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

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.

]]> http://aloveinterrupted.wordpress.com/2012/01/20/now/feed/ 2 tg1065 tumblr_ly4u8mLS7S1qe8smfo1_500 http://aloveinterrupted.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/worth/ http://aloveinterrupted.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/worth/#comments Sat, 07 Jan 2012 05:43:52 +0000 Taryn http://aloveinterrupted.wordpress.com/?p=952 ]]>

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.

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.

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

“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.

It starts with words. Then numbers.

Your shoe laces.

Sentences.

Driving.

Kissing.

Love.

Death.

The things we learn in the earliest of ages can sometimes make us nostalgic. To have no worries but to learn what 1 + 2 equals. To clean your room. To use stick shift.

Then life happens and adds dimension and layers you could have never imagined. The warm, tingly feelings in the arms of someone you love. The heartache in battling your insecurities. This urge to surpass your limits to see just how far they’ll go.

Learning becomes intense. It becomes unbearable at times. It becomes an addiction that you can’t quite ever kick….no matter how much it screws you up at moments…long moments.

You learn that there is someone out there that loves you unconditionally. You learn what it feels like to be unstoppable.

You learn what it is to dream…to plan.

You learn what it feels like to have it all taken away.

You learn about loss in the most tragic of examples. From a teacher you cannot argue with.

You learn what it is like to want to give up.

You learn what it feels like to want to die.

You learn what it feels like for time to pass…slowly…too slow.

Then you learn what it is to survive.

What it is to really wake up.

You learn that you were wrong.

You learn that their love never left you.

You learn that you are strong.

You learn to live….again.

You learn.

And you learn.

And you go from loathing life to embracing it once more.

And you are unstoppable.

And you learn.

I’d be lying if I said I miss being weird…I still am and will always be.

But oh…how I miss being weird with him.

Not so much weird with him, but ourselves completely.

I impressed him with my Gallum impersonation. He impressed me with his Chewbacca roar.

He spent his lunch breaks watching Star Trek Next Generation, and loved that I collected stamps.

He smiled and always cared to hear about my collection of Ghostbuster and Beetlejuice figurines or the gopher skeletons I treasured.

I loved watching him read Stephen King every night or laughing over ‘Pet Cemetery’.

His nostrils could fit two fingers in it, and he loved showing me that talent…I never got sick of showing him how well I do the truffle shuffle.

He could hack computer systems and he always appreciated my poetry and paintings…no matter how peculiar.

There are so many things that I miss in our mutual weirdness, but as I continue on with these rooted aspects of my being I smile at the oddities that make up my daily life. I smile in knowing that he loved them with all his being. I smile knowing that all of me is always more than enough.

“We are all a little weird and life’s a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.”

When loss strikes, we have a way of denying ourselves of things.

Whether it be the ability to smile since they can’t smile. The ability to see all the impact that they’re life left by focusing on the fact that they were taken so suddenly. The ability to celebrate life’s happenings, since they are not there to celebrate it with you. Our ability to look ourselves in the mirror and like who we now are, because we’re too focused on who we were before tragedy struck.

They’re just a few things that I did and denied myself of.

I think I had to…it was necessary.

It was in denying myself of the life that I still had before me that I realized that I still wanted to live it.

Piece by piece, day and month and year by year, I find I’m not putting back together what should have or could have been….but embracing what is.

A part of me died the day Michael died, and I dragged that corpse behind me, letting its weight wear me down. But not all of me died.

It was with that knowledge that life has become one I oddly and peculiarly enjoy.

One case in point: I’ve recently picked up training. At the gym…outside…on my floor.

I was in such great shape when Michael was alive. I had him to look good for. I had a me I loved I wanted to take care of.

I never fully let myself go, as I always wanted to represent Michael in semi-decent shape. But I never pushed myself past that. Why should I?

But now, now I don’t deny myself the ability to love me again. As I kind of like her. And I sweat. And I see myself changing physically and mentally. And I laugh that I ever denied myself of this. Yet I smile, as I now know just how much I’ll cherish that I got to the place I am now.

Someone once said that in denying our suffering we may never know our strength or our greatness. I couldn’t agree more, but it’s in recognizing the suffering and denial we place on ourselves that I truly believe makes the journey one we look back on with a smile…with the knowledge we made it through.

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.
-Lao Tzu

Veteran’s Day is tomorrow, and it comes every year with many people asking what I’ll be doing. How I’ll be honoring a day that my husband fought and died to be recognized as a part of.

I guess in a way these days (Veteran’s and Memorial Day) are not so much any different then yesterday or the day before, as they’re days that I daily am reminded of with Michael’s absence…with his uniforms that hang lifeless in the closet…with the flag displayed on the shelf. But it’s a day brought to the attention to those outside of my realm, and so a day that I am able to talk about him a bit more and know he’s being remembered.

So my answer for what I will do tomorrow is: Remember his strength and courage, Remember the love that was shown to him and that he showed others that gave him the ability to sacrifice his all in the name of sanctifying those attributes and the root of their being. I’ll reflect on how lucky I am that he chose me,  not only to love but to bear his legacy and what he stood for in the case he would never return. I’ll think of the men and women of the military that allowed him to flourish in his passion in life and allowed him the ability to die having found it. I’ll think of April 9th, 2007, the last time I kissed him in the airport. I’ll think of the many like me who shared that kiss they never thought would be there last. I’ll think about those that came before him and after him in serving our country. I’ll remember that in my darkest hours to tap into what he embodied. I’ll think of how proud I am of him and how I hope to make him proud, too…

I’ll think about what I think about each and every day.