Thoughts on love...

I was never big on exclusively dating. Being tied down to one guy was just not my thing. I never saw the point to staying with someone who I did not see a future with. I was never delusional enough to be able to look past the inevitable. Before Michael, my longest "relationship" was 3 1/2 months and I had never muttered the "L" word to anyone I had dated.

I found my soul mate, the love of my life, and my best friend when I was 21 years old. We were married at 24. He was dead at 29. Those were the best 8 years of my life! We were two people who were skeptics of love. But somehow love found us. He was everything that I secretly hoped for but was pretty sure did not exist. Our relationship showed me that anything is possible when you take the risk and open yourself up.

So here I am almost 30 and single again. Not exactly where I thought I would be, that is for sure. This time around I am more mature, and unfortunately much more jaded. I know that love does indeed exist and it is not just a product of attraction and infatuation like I had believed before Mike came into my life. But I have to wonder, will I ever feel true love again for another? Some people go a life time without falling in love. What are the odds that I can find love a second time around?

I would love to eventually find someone who God willing I can spend the rest of my life with. Hell, I guess even just a few more good years with, if that is what is in the cards for me. But at the same time, I am totally prepared to live the remainder of my life as a single woman. I think I would rather be alone than settle for someone who is just "keeping me company".

Grief explained perfectly!

Grief is a tidal wave that overtakes you, smashes down upon you with unimaginable force, sweeps you up into its darkness, where you tumble and crash against unidentifiable surfaces, only to be thrown out on an unknown beach, bruised, reshaped. Grief means not being able to read more than two sentences at a time. It is walking into rooms with intention that suddenly vanishes. Grief is three o'clock in the morning sweats that won't stop. It is dreadful Sundays, Mondays that are no better. It makes you look for a face in the crowd, knowing full well the face we want cannot be found in that crowd. Grief is utter aloneness that razes the rational mind and makes room for the phantasmagoric. It makes you suddenly get up and leave in the middle of a meeting, without saying a word. Grief makes what others think of you moot.

It shears away the masks of normal life and forces brutal honesty out of your mouth before propriety can stop you. It shoves away friends, scares away so-called friends, and rewrites address books for you. Grief makes you laugh at people who cry over spilled milk, right to their faces. It tells the world that you are untouchable at the very moment when touch is the only contact that might reach you. It makes lepers out of upstanding citizens. Grief discriminates against no one. It kills. Maims. And cripples. It is the ashes from which the phoenix rises, and the mettle of rebirth. It returns life to the living dead. It teaches that there is nothing absolutely true or untrue. It assures the living that we know nothing for certain. It humbles. It shrouds. It blackens. It enlightens. Grief will make a new person out of you, if it doesn't kill you in the making.

— Stephanie Ericsson

One step forward, two steps back...

Its just one of those days again... Tomorrow would have been Mike's 30th birthday. So I have invited all of his friends over for some of his favorite things (cake, pizza, rockband, etc). I think it will do me some good and force me to pull myself together. And I know it is what Mike would have wanted. I just can't believe that he died before he even turned 30! I thought we had more time. I mean, I knew he had a heart condition and the odds were that he would not live to be 90. But I really thought that he had more time. He was in the process of getting an ICD implanted. That was supposed to keep him from dropping dead on me. It wasn't supposed to end like this. Not two days before his final appointment.

Today is turning out to be really rough for me. I went to the zoo with a friend and her two little ones. I thought it would cheer me up, but instead I left feeling worse. It made me so sad to see the happy families there with their kids. Mike and I wanted children, we just ran out of time. He would have been such a fun dad. One of my biggest dreams in life is to be a mother. However, I have fertility issues. Mike and I tried for years and I had a few miscarriages. We had all intentions of adopting very soon.

Sure, there is always a chance that I will meet a man down the road and start a family with him. But the odds of that happening are not too realistic. The ironic thing is that since Mike died I have been losing weight, and with my PCOS, if I can manage to get the weight off, the odds of conceiving and carrying a baby full term are much higher. But unfortunately, with PCOS conceiving after 35 is usually not easy. I would have to actually meet said man, date said man, get engaged to said man, marry said man, and then eventually start a family. And well, I don't see that happening all in the next 5 years. It seems that everyone around me has kids, is pregnant, or is getting ready to start a family. And here I am all alone, back at the beginning.

So I guess today I am not only mourning the loss of my husband, but also of the life we had planned. I know that I have to be strong. But that is so much easier said than done these days...

