Crossing Hurdles

Since my loss I'm taken aback by all the "first times", all the hurdles one crosses in life and on a grief journey. I know, that all of life includes first time hurdles, but loss ramps up the intensity, the poignancy of them. I am acutely aware of life choices and experiences now. Frankly, I'd like to go back to being rather blissfully unaware. If you are in that stage of life count your blessings. Give thanks for the innocence, do the happy dance for simplicity. Now, I also am going to give thanks for losing said innocence, and for the lack of simplicity in my life. Gratitude embraces all of it, the good, the bad, and the ugly. 

I am where I am. I can't go back to who I was, and I'm not sure I'd want to...except for the pain that brought me here. I wish I could have prevented it, or fixed it, or changed it. This new me is still evolving, still taking the hurdles with less that stellar grace, with tons of questions with no answers, with one step forward, two steps back. I should come with a warning sign: caution  figuring life out and prone to weeping. Calm, cool and collected one moment, but watch out the next. Knows there are hurdles ahead, unable to anticipate their location. Or, caution - hormonal spill pending.

I had the absolute pleasure of attending my favorite concert of all this week. Tran-Siberian Orchestra is just the best, my happy place. I was delighted to be going and couldn't wait to experience it. Enter a caution sign, tears up ahead. It was everything I hoped it would be, and I was a weepy mess. You see, I am not the same person I was last time I saw them. I was thrilled to be excited, passionately excited, for the first time in over two years. Progress, right? Yes, and sometimes progress doesn't look like you'd expect. Sometimes it's wrapped up in sorrow and tied with a tearful bow. Sometimes it's a mix of emotions hard to fathom much less explain. 

Next time I see them, and I will...I'm hoping it will be easier. Well, at least different, and beautiful in another way. It was amazing, even though the hurdles snuck up on me and I temporarily stumbled on them. I still came out touched by their talent and music, humbled by the experience and stronger on the other side. I guess that is the purpose of life hurdles, to get stronger on the other side.

Struggle and Acceptance

There is something comforting in listening to the winds blow as a storm rolls through, and yet those same winds remind me of how alone I often feel. It reminds me I long to share the daily experiences in life. The changes in the weather, the world as I experience it, the little and big in life.  

Therefore, I am torn between accepting my solitude and knowing that the experiences are mine alone, and wrestling with them. If the winds are blowing and I alone hear them, don't they still blow like crazy? If I laugh, loud and long, by myself is not the laughter still valid? Where do I find the peace of acceptance? Why do I lose sight of the fact that this is a chapter of life, not the whole of it?

I have a thousand blessings, and still miss those blessings lost to life changes I never asked for. I suspect that is because I still look back at what was and what no longer is. I am both in the past and out of it. If I can not find a peaceful understanding, a closure, how do I at least find gratitude?

I have to wonder if struggle is universal. I have to wonder if the gifts in this chapter of life are the very solitude I try to push back, and the acceptance that is slow to take root. It is what I have and don't want, and also what I dislike and need to embrace. It's like desperately wanting pizza and always getting Chinese food. My needs are met, but my wants are in another drive thru. May I find acceptance and sustenance, if not joy, in my fortune cookie. Pizza will come another day.

So how to move with the storms and find the grace involved. It's somewhere in the letting go and the letting God of life. It's reminding myself I'm not entirely alone even when I feel like it. It's trusting an outcome that feels miles down the road. It's reminding myself that feelings aren't always facts. I feel like this part of life may never end, and that is not the truth. I won't be in this same place in life tomorrow, just today. I only need to do today, today. 

So today I listen to the wind and marvel at it. I laugh out loud, and own the pleasure. I know I'm okay right where I am, and I trust that growth is taking place. I can breathe and release. I can embrace that life is hard and also that I am strong. I can speak my truth, share my thoughts and count my blessings. 

Feeling Connected

As a survivor of suicide loss, I struggle with feeling connected. Honestly, trusting and feeling connected has always been baggage I've carried. The stigma of suicide added greatly to that. Part of me feels completely invisible and the rest of me is just afraid to be seen. Of late, I've been unpacking it, sorting it out, and working on letting it go. It's not an easy process.

