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Getting my Footing. Not.

Posted on: March 22, 2017 | Posted by: Alison Miller

Groundhog Day.  Do you ever feel that widowhood is like Groundhog Day?

A wide and conflicting range of emotions exist in widowhood.  As many as you can name, from A-Z, and many more that can’t be named, only felt.  Emotions that veer wildly about in one’s mind and heart and body.

For most of us, over time, the hardest ones seemingly dissipate.  If I were new to this grief thing, that would lead me to think whew done with that tornado!  But I’m not new to this unwelcome game, so I know that because one emotion seems to be done and finished…well…no.  Not.  It lies dormant, waiting to express itself again, maybe and hopefully not as intensely, but fully realizing that it can come roaring back at the most unexpected moments, possibly disguised as emotion, or buried beneath another emotion, or as itself, with possibly less intensity but hey, you never know maybe with even more intensity than the original.

Jesus, tornado roller coaster hurricane tsunami cyclone twister earthquake!

Over time, energetically, emotions shift, if only from exhaustion of overuse.  Which leads to a stunning numbness and feelings of detachment.  Emotional detachment even from those you love most dearly, which is confusing at best.  At a time when you need emotional connections, you feel so disconnected. And if you try to explain this to those around you, who aren’t where you are…it doesn’t always go well.

Which leads, or can lead, to feelings of guilt.  Guilt with pain and grief.  The perfect mix.

I don’t know which is worse; the pain or the numbness.  Fortunately, I’m too tired from all of it to give too much of a shit, one way or the other.  And early on…very early on…I learned about the grand art of not giving a fuck for the opinions of others, regarding most anything but most especially regarding my grief and how I do it.  I sent the grief police packing.

It has also been freeing to realize, to admit, to myself and others, that I don’t have any answers. To anything really.  I don’t even have any questions any longer.  Life is life and it’s messy and unpredictable and unfair and huge and small all at the same time.  Why get lost in trying to figure any of that out?

I’ve become more philosophical about life. Which is how Chuck was.  He was Buddhist and the way he lived reflected that.  He didn’t get caught up in ego and faced life as it was, not as he wished it to be.

I find myself giving consideration to life, to questions about life, in the same way that Chuck did, and, often, the words he would have said are the same words that come out of my mouth, in response.

I wonder sometimes if I’m becoming Chuck.  Which is probably not too strange or is it? but I do wonder and then I add into that wondering the plethora of grief emotions and struggling to find passion for life again and find my feet again and every other big and small emotion and, also, that I don’t consider it necessarily odd that I’m becoming more Chuck, and, well…welcome to my world.

Is anyone else as confused as I am?

Categories: Uncategorized

About Alison Miller

My beloved husband Chuck died while we were full timing on the road. We’d rented a condo for our stay in southern CA, and I had to leave 3 weeks after his death. All I knew at that time was that I had to find a way to continue traveling on my own, because settling down without him made me break into a cold sweat. I knew that the only place I’d find any connection to Chuck again was out on the roads we’d been traveling for our last 4 years together. I knew nobody out on the road, I knew grief was a great isolator, and I knew I had to change the way I traveled without him, to make it more emotionally bearable for me. So I bought a new car, had a shade of pink customized for it, bought a tiny trailer and painted the trim in pink, learned how to tow and camp, and set out alone. My anxiety was through the roof, and all I knew to trust was the Love that Chuck left behind for me. I found Soaring Spirits early on, thank god, and the connections I made through SS helped ground me to some extent. I needed to know that other widow/ers were out there in my world, because I felt so disoriented and dislocated. Through Soaring Spirits, as the miles added up, my rig taking me north, south, east and west, I found community. I found sanity…or at least I learned that if I was bat shit crazy, I was in good company, and realizing that ultimately saved my sanity. PinkMagic, my rig, is covered with hundreds of names of loved ones sent to me by my widowed community, and I know it isn’t visible to the naked eye, but I’ll let you in on a secret…she actually illuminates Love as I drive down the many roads in our country, and I can see it through my side view mirror. Love does, indeed, live on~

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