And so just like that… I am about to put in an application on a rental house in Ohio. What? How the hell did this happen? It was only weeks ago that Mike and I sat down and had a serious talk about the idea of me moving up there… if I did, how would we do this? I decided, after having lived with Drew’s parents since he died, I need to get a…
The Two Sides of Fall
Kelly Lynn’s post about autumn inspired me this week. She was speaking to the idea of how grief makes us live in black and white for a time… how it removes all the color from our lives. This year, as her favorite season approaches she is seeing in color again for the first time since Don died. She and I have gone through these colorless years…
The Warrior and the Wildflowers
Before Drew died, I was not the softest person. Sure I was kind and loving and generous, but mainly just with him – the one person I trusted above all others. I honestly rarely gave anyone else my heartfelt genuine love – because I did not trust people. I always kept everyone but him at arms length, but did I good job of disuising myself as…
A Big Little First
This weekend has been amazing. Challenging, scary, exhausting, sweet, beautiful, silly, and bursting at the seams with love. Mike and Shelby have been here now for 3 days and this afternoon they head home back to Ohio. I can scarcely even put into words how amazing and terrifying all this has been. After countless hours of Skype calls – to meet her…
Grieving the Grief Years
I had an all-out breakdown a few days ago. The kind I haven’t had in at least a year. I am chocking it up partly to hormones and the damned full moon, but also to everything else going on. Nothing is settled in my life. Most of the time I am used to this, and I ride the waves well. But sometimes it piles up. My career as an artist is sort of like…
Start Where You Are
I’m feeling a bit worn down today. I’ve been trying hard the past few weeks to keep a new schedule and really buckle down on getting work done. Working for myself has been the hardest possible thing I could have added to my life these past few years since he died. It never seems to get any easier… unlike the grief, I don’t know that it’ll ever…
The Other Side: Dating A Widower
One of the most surprising things to come out of Drew’s death for me has not only been to find someone new, but for that person to also be widowed. This isn’t something I ever expected to happen, and it’s given me the unique opportunity to be on the other end of widowhood in a way I honestly never imagined I would be. For a long time after Drew…
The Distance Between Us
You know what I’m learning lately? New happiness can be a strangely lonely and difficult journey. When I was deeply in my grief, I experienced the other kind of loneliness… the one where no one REALLY wants to know how you are doing. Where they don’t see YOU anymore and all they see is the grief. Where you are a constant reminder to others of the…
The Fields of Tomorrow
New love and all the complicated, bizarre beauty of it has become the theme of late in my life and in my writing. A woman who read my blog post last week about Mike coming to visit and meet my in-laws for the first time, sent me a note about just this. Only her story is from another perspective. With her permission, I am sharing a bit of her story…
Bringing New Love Home
I have gone through a myriad of emotions the past few days. Mike is down this weekend visiting me from Ohio… it is the first time he is meeting my family and a lot of my closest friends. It’s one of those big and bittersweet and totally surreal steps forward. Even more so because he is coming for a special event – an annual camping trip that…
The Walk of Grief
A few weeks ago while I was in Virginia, I got to do something I’ve been wanting to do ever since Drew died. There is a spiritual center in Virginia Beach called A.R.E. – full of studies and books about spirituality and just about every topic imaginable related to death and afterlife. They also have a labyrinth on the grounds outside. Which is what…
From Three Years
This weekend marks three years since that terrible day. Three years since I lost my best friend and the love of my life. Suddenly. Without warning. I have also now lived the same amount of time without him as I shared with him… and going forward will mean increasing that gap. I remember dreading this day constantly through the first year. I…