There remains a lot going on in my life as I transition from my house of fourteen years to my new home.  I have been between homes since the end of April; and though I am unsettled, I feel fairly calm.  My new life is starting to take shape and this is exciting.  It has been 4.7 years since I have really felt any type of warm anticipation about anything substantial.  The feeling of hopeful anticipation about my future has been foreign to me in grief.  Hope feels like the feels from another life I used to live.  But, recently, hope reigns supreme for me.  I guess this is what thawing from grief feels like.  Slowly, I have worked to come back to life and I am more than ready to reap the benefits of my hard work.

I am sitting in a living room that isn’t mine contemplating my life and typing this blog.  The way in which I found myself here in this particular room is serendipitous and somehow not at all surprising to me.  Since Mike died many good things have come into my life via chance and happenstance.  Good people have held me steady when he can no longer and I am so deeply grateful to them.  Shortly, I will leave this place I have called “home” for nearly two months and tomorrow I am flying to the east coast to visit some friends I have met through my little online grief group Beautiful Ramblings Grief Support Group.  We have a lot of good things planned and, unlike in early grief, I know I have the capacity to be present during my trip.  And, more importantly, I now have the ability to be present in the moments of my own life again.  This is big stuff.

For years I would vacillate between the world in which I live and a place in my mind where I kept Mike alive.  Now, with 4.7 years of widowing under my belt, I am able to straddle these two places with ease.  I am grateful that I am finally both physically and mentally present in the here and now.  I no longer constantly retreat to my mind to live in the past with him.  Sure, the echo of he and I still rattles around in my head and I am comfortable with this.  The memory of us soothes my Soul.  The memory of Mike’s love feels like the loving embrace of a long lost friend.  I know his love by heart and I always will.  But, now, the difference is that our love no longer prevents me from living my own life.  Rather his love propels me forward.

I am a better woman for loving Mike and being loved by him.  He changed my life and now he gets to watch me live the best life I can.

I am taking flight, buckle up,

 

~Staci