Crossroads

For the past few months I would just sit home, cry and zone out accomplishing nothing productive. Or I would go out and about to distract myself. Either I was at my highest or lowest, there was no middle ground. I am not the type of person to open up to just anybody, so most people really had no clue how I was coping. I have always been the type of woman who "fakes it till she makes it". Because only my closest friends saw my pain, it seems like I have been unfairly judged by those on the outside looking in. That is unfortunate, but if I have learned anything from my therapist, it is that there are no rules for grieving. It is an individual journey and no one walks down the exact same path. Everyone has an opinion on which path I should take, but ultimately it is my journey alone.

I have come to a crossroads. I have come to terms with the fact that no matter what I do, someone will be there pointing their finger judging me. When I show my sadness it seems that people think that I need to get a grip and deal. When I show my stregnth and willingness to move forward it seems that people think that I am not properly mourning my husband. So what it comes down to is that I am going to stop letting people's opinions bother me. I am doing what I need to do, and I know that I am making Mike proud. And that is all that matters!

Today starts a new chapter in my life. No more fear. I am a strong woman who can accomplish anything she puts her mind to. I cannot and will not let anyone bring me down. I will succeed! I can do this! I must do this! This is my life and it is time to take control!

Finding Control.

A fellow widower posted this and I thought it was a great topic to blog about:

I'd like to share what the pastor Charles Swindoll wrote :

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.
It is more important that the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill.
The remarkable thing is - we have a choice every day of our lives regarding the attitude we embrace for that day.
We cannot change our past. We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable.
The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude.

I’m convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you.
We have choices within our attitudes.

I am loving this! I am the type of person who believes that what is meant to be is meant to be. Everything happens for a reason. But sometimes this belief leaves me feeling helpless. But to think that life is not about what happens, but instead how I choose to react to it, that brings a new found hope that everything is not totally pre-destined and I just might have a little more control than I previously thought I did.

Another stage reached...

This week I hit the anger stage. It is such a strange feeling. I have been so very zen till now. I am not the type to feel anger. But recently I have been angry that Mike left me to clean up this mess. I know that if he had the choice he would not have left me. And I realize that "his" mess is my mess because he was my husband. But I just wish that things were different. I wish that I would have known then what I know now. Things could have been a bit easier now, if only I pushed. I wish we would have communicated better. I wish that I was a more "controlling" wife. I have so many regrets that go along with my anger. There are so many things I could have done differently. But then I have to wonder, if I were not the type of wife that I was, would my marriage have even lasted? Ultimately, I guess what it comes down to is that this mess it totally worth the time we shared together. But I cannot help but feel alone and overwhelmed...

I loved my husband more than anything in this world. And I know that he loved me with all of his heart. He was a wonderful man. He was kind, loving, generous, and had a zest for life like no other I have ever met. He provided me a charmed life, there is no doubt. But now that I am here all alone and scared to death, I can't help but look back and think about everything I wish I would have done differently. But in the end, it is what it is, and there is no point to what ifs because I can't go back in time. This is my life.

3 Month Stains

Yesterday was 3 months. I had been putting off cleaning my bedroom since Mike died. There was a slight path to the bed, and other than that clutter everywhere. I decided that yesterday was going to be the day that I reclaimed my bedroom. Once I started cleaning I remembered why I had been putting it off for so long. As the clutter came off the floor the blood stains became visible. It is almost funny how we repress things that are too painful to remember. There are so many times I started cleaning the bedroom and then just gave up. I just could not do it! How could I forget about those stains? But on the 3 month sadiversary, for some reason my psyche decided that it was time to remember.

Seeing those blood stains was like getting hit with a mac truck. But it was something that I had to face. I just sat on the floor and the memories flooded my mind. I saw Mike collapse, I saw him break his nose as he went down, I saw myself performing CPR waiting for the paramedics to arrive knowing that it was all in vain and that my sweet Michael was gone forever. I remember frantically calling family for a ride to the hospital and no one would answer. I remember calling one of his best friends because I had no where else to turn. I remember finally hearing back from family and no one seemed to understand what I was saying. No one seemed to understand that "they can not get a heartbeat" meant that he was dead. No one was able to comprehend the severity of the situation. There I was all alone knowing he was gone, while everyone else was in denial. I remember thinking "Jess you have to be strong,because you are the only one who saw him die. You have to keep it together long enough for everyone else to come in the room as see for themselves. You can't distract them from seeing with their own eyes that he is really gone".

So here I am today, at another stand still. My room is just about clean. But I cannot bring myself to sanding out those bloodstains. I feel like if I sand them out that I will be sanding out Mike. In a way I need those stains as a reminder that Mike was here, that what we had was real, that it was not just a dream. As painful as the memories are I just cannot let go because they are the last memories I have. I think that this is going to be one of those things that I hide under a rug and when I am alone and I need to remember, I can pull up that rug and see that the stains are still there and that it was real. In some odd way I need to remember the pain or the time we spent together seems like nothing more than a dream that was too good to be true.