I rearrange the furniture in our bedroom a lot. Since Jason’s died I’ve moved things around probably 10 times. It’s something that I do when I feel restless…or hopeless…or stuck…or trying to work something out in my head…or bored…or…well, you get the idea. I guess it’s my way of taking control of something…seeing things from a different perspective…finding myself…claiming my space. I have a complicated emotional relationship with our house that I’m not going to get into…but our bedroom and my gazebo outside are my two spots where I spend my time.
Wednesday night I rearranged again…not everything…just my plant/books/desk corner. Over the winter I had moved my desk so that I couldn’t see out the windows, and now, with Spring coming I decided I wanted to be able to see out again. So now I’m sitting at my desk…watching the sun shine down on the snow…in a few days it will be as if it never existed…when just a few days ago the snow controlled our lives. Funny how something loses it’s power so quickly….forgotten once it’s gone.
The kids and I have had a lot of really great things going on. The kids are all in really good spots right now. I look at them and am so proud of them. I love spending time with them and talking with them about the things that make them “tick”. I’ve been doing well. I’ve been trying new things….like curling…which was awesome fun and I think will be my new winter sport.
I bought a small camper and am looking forward to spending lots of time amongst the trees. Seth and I have a trip to Miami coming up in two weeks to watch the Miami Open. Anna, Levi, and I have a trip out West coming up in August. I’m also wanting to get out to Charlotte and Portland. For the first time in…well…5 years…I feel like I have things that I am excited about and really looking forward to.
AND….it’s the AND that has me sitting at my desk…feeling sad about ephemeral snow…listening to my “Jason” playlist…staring at pictures of us. I’m feeling more and more peace in the present…excitement for the future…AND I miss the past. It feels like those feelings shouldn’t be able to exist in tandem, but they so do….happy and sad…grief and anticipation…peace and restlessness. I feel like I’ve been told so many times that I will eventually “get over” my grief and “move on”. That’s just not how it works. It’s more like a moving with grief. Grief is a part of me now…in my core…part of my identity. It colors the way I live everyday…the way I see the world around me…and the truth is that I accept that. I think that me denying that would mean that I reject the strength of Jason’s love in my life…even now…and it’s power to live on through the kids and I. So, I’m glad that I have an AND because it means that I am looking forward to the future AND that the love story in my past lives on.
Today was one of the those rare unicorns of a perfect day. I started the day by getting up and journaling as usual. Then the dogs and I decided to take advantage of the gorgeous day and went for a 3.3 mile walk around a lake. Every step of the walk I could feel my body unwinding…my mind stopped spiraling…and my creative self became more and more engaged. It’s such a glorious feeling when the voices in my head start talking to each other. Honestly. And look how pretty Minnesota can be in winter.
When we got home I did the mundane task of making the menu for the week and putting in my grocery order to be picked up. Then I packed up my laptop and took myself on a date to the coffee shop for brunch and some quality time with my creative self.
I always thought it was a weird, not real thing that writers spend a lot of time in coffee shops. I’m telling you…there is something to it! I can sit at a table in the coffee shop with my earbuds in and be totally immersed in whatever it is I’m writing…today Alice had something to say…in a way that can be a struggle for me at home. I’m aware of all the people around me…but still locked in at the same time. I do have to have the earbuds though…otherwise I get bogged down in other people’s conversations.
The rest of my day I just felt like I was in a good place. I picked up my groceries and put them away…did some around the house chores…went back to my writing a little bit (mostly editing)…snuggled a sleepy dog…made dinner. And I just kept thinking…what is it about this day that feels so right? Why do I have a hard time having more days like this one?
And the answer that I came up with is that I prioritized myself today. I knew the two things that I wanted to do for myself today…walk around a lake and write…and I made the rest of the things that I felt I “should” do fit around those things. So simple…but also so hard for me to do. Why? Because we are not taught to put our needs first. Work before play. Peas before dessert. Sacrifice for your family. Guilt comes so swiftly and easily. Well, that’s all bullshit I think. Most weekends I get myself so wrapped up in my to-do list that I paralyze myself. I can even make a planned day away so complicated that I end up bailing on it. I need to go back to the simple…the spontaneous…stop bogging myself down in the details. Then maybe days like today won’t be such unicorns.
There are moments in life that make me especially sad that Jason isn’t here to experience them. Sometimes they are big moments…like Anna graduating from college…but sometimes they are smaller. One of those smaller moments happened this weekend…and it hit me so hard I just stood in the kitchen all teary-eyed.
