Today, I am present in my life again.

Once again, I am LIVING.

Wow.

Huh.

I can’t believe that I got “here” – wherever this place is…

When I first started writing my blogs I didn’t know if this day would ever come – and, finally, it has.

 

I am actually  living in the moment again instead of ruminating about my life that died with him.  And, I don’t really know how this change came about.  I wish I could tell you how I accomplished this and that you could follow my lead and reproduce these same results for yourself, but this just is not possible.  This is not how grief operates.  There is no manual for any of this.  There is not an instruction book I can hand down to you.  If there was, I would pass it on.

I will tell you that I know that it was not one particular thing that lead to this recent evolution of my grief.  Rather, it was a series of things that occurred over what has been nearly five years without him.  For a good many years, I was not able to “be” present.  I tried and I tried to focus, but I was always pulled back into my head where I kept Mike alive.  I lost so much of my day ruminating about the life we shared together.  I felt incredibly guilty because my kids needed me; and, also, I needed to be present in my life that carried on without him.  This fight for presence was a constant battle.  Some days I won, but for many years, I lost the war.

Most days for nearly 3.5 years, my life carried on while I sort of stood still in the middle of it.  Looking back, I see that it could not be any other way.  It was hard enough for me to stand.  It took everything I had to rise from the ashes of what was.  In the beginning, I could not simultaneously move while standing.  It took all my effort just to rise again; so, like many people who survive the death of the person they love, I simply stood still for a long, long time. It could not be any other way.  I needed this time to just “be” still while I absorbed his death.

I stood still until I gathered my bearings and then I made a plan to begin to claw my way back to life.  This plan quietly took shape over many cups of coffee and months and months of pondering my life as I sat alone in my bathwater wondering how the hell I was living and he was not.  This unassuming come back of mine came to be as I absentmindedly drove in my car and listened to music. The blueprints to my rebuild were continuously tweaked in my mind as I numbly washed bathrooms and prepared meals year after year without him.

I steadily fought my way back to life as wandered through Europe.  And, when I returned, my rebirth continued, unnoticed, as I sat across the table from the men I casually dated.  My self identity became clearer and clearer to me as the days turned to months and the months became years.  I found pieces of myself as I swirled red wine around my glass.  I resuscitated what I could from what was left of myself; and, after I allowed myself the freedom to become someone new.  As I continued to live day after day without him, slowly, I began to get to know the woman I was becoming.  I started to like her.  Then, I practiced giving her the love she deserved.  Then, after a lot of Self Love, one day, the days stopped passing me by and I started to authentically live my life again.  If you are reading this, I wish all this same stuff for you too.

 

Here.  Present and accounted for,

~Staci