Recently someone reached out to me asking me how I do this life and how they find it so difficult to not be where they want to be or thought they’d be. Turning 30 this past week has made me think about some of the same things so I thought I’d share my thought process. Is this where I thought I’d be and what I thought I’d be doing at 30? No.
Miscellaneous
Wanderlust
I need to see new things. And, also, see the same things – somewhere else. I need to stand on different street corners. And, walk roads that lead to new people and places. I need to breathe the air – somewhere else. Anywhere else. I feel like I am holding my breath, Living here in the outskirts of my old life. ~Staci I feel restless lately. …
The Only and the Already
There are minutes, hours, days that seem to fly by while seconds seem to drag on forever. It has only and already been 4 months since Tin has passed – only and already. For those that don’t lose their “person”, it is hard to explain that time’s guidelines begin to bend in ways we never knew. Good days go fast. Bad days go slow. Yet the next…
How Is This My Life?
Today I went to the post office to send off multiple copies of the book that I wrote about my husband’s sudden death, our love story, and my life in the aftermath. Then I went to the YMCA and took another pool / water aerobics class, followed by physical therapy for my neck and shoulders because I developed arthritis and bone spurs in my neck due…
What Remains, In This After of You
A trifold flag, presented to me at your memorial service. Where are you, my beloved? ID tags that hang over my bed or around my neck. Where are you, my beloved? 3 children you raised with me, though they weren’t of your blood. Where are you, my beloved? A grandson who would tower over you in height, and who reminds me of you each time I see a…
Taking the Lead
There were so many reasons for Megan to be proud of Shelby. From her sheer intelligence, to her love for reading, to even her quirky weirdness. She appreciated that Shelby had a love for nature, at least tiny animals and flowers. We would take Shelby camping at least once a year, but due to Megan’s condition, that was the limit. We took one…
Our First Wedding Anniversary
Tomorrow is our first “Wedding” Anniversary. And, I call it our Wedding Anniversary even though Mike died before we said “I do”. I married him in a thousand different ways before he even asked me to be his wife. In our hearts we were husband and wife; And, now given the circumstance, people tell me that’s what matters. Still, I…
A Wolf in Family Clothing
Over the river and through the woods, Tin’s Aunt had come down to see him before he passed and to help his mother handle a mother’s worst nightmare losing a child. She watched him grow, watched him thrive and now held him as he faded away. I can’t imagine and it seems unholy although if Jesus’ mother had to go through it than who am I to…
Love, On This Odyssey of Love
Perhaps one of the most helpful things I’ve learned in a little over 5 years of widowhood is this… I don’t have to be anything different, feel anything different, aspire to anything different…before going and doing whatever it is that I feel I must do to live this life without Chuck. I don’t have to have hope. I don’t even know what…
The Safe Choice
I met Megan when I was only twenty-two years old. I was fresh off of my active duty tour as a Marine, having been in the communications specialty for the past four years. My “job” was, effectively, IT, just as it is now. I was ready to “settle down” already. I had met a good woman, I was back home, with four years experience in my…
Love Note #1
My Love, I miss you to the depths of me. When I say to the depths of me, I mean I yearn for you, With all that I am -in my human form. And, then further. The aching for you lives, Both, inside and outside of me. I feel all the missingness, Loosely, messily, precariously Contained inside of me. Ricocheting off the corners of my…
The Spice of Life
It’s amazing how simple things can etch a memory deep into your heart. Music, sights, sounds and smells. Food and cooking has always brought back memories of family holidays and campfire stories. Tin loved food. That’s basically the understatement of the year. He would take anything we had in the kitchen and in an hour there would be a…