I don't believe Gordon's choice was instantaneous, it came after a long downward spiral, and he was at risk from having lost a sibling to suicide. The connection we shared as husband and wife was repeatedly challenged, and over time became so broken. Looking back I can see how many emotional hits we took as a couple, and to a degree how it affected us individually. 

Connection is hard, it involves trust and trust involves vulnerability. While my instinct is to not trust so easily, that results in great isolation. I will not let my life choices, and his, define me. So I am taking baby steps to feeling more connected.

How do you do this you ask? And why would someone own this publicly? I'm learning how to walk this path by faith, with the help of a wise mental health care professional, and the support of people who love me. Why would I share this? Because I choose not to be alone. Alone is where we hide our inner pain. Alone is where we can lose our way in life. I'm unpacking it, looking it over, deciding what needs to be saved and what needs to be released. There is great knowledge in there, and there are mixed messages that need the light of day to be put to rest. 

I'm allowing myself more. More time with friends, more time in prayer, more grace when I make mistakes, more self acceptance, more self understanding, more gratitude. And, yes, I have to push myself to do it. It's okay to have to push myself, in fact it's absolutely necessary. I have made so many mistakes along the way, and have many regrets. Pretty sure I am not alone in this feeling. And I love knowing I am surrounding myself with healthy connections as I learn and grow. 

So I share these thoughts for my growth, and for others who struggle. For others hiding their pain and hurting, suffering in isolation. For people like me, like you, and the Gordon's of the world who lost their life to mental illness.

Cry When You Need To. Life Is Complicated.

Two things, cry when you need to, and life is complicated.

I've been pondering at how easily I weep. Granted, I've always been a weepy woman, but I've moved into the skill level extreme. Most of you won't see it, but some of you have had the experience of seeing the well spring unload. As I've said mostly I weep in the privacy of the truck. That's okay, my truck is where I am usually in between. In between is okay. In between is temporary. In between can be safe. In between just is.

I know the first year after Gordon's death I was mostly numb. Numbness happens when a loss is too shocking to absorb. His choice is still impossible to fathom. Not to say I didn't cry when I was numb. I think I cried but didn't feel. Now I feel and cry. Yesterday I cried while watching a young Mom comfort her infant. I cried because I miss the days when life was so simple, so uncomplicated. Of course, her life may not have a simple thing in it, I don't know. But I remember when life was just easy, or at least I believed so. I trusted it to just be good. It's hard to trust when you know life can be tragic and complicated. And, it's important to trust when you know life can be tragic and complicated. Like I said...it's complicated.

The other night with friends I felt completely okay just as I was, and then within minutes felt completely lacking just as I was. Such a fine line of personal comfort. I emotionally checked out of the conversations and felt like an outsider. And, that is my baggage to carry, to sort out, to process. So here I am processing away. 

This is what I've discovered. I don't fit into the places I fit before. Extreme losses will do that to you. That alone is worth weeping over. The nature of my loss sometimes makes people uncomfortable with me, and makes me uncomfortable with them. It sometimes even makes me uncomfortable with me. Not a path I chose, but one I must find a way to navigate. It's a painful thing this not fitting in. It's painful how slowly that realization comes to you. With the pain eventually comes grace and growth, but ever so slowly. I struggle with the slowly part. I'd like that growth now please (if not sooner), with a side of fries and a milk shake. Hey, a girl can dream, right?

So this is where I find myself as a survivor of suicide loss. Keeping the faith and trusting in the process even when it's uncomfortable. Sorting out what works and doesn't work like it used to. Crying when I need to. This is growth, this is grace, this is progress.  And there you have it.

Riding The Waves

I am not sure I will ever understand the grief process. Why some days are so very much harder than others. Why some days tears flow at the drop of a hat. Why some things just trigger you.  

There are days, days like Friday for example, that hit you like a ton of bricks. Fridays when you get off work, and the anticipation of the weekend meets with reality. Fridays aren't Fridays like they used to be anymore. There is a gift in these waves of tears. You just have to sort through them and extract the grace.  But to sort through them you have to experience them. To experience them you have to feel them. To feel them is to cry the tears, feel the hurt, the loss, the regret, the loneliness. To own exactly where you are in life. Owning it is truly the first step.