Tennis. It’s a big deal in my family. Our kids all had racquets in their hands even before they could walk. Jason loved to play “driveway tennis” with the kids when they were young. Often, he wouldn’t even make it in the house from work and he would be ambushed. The net would go across the driveway and I would watch from the window as I made dinner. Once they grew out of the driveway, they would head down to the courts. The boys especially vying for their share of Dad’s attention. As their skill grew they would beg him “not to go easy”.
It was devastating for all three of them when Jason couldn’t play anymore. Seth withdrew inside himself. Levi wandered around the house saying “I just want to play tennis”. Jason felt horrible. The easy answer would have been for the boys to hit together, but I think that was too painful without their Dad there. I felt helpless to do anything to make the situation better.
Now, fast-forward four years later…our boys are finally playing tennis together. They are making court times to hit. Doing drill together on Sundays. They came home from hitting on Saturday and the three of us were standing in the kitchen. They were telling me all about it. We were talking about tournaments and pros and this person and that person. And I just got teary. I told the boys “I love it when you’re playing lots of tennis. It makes me happy”. And I just thought…this is the good stuff right here…the two of them FINALLY connecting over their shared passion…why does Jason have to miss this?
I don’t know about you, but January felt like the longest month ever for me. I don’t really know why…or why it even matters…but I have never been more ready to flip a calendar page. Maybe it was officially getting out of “Holiday Months”…maybe it was saying goodbye to the coldest month…whatever it was…bring on February I say!
In some ways, January was a month of reflection for me. I really tried to get out of my head as much as possible and do a lot of heart-listening to figure out where I am going to put my energy…what’s important to me…what’s real and worthwhile. Those things didn’t seem so hard to figure out when it was Jason and I figuring them out together. They are much harder to figure out for myself. It’s so easy to get stuck in my head…spinning in a circle…never able to make a decision at all.
Levi actually nudged me towards one of the big decisions I made. He just started his last semester of high school and is taking a Literature class. I’m constantly asking him what he’s reading…what he’s doing…so excited about this class that he is not excited about at all. Finally, he’s like “Mom you should go back to school if you’re so excited about it”. And then I paused and said “well, it would be really fun to go back to school for creative writing…” I didn’t go quite that far, but I did join an online writing community through The Loft called Lit!Commons.
When I listen to my heart it says “You’re a writer. You need to write”. That is scary for me and brings a lot of unknowns with it. Writing is very personal for me. I don’t know how to write pure fiction…all of my writing has a huge chunk of “me” in it. If you’ve read any of my pieces I’ve posted on here you know that. My writing has changed a lot through the years from coming from a space of pure grief (this is where most of my poetry I posted on here came from) to coming from a space of healing and self-discovery. That is the stuff that is hardest for me to share…and you may have noticed (or not, that’s fine) that I don’t share as much as I used to.
So…back to Lit!Commons. It’s an online format that gives the subscribers access to experts in fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry, kid lit, publishing, networking, habit building, coming up with ideas, etc. Each of the experts has a lesson and exercise every week. I can kind of pick and choose what sounds interesting and what lessons I want to do. I can also post them for feedback if I chose. It’s been kind of fun bopping around to different areas to see what resonates with me…so far it’s been fiction and creative non-fiction.
This is one of the pieces that I wrote for creative non-fiction. It’s called a Flash Portrait. The assignment was to describe someone in one, long run-on sentence. It was really fun to do actually.
The One
The One had hazel eyes that met her brown thirty years ago living in the dorm on top of the hill trudging down to go to computer science classes for him english classes for her opposites attracting like magnets until the two became one four years later walking down the aisle making promises of infinite years together and soon they had a little one made from the two a daddy’s girl followed by another one a boy with his mama’s eyes and another one boy two perfect mix of the One and her as they became five and the One continued to look at her with love in his eyes making excuses to brush up against her in the kitchen and he played with the three in the yard teaching them to hit the ball with the racquet sharing the sport that he loved and then one night the headaches started and one day the One and her sat in chairs clasped hands between them and heard the two terrible words terminal cancer and infinity was shattered fifteen months later as she held the One’s hand and counted his breaths rattling in and out of his chest until they stopped and she was left with none.
