the lock but nothing worked. My phone was inside so I couldn’t even call anyone. Finally about 5:30 I heard my neighbor’s dogs outside so I walked, barefooted, through my property to the fence and climbed over the fence, in NOTHING but my nightgown. I continue to traipse through the trees, the brush, etc and knock on the neighbor’s door. My kind neighbor answers his door and after explaining my situation goes to grab his phone so that I can call a friend of mine to bring a key. Then I have to walk through the property again, climb the gate again, and wait for my friend....it starts to drizzle rain......       

See, I have a spare key that I leave outside for emergencies....on Sunday though, I used it to unlock my shed & slipped it into my Jean pocket & forgot to return it to it’s hiding spot. Yes....I’m an idiot. I woke my friend from sleep with a phone call at 5:30am. He arrived at my place at 6am, unlocked my door and went back home.         

Perhaps it was divine intervention. Perhaps my being late helped me avoid something terrible on the way to work this morning. Perhaps it is just as simple as me being a fucking dumb ass.      Anyway, time to call it a morning and go make the donuts.

For more than 45 minutes I tried everything I could possibly come up with to get the door open. After 45 minutes and a long gash through the palm of my  left hand, I finally decided to stop trying to solve the problem of how to MacGyver a locked door. For about 15 minutes before I heard the dogs barking I sat on my front steps. It wasn't too cold that morning, but I was chilled from the fog and all I wanted to do at that moment was cry. I wanted to cry a deep, body shaking, loud, screaming cry. All I wanted to do was cry until there was nothing left of me. It also occurred to me that going to work that day was off the table. I felt so angry and so defeated. It wasn't just being locked out of the house, it was a string of things that have happened recently and right then... sitting alone in the shallow illumination of the pole light in my yard I wanted to quit. Not just quit, but declare that life, my life, was shit and that no matter what I have attempted to do for a better life, my life would continue to be shit. 

Those thoughts, that desire to cry, to scream, to go curl up in a ball and never get up again were fleeting. It took me so much longer to actually type all of that than it took for the thoughts to pass through my mind. Thankfully, the next thought that went through my mind was that crying would solve nothing. Crying wouldn't get me back inside my house, screaming wouldn't bring my husband back, curling up in a ball wouldn't keep the lights on and being angry wouldn't change a single thing. Not one thing. I hated feeling helpless. I hated feeling so alone. I hated feeling sorry for myself. 

I hated feeling so hopeless. 

This life that I am living now, it feels so forced. This life doesn't feel like my own anymore. This life feels like a series of endless motion that leads to nowhere. It feels as though I'm living in a fugue with no hope to ever come out of it. If I am being honest here, I'm not sure I ever will find my way out of this fugue, but I plan to keep trying to find my way through it. People talk about being happy, how happiness is their life goal. I think happiness is a by-product of feeling whole; feeling that your life is full, whole, and satisfying is where our happiness comes from. Don't ask me what I believe the key is to feeling whole, that is a question I cannot answer because the answer is as singularly unique as each person is singularly unique. 

Before Marc died, there was no doubt in my mind that my role in this life was to be useful. By useful I mean that my role was to help other people find their way through their fugue. My life, my thoughts, my purpose had such clarity. Everything held the promise of knowing that I was adding to my quest to be whole and that promise of wholeness brought happiness. Yes, I still struggled with things. My life was by no means perfect, nor was it all "happy happy joy joy" everyday. There were days I struggled to be joyful and grateful but those days did not hold me hostage. Those crap days were momentary in the big scheme of my life. 

The string of events that I mentioned earlier, I won't bog you down with all of the boring, whiny details of them but I'll share one thing with you. Actually, what I'm about to share isn't a part of the string but it definitely has contributed to the state of mind I've found myself in. You have all heard of "Match.com" right? Yeah, so I went onto match.com because it kept popping up in my advertisements on FB as well as in my emails. Those fucking algorithms have weedled their way, uninvited,  into my private space. Anyway, I went onto Match.com and filled out a profile and within seconds of doing so Match had given me a list of 10 so-called matches........ within 10 minutes of creating a profile on Match I deleted it. The matches it showed me, what a joke. The men in my age range who seemed to fit into my criteria... all - seriously ALL of them -  only wanted to meet women between the ages of 25-40. I'm just going to leave that there for you. Think about that for a while. 

The idea that I will ever be able to meet someone who will see past my age, past my extra pounds, past the wrinkles around my eyes, or past their own desire to keep feeling young by having a young woman in their bed, well it doesn't seem very likely. When I saw those matches on the website, the feeling of being alone felt more magnified than it has ever been. So I deleted my profile completely and tried to create a plan that will keep me so incredibly busy there isn't time or space for anyone else to fit in. I'm still working on that plan, I'll let you know if I ever figure it out. Meanwhile I'm giving Match.com the double version of what we Americans call "The Bird". Yes, fuck you Match.com and fuck you for intruding upon my private space, and fuck you for not paying attention to the criteria those men had outlined that didn't qualify them to show up in my so called 'matches". Fuck you Match.com. Sit on it and spin.  

Crying is not an option, complaining does not solve anything, wallowing is a waste of energy and focusing on what I no longer have rather than what I do have is self-defeating. How to end this fugue is still a dilemma for me but I'll keep trying to find a solution. 

I still say to Match.com, "You can GFY. Just sayin'."

Life After Death: Day 364....Just Another Day

In our culture we celebrate birthdays, we celebrate anniversaries... we mark the days and we send tidings of love and joy to those celebrating milestones in their lives. I have been trying to tell myself that tomorrow will just be another day if I choose for it to be just another day. Recognizing the anniversary of Marc's death won't do anything to bring him back. If it is just another day, maybe it will end the loop that plays in my mind whenever I find myself back in that night 364 days ago.

Maybe if tomorrow is just another day the nightmare that began 364 days ago will lose its power over my emotions. If tomorrow is just another day maybe I will stop feeling this suffocating pain in my chest. Maybe I can stop feeling like I am yet again losing ground in my healing.... if tomorrow were just another day.......