I'd like to think it gets easier, and while the frequency of the waves lessen, the intensity often doesn't. It's a wrestling match of how we expected life to go versus how life actually went. Acceptance is rugged, acceptance is grueling. Parts of life are so hard, and hard is the understatement of the century.

So here is where my instinct is to spin the positive. Partly because I want to skip past the hard parts to look for the good in all of this. It's there, I know it. I'd rather cut to the chase. But for this moment I let the tears leak out. I roll with the waves and trust they will deposit me in a softer place. A place that offers a gentle hand and a profound love. I don't have to know why things are being triggered. I don't have to understand the correlation. I just have to go through it to get to the other side. It takes faith to move through the pain. It takes trust in the process which is somewhat erratic and definitely relentless. The process takes me whether I want it to or not. I can fight it or I can lean in towards accepting it. Leaning in takes less energy, but definitely more faith.

This is grief, this is growth. This is my reality, tears and all.

Even When

Many years ago I began a list of graces/blessings. I try to write some down every day. Some days I'll write several. The goal being to reach 1000 graces, originally without any duplication's.  I owe this lovely idea to friend of mine from town. The first time I met her I had a complete melt down in her store. Bless her heart for passing out Kleenex, encouragement and the challenge to count 1000 graces.

Truth be told I had a list of several hundred graces going when mental illness took Gordon. When he went, he took my list out with him. His despair was overwhelming. As where his very actions.

I've learned a lot since then. I am still on that path of learning. I've learned that counting blessings is critical to my life. Duplicates absolutely count. Some blessings just have to be counted more than once. Even if I can't remember counting something, it's okay. Forgiveness, forgetfulness and acceptance of our frailty counts double. 

Even when I struggle for patience, understanding and comfort in where I am today there are blessings. I wrestle with being comfortably alone, when I am alone. And, I struggle with being comfortable in a group when I'm in a group.  I am anxious being the single in a group of couples. I'm not quite sure where I fit anywhere at anytime.  It's hard to process the pain, and release it into healing. It's a rugged journey, one I never asked for. 

Even when the feeling of being lost and alone is strong, I can find the grace within. I can't count the number of times I've given thanks for the tears. I will continue to do so over and over. The times I separate things down to the smallest gift of grace are so worth noting. This list is proof that there is always something to be grateful for. Even if I am not where I want to be in life. Even when grief weighs heavy. Even when I look back at what was lost, and look ahead wondering how to find peace in it. Even then I have more blessings/graces than I can shake a stick at. 

So I count these gifts in my head, but also on paper. It's like a freeze frame of precious gifts. All worth counting, all worth experiencing. Duplication's acceptable. Losing my first list did not destroy those blessings, they exist, and they continue to be counted day in and day out.

Definitions

We have so many things that define us. Names, titles, occupations, roles we've played over the years. Going way back...cheerleader (a hundred years ago), student, girlfriend, fiancee, secretary, wife, mother, florist, divorcee, florist, florist, florist, fiancee, wife, blogger, volunteer, crazy dog lady, still a florist. The one that gets me though is survivor of suicide loss. Because that is one I know gets said behind my back, and never to my face.

I wonder how often his choice is used to define me, to explain me, to reference who I am. Oh that's so and so, her husband killed himself. Now maybe it never happens, but I'd be willing to bet that it does because of the stigma associated with suicide. 

I have no control over who says what. I get that. But the isolation of what happened makes for a lonely journey. I also understand that by defining others we try to feel a little better about ourselves. It puts them in a separate place and makes us feel a little more secure in a scary world. I totally get my experience represents a scary world for many people. Because we want to believe all is well, we like to think those we love are safe and happy. We want "safe" titles for who and what we are.

What happened does not define me, as much as serve to refine me. It pushes me towards growth and gratitude. It has changed me. You can whisper, oh her husband killed himself. But that "her" no longer exists. You see both Gordon's life, and mine as I knew it ended that day. After floundering, weeping, praying and being sustained by friends and family, I go on. 

All of the people who have been part of my life have shaped me, blessed me, and challenged me. None more than Gordon has in his life and his death. All that said, be gentle with how we define ourselves and others. We are all doing the best we can on any given day. I am not the sum of another's choice. I am simply me, putting one foot in front of another by the grace of God.