I’ve also submitted a few different things that I have written to different literary magazines…hoping to get something published someday. So, that’s what I’ve been up to. Embracing my Writer identity and figuring out what that means…and what I say to people when they ask me what that means…lol
Dry January seems like a good time for this post. Anyone still on board with Dry January? I tried doing it a couple years back. I think I made it a day or two before saying “Eff this. I’m having a drink”. After that, I never thought about quitting alcohol again. I had at least one drink a day…maybe two…honestly, probably more depending on how heavy my pour was. I would sit at work thinking about what I was going to pour when I got home.
And then….I accidentally quit. Nothing happened. I didn’t have a huge epiphany. Or get a DUI. My therapist and I didn’t talk about it. I just stopped. It was around Halloween. I went a day without and then slept really well…and thought to myself…hmm…I’m going to see how long I can go without. No real goal in mind. Just an experiment really at that point. Since then I’ve had a glass of wine at Thanksgiving and a beer on Christmas…and that’s it. At Thanksgiving it was hard to stop with just one glass…at Christmas I honestly didn’t even want the beer, but we needed the bottle for a baking project and sacrifices had to be made…lol
Since then I’ve thought a lot about what my reasons are…because they were there the whole time…stewing in the back of my mind. I think it all comes down to one thing…I didn’t want alcohol to be part of my story anymore…my identity. I have been working so hard at not wearing masks all the time…being true to myself…to my heart. Alcohol was just another mask…and I finally felt like I was ready to be rid of it.
I was beginning to feel like I needed to drink to unwind…relax…be fun…smile…laugh…take the edge off…feel normal…fit in…feel something…feel nothing. The past few months I’ve realized that is all bullshit. I’ve laughed so hard with my kids that they have looked at me and said “are you sure there’s not alcohol in that?” I’ve felt more free to do what I want to do when I want to do it. I’m not limited by being “sober enough to drive”. I feel good. I’m sleeping better. I feel more ME. If there are people that I feel like I need to drink with in order to fit in or for them to like me…well, then…those aren’t my people.
I’m by no means anti-drinking. I’m not bothered by people drinking around me. I’m sure that I’ll drink again…here and there…but it will be at times of my choosing….because I WANT to…not because I feel like I NEED to. A cold beer on a hot day by a lake? Hells yeah. Bourbon by a campfire? Count me in. An old-fashioned…maybe two…on Jason’s birthday? Yup. But, for the most part, I’m good with my tonic and cranberry.
***This is part 2 of Alice’s story which began here: Imagine…
Alice had barely started on her journey when she came upon a cave. She was very frightened of caves because bats often lived inside of them…a creature she had been terrified of since she was a child. Alice couldn’t ignore this cave though…something about it was tugging at her…like a cord to her belly button. She HAD to stop at the cave before she could continue on her journey…even though she really, really didn’t want to. She took a deep breath and gave herself a good talking to about how every good journey has some scary bits…and she needs to be brave on her adventure. Then she walked to the mouth of the cave and yelled, “Hello! Is anybody in there?” She was expecting to hear her own voice echoing back at her…and she did…but it surprised her by saying “Alice…Alice…Alice”.
Her instincts pulled her so strongly. Can you imagine?
Alice was so startled that she sat down by the mouth of the cave…off to the side…just in case she had awoken any bats. How could she be in the cave if she was sitting right here? Was there someone in the cave that she knew? She couldn’t think who it could possibly be. Alice knew there would be no moving ahead until she solved the mystery of the cave. She stood up…crept a little bit further into the cave…and yelled even louder, “Who are you?” And again the answer was the same, “Alice…Alice…Alice”.
Alice was so confused. Can you imagine?
Her fear of bats living in the cave had lessened somewhat in the face of this new conundrum….and the curiosity that flowed through Alice. She reasoned that if there were bats in the cave they would have flown out by now, but just in case she pulled her hoodie up over her head as she walked fully into the pitch-black coolness of the cave. The sound of her heart beating was loud in her ears…her breaths rasped in and out of her lungs…her palms were sweaty…as she faced her fear head on.
Alice needed to be so brave, all by herself. Can you imagine?
It was so dark in the cave that at first she couldn’t see anything…not even her own hand in front of her face. However, she could sense that she wasn’t alone. As her eyes slowly adjusted…pupils dilated wide to take in all available light…she was able to discern figures in the dark. As she was able to make out more and more detail she realized that they were all females of various ages. More than that they were all the same person. They were all her.
She found herself in the dark. Can you imagine?
