143

 

143.

That is the number of blog posts I’ve written since he died.

In them, my shock, love, pain, perseverance, setbacks, growth, knowledge, and life have been encapsulated.

People have asked me how I’m able to write each week.

Sometimes I’m not sure.

Sometimes it’s been the only thing to keep me going.

And sometimes…like right now…I just don’t have anything to say.

It’s kind of like sitting in a silent room…you need it to just absorb…reflect. To take it all in.

So I’m taking in the things around one: the past four years of writing since his death. The comments and encouragement from others that my mind’s crazy ramblings are shared, and understood, and enough.

So today..post 143…I will end it with a thank you and a period and a smile.

 

“I meant to write about death, only life came breaking in as usual.”
-Virginia Woolf

Now

Michael loved Calvin and Hobbes:

A kid’s pretend friend that he asked lifes big and not-so-big questions to. An invisible tiger that always seemed to help guide him through his childhood.

Michael became that tiger to me when he died…he became the person I talked to for guidance…who I asked life’s questions to. But the response I knew would never come from him…it would have to be felt and heard by me and me alone. But still, I asked. I screamed and cried for reasoning to this tragedy before me.

As time has passed though, I’ve noticed that fewer and fewer of those questions on life, do I want, or even need an answer to. Just as a child grows up not needing a fictitious animal to guide their way.

In no way am I stating that I don’t still lean on my baby in the toughest of moments, but I’ve realized that the moments where I have been the most incapacitated by grief, are when I have been thinking about nothing but the future, the world in front of me without him by my side.

2012 is carrying a new constant that I know would make him happy, and I know brings a smile to my face. One I picked up along the in 2011.

A constant that freed me from the constraints of life that my pain and loss had me chained down with… had imprisoned me with its uncertainty.

The constant of living now…and nothing more.

I know the future will be what I make of it, but my present…my present was awaiting me to embrace it…and for more than just a second…I have done so.

Worth

It’s 2012.

I’m here in Tennessee with  group of widows and all feels right.

I woke up this morning and walked in the mountains. The fresh, cold air on my face. The sound of nothing but wind through pine needles. The necessity to do nothing but listen to the thoughts in my mind. To say nothing but my feelings to my heart and him.

I know that 2013 and 2014 and 2015 will come. I don’t know what each year will hold, or if I’ll even be in them, but I do know that living is the only answer to each day that passes…each month that passes…each year.

He is my reason for living, and through that reasoning, I have even found reason to live for myself.

He was always someone who I planned or would have died for, but when cards dealt something unexpectedly, I knew I had to live for him, and in doing so, I found not only a reason to live for myself, but for others like me.

I love that I have that knowledge…I love knowing what I am alive for…and what I know I would and will die for.

That knowledge, undoubtedly, will make 2012 and beyond a year and lifetime worth living.

2012

Holy smokes, Batman.

2000 freakin’ 12.

I don’t quite know how to simply describe 2011 or simply describe what I hope 2012 to be.

I feel I’ve excelled.

I feel I’ve failed.

I feel I’ve laughed more.

I feel I’ve been disappointed more.

I feel I’ve grown.

I feel I’ve shrunk.

I feel I’ve exceeded my expectations.

I feel like I haven’t done enough.

I feel…as I type this…I’m a bit of a split personality

Or a person who hasn’t quite still found a steady balance in the crazy scale of life.

But I think there’s a part of me that knows deep down I liked the excitement of running side to side, just long enough to keep my balance…find that center, but not long enough to ever feel that all will always be as it is…more so a time to know that one side will sometimes lean more than the other and my center will never look the same as the last time I balanced it.

Balance.

Even typed out it looks so linear…so horizontal….so not me.

So….2012 will be awesome.

Crazy.

Not what I expect.

Not always what I will have envisioned.

And more than anything… a little off-balance.

I’m excited for it.

For life in 2012.

6

I took a shower for you. I know you’d be happy about that.

I couldn’t sleep all night. I struggled for my mind to grasp what this day was.

I awoke and cried. It still will never seem fair that we are not together in the form we first connected…in the form we were meant to share more years in.

I felt whole.

I felt empty.

I rode behind someone on a motorcycle like yours and smiled.

I played Louis Armstrong like we did on our wedding day.

I was grateful for the few who still stick with me. Who see a slither of the being I was when you were alive.

They filled our house with flowers.

I bought tulips.

I know they’re your favorite.

I look at my ring and know you fingers graced it.

I know you weren’t a dream.

I miss you.

I miss having not to tell myself that all we have is not some fable.

I miss having the one person who knew we were true.

Who knew me.

Who knew that I knew you.

I love you, husband.

I’m so in love with you.

I don’t think I’ll ever fathom that we we’re married 1.5 years on earth…4.5 years apart….

But I can fathom the moment we are reunited and it makes each passing second a gift.

Happy Anniversary, My love.

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.”
-Pablo Neruda

With You

“I like people with depth, I like people with emotion, I like people with a strong mind, an interesting mind, a twisted mind, and also someone that can make me smile.” – Abbey Lee Kershaw

I’m stubborn. I’m sarcastic. I say things like I see them. I bottle up my emotions. I’m a fireball.

He was laid back. He laughed at my sarcasm. He’d correct me when I was wrong. He made me express my emotions. He cooled me down when things got hot.

Michael was most definitely not the same as me. He was the opposite. He was perfect for someone like me; The person that has a filter issue but loves to be challenged, corrected, educated.

Michael made me grow. He makes me grow.

It’s not easy not having him here…The person that I didn’t need to explain things too, but the person that challenged me to challenge myself. My ways. My words. My life.

I keep that going. I motivate myself to remember that he made me want to be and be a better person.

I still am me. The person he fell in love with.

But still the person that makes mistakes. Says the wrong things. Sticks to my guns when everyone says let them go.

I’m the person that knows that I will grow. I will be me. I will become a better me.

I miss you, baby. The person I was with you.

But I know…no matter what, you will always be here. You will always stand by my side, but make me work, reflect, and remember that there’s room to improve.

And I will.

And I’ll smile knowing so.