Widow's Voice

This New Year of Mine~

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I just passed the 4-year mark of Chuck’s death.  This year blew me to pieces.  Every year does, honestly, but this year…wow.  I went to work the day after, but lasted for only 2 hours, at which point it seemed like my choices were go home or run screaming from the store.  Mentally and emotionally, I was so done.  Mostly, I push my way through all of the moments of the days, but this time I decided no, I’m paying attention and I’m giving in to it.  So, I went home and crawled back into bed and pulled the covers up and zoned out to nonsense DVDs, though I don’t remember what I watched.

Mind you, when I say went to bed, I’m talking about my little bed in my tiny trailer.  I was surrounded by pink, covered in pink, laying on pink sheets with my head on a pink pillow, with pictures of me and Chuck covering most the surfaces.  Which is exactly how I want it to be.

Somewhere along the line, in the last few weeks, I decided to really and honestly just let myself be exactly where I am with this grief, with this missingness.  I’m tired of fighting and pushing to make me something other than what I am and how I am.  Tired of trying to dress life up and make it look pretty to my own eyes.   

This is my year where I’m just going to let the duality of loss be exactly what it is for me, which is confusing and disorienting.  I’m giving myself permission to be the person I am to the world because one must get up and do in order to make money and perform daily chores.  And I’m going to let myself be the other person I am, too, which is sad and missing my husband and wishing he were here and I were still married to him and I’m going to actually tell people that when they ask me how I am.

This is the year I’m going to make an art journal about our Love story and as I consider the ways I’ll do it and then sit down and create it, I’m giving myself permission to immerse myself completely in the past I shared with Chuck.  I’m going to revisit every moment and wish myself back there as much as I want.  I’m going to think about it day and night and not pretend otherwise to myself or the world.

And I really don’t give a rat’s ass whether or not it’s healthy to live in the past.  I’m doing it because I miss what we had and I have nothing in the present to equal it, or come close to it.  Nothing to grab my passion and interest.

I’m so damn tired of the whole damn effort.  I need to stop judging myself for where I am and where I’m not. 

Isn’t it funny, in an ironic way, that admitting to sadness, admitting that this is who I am, can almost be considered revolutionary in this day and age? 

This year is my Declaration of Independence and I’m stating it here so that I see it in writing for myself.

I’m doing life in the here and now.  But my heart and my soul? 

They’re taking me back to 1989, beginning on the day I opened the door to my mom’s house and saw a handsome man in military uniform standing there, smiling at me.

The day my heart woke up…

 

 

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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