There are times when I start to write a post or create a new art project and I get stuck. Suddenly, every idea I have and every mark I make or word I type is wrong. Wrong, stupid, vapid, empty, annoying, pandering, arrogant, contrived. I annoy myself. I disgustmyself. I decide that I will not be able to write anything helpful. I will not be able…
Loss
I was stuck for ideas the other day in art class and the teacher was trying to help me brainstorm. Make it autobiographical, he said, in his cheery 20-something voice, about the movie poster I was assigned to create.Autobiographical? I thought. Huh. Yeah. I began to sort through my life events. Lost my mom (and my dad, too, if we’re talking…
Anam Cara
There are women who have taken care of me since Dave got sick. Just about everything I’ve learned about love and devotion I’ve learned from them. Dave’s death cut the cord keeping me upright on this planet and as I fell, fell, fell, unable to stop the falling, unable to breathe, they cradled me. In every sense of the words, cradled me. In…
Clean or Dirty
Something I’ve begun to distinguish since Dave died is clean pain versus dirty pain. I can’t remember the original source of this idea, though I’ve read about the concept several different times. Clean pain is the pain we feel when we lose someone or something we love dearly. It’s the pain we naturally feel when we’re ripped from…
Time
Finding ways to fill my time after Dave died was a huge challenge. I needed to stay busy and connected to others, but I wasn’t any good for social situations, especially early on. I was zombie-like and had difficulty relating to anyone else who hadn’t experienced widowhood. I couldn’t talk about what I used to talk about. Gossip, work-related…
Dark and Hidden
I am honest on this blog in that I don’t lie about anything I write. Ever. But I don’t shareabout everything here. I don’t talk about the problems in my marriage with Dave and I don’t talk much about my dating life now. There are some things I just don’t want to write about here. But what would it be like if we all had a moment or a day or a week…
Ambulance
In the hospital, suffering from myocarditis, Dave accidentally pulled the heart pump out of his vein. This meant that he’d have to have a new heart pump inserted. Instead, while waiting to get the new pump, he crashed. That heart pump had been helping his terribly damaged heart keep plugging along and without it his vitals went downhill fast. The…
Birthday
Friday was Dave’s birthday. He would’ve been 41. I met him nearly 20 years ago. These three facts feel impossible. The day I met him feels like yesterday. I will always think of him as the 23 year old I first met. And his birthday keeps showing up to remind me that I’ll soon be older than he ever got to be. He was a sweet, chubby baby. His aunt…
My Home
I live in a wonderful city now. I’ve become more and more comfortable here. I like the weirdness, the outdoorsy-ness, the coffee shops, the rampant recycling and composting and organic gardening. I like the dogs and the green of the woods and the mist hanging in the west hills. I like the bridges and the dragon boats on the river. I like the…
Terrible Relief
Kelley’s post got me thinking. My knee jerk reaction was: what’s wrong with me that I parted with my wedding ring months after Dave died? What’s wrong with me that I don’t long to wear it? How did I let go of that ring? I measured the devotion I had by the way I dealt with my grief. Never helpful. Everyone grieves differently. For a moment I…
Happy
It’s been a long time since I could say without hesitation “I feel happy”. In the time since Dave died, I’ve laughed and enjoyed myself, but always I felt that underlying layer of sadness and shock that dampened everything. It made even laughter a bittersweet act. How could I laugh when he was gone? Lately, though, I’ve felt happy. Not tinged with…
The Path
Things are softening. Memories that used to have razor edges that sliced me from the inside are hazier and the edges don’t leave as much damage as they used to. Talking about him often results in a smile almost as much as tears. Most of the time it’s both. And the tears are a bittersweet love story not a fathomless depth of blackness. The idea…