I wish I could spend a the monring writing someting truly poetic, but I’ve been swamped holding our first gala for the military widows the AWP serves and I feel that only one excerpt fully embodies what the night, these amazing women, and what we all are capable of doing when we see the light.”to love life, to love it evenwhen you have no stomach…
military widowed
Pain
“Which do you want: the pain of staying where you are, or the pain of growth?”- Judith LasaterI know that pain is inevitable. In a way, it is something to be looked forward to. But, damn, it still hurts. Causes stress. Doubt. Fear. But like building muscles, we must first be broken down to have the ability to come back…
Faith
When he died, my faith died. Faith in a god, life, living… There was only one thing I wanted to believe, that he’d come back home. When that didn’t come to fruition, it was believing that life would end shortly thereafter. It didn’t. Nothing changed. It wouldn’t change until I started believing.Believing that I could survive. That I should…
Load
It was one day after the one year mark of losing him. I was on a plane to Spain. One backpack in tow. Two sets of clothes. Euros. Some photos. My feet. 225 miles to hike on unknown terrain that had no map, but seashells in the ground as markers or random arrows painted on tree trunks. But before that flight and the pilgrimage, came the…
Deny
How many things do we deny. Deny ourselves to feel, grasp, understand, embrace. Deny out of fear. Injustice. Pain. Feeling. Yet there is a simple truth that we all innately know, yet somehow try to veer ourselves away from. In one small word..One opposite…. Acceptance. For it is only when we don’t deny the reality of something, that we can…
5
***Written in 2010, but with a 2013 photo. With this year being my 5th Anniversary, I thought it a perfect time to re-post. :)*** This weekend I’ll be at the Austin City Limits Music Festival. 8 stages, over a hundred bands, but to me it is so much more. Last October, my best friend (and fellow widow) and I ventured out on the green grass,…
Go, don’t follow the flow
I’m a pretty laid back cat. Put me in a room with great music, good company and a cold beer and I’m set. But that’s all external. Those are creature comforts. When it comes to the internal…. The decisions I make that will determine my life at that current moment. I’ve learned that the one thing you can’t be is laid back. You must be vigilant. A…
Solution
I’ve recently been on the search for a new home. It’s not a long distance from my current casa, but in an area I love and come alive in. During many of the showings of the houses I’ve found enticing, I’ve been bombarded with one question over and over from my brokers (aka parents). As we entered each place and I’d point out something I loved, they…
There’s No Place Like Hope
I was spending my Friday evening perusing a used book store when my eyee were caught by this very catchy title. Being an avid “Wizard of Oz” fan, the switch of HOME with HOPE struck such a chord with me. Home, for me, has never equated to a physical structure, but rather a place to fully be me.To be immersed by all that I love. To let me hair…
Invincible
You know that feeling…. You can do it all. Conquer it all. Get through it all. You enter any situation or place almost as if you own the joint, simply because they’re by your side. All is right. All that isn’t, will soon be. You’re safe. All is sound. You have the unquestionable and unshakeable knowledge that you are deeply loved. For all…
Many
“Somehow she knew that you didn’t get many moments like this in your life: moments when you knew, without any doubt, that you were alive, when you felt the air in your lungs and the wet grass beneath your feet and the cotton on your skin; moments when you were completely in the present, when neither the past nor the future mattered. She tried…
Open
My life is much different from many of my loved ones. I find myself traveling 1/3 of the year. I happily sleep with two (furry) men each night I’m home. No one gets on my back for the dishes sitting in the sink a bit too long or the dirty clothes on the floor.I thoroughly enjoy my solitude (i.e. meditation, reading, playing fetch, watching…