I feel change. Change in me.  And, changes around me.

If Mike’s death has taught me anything it is that change is the only thing that is constant in life.

Change is the only thing that you can know for certain.

 

Yesterday it was officially 3 years and 3 months since Mike died.  Wow.  And, in truth, the counting of days earned in widowhood is no longer super important to me.  For me, Mike has been dead a long, long time and that is all that any of these dates mean anymore.  I have missed him for a bloody long time; and I know that I have a lifetime of missing ahead of me – so fuck the dates.  I am thoroughly bored of counting days.  Mike died and I will not allow myself to become some type of math wizard who can recall his days dead like a savant.

I choose to remember the days he lived instead of the days he has been dead.  I choose to remember the good man he was and all that we shared.  I move forward remembering the LOVE more than the loss.  The way I choose to focus on the love, rather than the obvious loss has helped me survive outliving him.  Maybe this mindset can help you too?

 

 

So much has changed in these last three years.  Some changes have been awful and other changes have been for the better.  I am not going to go through and painstakingly list these things by name; it is enough to say that when your person dies not all the change it sets in motion is lousy.  I recognize that, in some very significant ways, I have become a better woman these last three years.

I have changed so much since Mike died.  I often wonder if he could come back to life if we would need some time to readjust to each other.  I am not the woman Mike knew and loved anymore.  Parts of that woman still exist, but his death has irreparably changed me.  I accept this.  I have to.

I am quieter now.  I spend a fair bit of time just staring out into the beyond wondering what the hell has happened to my life.  I think and I think and I overthink some more.  I have sat with my grief for over three years now and there is really nothing mind blowing left for me to discover.

Mike died.  I didn’t.  My responsibility is to myself.  Now, I must live my own life.  That is what he’d want for me, and honestly, it doesn’t matter what Mike wants for me.  Mike isn’t here.  Only I am.  I want to live again – for me.

If I am to properly honor Mike then I will go forward and live a beautiful life.  I will laugh and I will travel and see this amazing world.  I will go to all the places he told me about and I will put my footprints on the earth in each of the places I thought he and I would go together.  And, yes this is all bittersweet, but it is the life I’ve got.  What else can I do but live it.

So, that is the plan.  I will start to live boldly again.  I will smile and I will feel joy again.  And, I will engage in good conversation with people I just met – in fact, I have already done this just today.  I will do all these things that Mike used to do so well.  I will do these things because I can.  I did not die and it is about time I live.  By living a wonderful life, all the goodness of Mike lives on in me. This is how his Girl keeps him alive.  This is how this girl keeps herself alive.

Changing day by day,

~Staci