La Promenade

Since my last entry I hit the one-year mark! I made it through all of the firsts and it felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. I could breathe again, laugh again, smile again, and just be happy for a moment again. The anxiety of navigating each holiday or special date was gone and I don’t really pay much attention to or even dread what is coming. I feeling like the healing you gain from time was really working and that time really does “heal all wounds.” I celebrated that day by staying busy and I was happy to move past it without all the emotions that I was experiencing on that very same day just one year prior. I was so ready for a new start and a fresh outlook on my future.

Lies, Lies, Lies

Healing is not only about repairing damage. It is about accepting our new life and understanding that time actually has nothing to do with it. The primary function of our brain is to simply survive. This requires a great deal of physical, emotional, and psychological work. While we may not always be proactive in our healing it is ok to take a break from time to time, we just can’t take a break and stay there. Healing is hard and it requires a lot of discomfort. Grief in general is uncomfortable and while others may not agree with how we process those emotions it can be difficult to process the opinions of others. Many times, as a widow we get used to living halfway because we feel like we may not have the energy to give it all we’ve got. Sometimes we have trouble because we are afraid that if others see us happy that it means we are ok with losing our husband’s and that isn’t the case at all. Often, we seek medical help to keep us from staying in a dark place and that is ok, but eventually we will have to feel what we are afraid of feeling. We gain a magical amount of strength when we can learn to sit with our guilt, shame, disappointment, and fear. When we have to take responsibility for our thoughts, emotions, and actions we have to understand that others may not understand why we are acting the way we do. When you experience ‘Widow Brain’ it can make it difficult for even your closest friends and family to understand your process and some very harsh conversations can come along with that as well. This is where we have to take accountability for ourselves and will need to be objective. The worst part about WB is forgetfulness, extreme sadness, brain fog, irritability, fatigue/exhaustion, numbness, and nausea. I have personally been so consumed by my thoughts that I have driven places and not recalled driving there at all. I have gone days without sleeping and forgotten things on numerous occasions. Healing from the lose of a spouse is different from any other loss, not more or less, just very different. When you have children, you expect them to grow up and move away from home, you expect to lose grandparents and parents one day, but when you marry someone that you can’t breathe without and then lose them – that hits different. No matter where our grief comes from it is important to set realistic expectations for ourselves so we don’t end up frustrated and disappointed in ourselves in the long run. Don’t be discouraged by setbacks and make sure you learn from them, it’s like making a mistake, because we learn more from shortcomings than we do anything else. Be patient and persistent but also take baby steps. It isn’t a race to finish first as long as you finish. Your healing and your process is your responsibility and shouldn’t be compared to anyone else. Healing is a lot of hard work and it is ok to ask for help, just because it is our grief and our process doesn’t mean we can’t reach out for a little push when we need it.

I struggle just as much today as I did 14 months ago. I thought I found my light in the darkness but, in reality, I found myself. I still get emotional when someone hurts my feelings except it is worse now because the one person that I could talk to about anything is no longer here. Sometimes I find myself in an uncomfortable/vulnerable situation and simply walk away because I know that if Jerry was with me, he would tell me it’s ok to leave people where I found them. He always put me first and it is ok to put myself first too. I even got to a point that I felt guilty for talking about my marriage to other people. I felt guilty because it really was a fairytale marriage and I know how unrealistic that is. I searched for things in my marriage that I could talk about to make us seem ‘normal’ and not so perfect, but we were just that - perfect. So, now that I have my blog back, I won’t be silenced! I am going to continue ‘la promenade’ if anyone wants to find me, that is where I will be.