Alice was surrounded by her past selves at a variety of ages…toddler Alice, 2nd grade Alice, 10 year old Alice, etc. All of these Alice’s were sad…hurt…dejected…lonely. Some of them had been in the cave for a very, very long time…some maybe a few months…or even a week. When they saw her, they reached for her. Hope sparked in their eyes as they said, “Alice you are here for us at last! Please take us with you on your journey! We have been waiting for you for so long, but we knew you would come!”
Alice’s past selves were so happy to be seen by her. Can you imagine?
And all at once, Alice realized where she was. She had entered the Cave of the Unspoken. The place where she had stored all of her hurt, pain, anger, shame, guilt over the years. Every “bad” emotion that she didn’t know how to handle. None of them had actually gone away. They had just retreated into the Cave of the Unspoken and waited for her to find them again. To rediscover the parts of herself that she had hidden away.
All of her pain was just waiting for her. Can you imagine?
And now, as Alice stood in the Cave, she felt all of those emotions come rushing at her like a tsunami. They were so powerful that she dropped to the floor of the cave and pulled herself into a ball. And as she lay there…like a turtle in its shell…she took a few deep breaths and grounded herself in the present moment. Felt the floor of the cave underneath her. Wiggled her fingers and toes. Opened her eyes to see the minute grains of sand and larger pebbles on the ground. She took a pause…and then worked her hand over her heart…so she could feel the love/grief beating there. It reminded her of her strength…her yearning for life…to be whole again…to feel unbounded joy again. She knew that if she was going to continue on this journey, all of her Alice’s needed to come with her.
Alice was overwhelmed by all the strong emotion. Can you imagine?
And so Alice stood up. Felt her boots firm against the cave floor…braced herself against the storm…and reached out her hand. One by one, the Alice’s stepped forward and touched their palms to hers. Alice felt a brief pleasure/pain running up her arm each time…then one by one the Alice’s disappeared until she was standing in the Cave alone. Tears ran down her cheeks as she thought of how long the Alice’s had been in the Cave waiting for her. She felt remorse for hiding them away for so long, but vowed that she would give every one of them the attention that they deserved.
She welcomed all her past selves back into her body. Can you imagine?
She stepped out of the Cave and into the light. The sun was overwhelmingly bright in her eyes after being in the dark of the Cave for so long. She blinked her eyes furiously as they watered and stung. Her vision blurred. When it finally cleared she looked up again to the mountain and renewed her dedication to her journey. Then she looked down at her palm…the one that all the Alice’s had touched…and she realized what the pleasure/pain had been. Every Alice had settled into her skin in the form of a tattoo. Her arm was now etched with the outline of a beautiful phoenix. Every feather an Alice. And she smiled as she took another step.
Today is the last day of 2024. I took an impromptu day off work to spend some time by myself. I woke up this morning and did my usual morning writing….took the dogs for a walk…and then headed down to Northfield. I spent some time walking along the river and then poked around my favorite bookstore and yarnshop. Now I’m sitting in a coffee shop in front of a fireplace…reflecting on the year.
2024 was a memorable one for me. It was the year I hit rock bottom. When my despair…grief…sadness…loneliness…all became so heavy, and yet so familiar, that it was easier to just lay at the bottom of the hole by myself than try to get up again. I was going through all the motions of living…but inside I felt nothing. And then halfway through 2024 that all began to change for me. I know I talk about my therapist all the time, but she made all the difference in my life.
The second half of 2024 was all about rediscovering who I am now and learning to love that person and trust and depend on her. It’s been full of tears…a lot of tears…so many tears. But also hope…real smiles…belly laughs…so many good times with my kids, family, and friends…and good times by myself.
I’ve been working on being more true to what my heart needs and less worried about trying to make everyone else happy. I’m learning to value true and genuine relationships based on mutual trust and emotional connection. I’m learning my own self-worth and confidence in myself as a person. I drive a Bronco and I love her….she helps me feel like I have a partner in this life against a world that often tries to beat me down. I love wearing overalls, Doc Marten boots, and winter caps. I order tonic water with cranberry juice when I go out because I stopped drinking. Music makes my soul happy and also helps me connect with my kids. Nature helps me feel connected to myself…all other living things…the Universe…God. I am a writer…even when I’m not writing…I think in words…poems…stories. Grief will always live inside of me, but that doesn’t feel like a bad thing anymore.
When I look at my future. I see a journey…an adventure…chapters unwritten…and that feels exciting…like something I should stick around for.
Christmas Morning. Got out of bed early…in the pitch black. Coffee on to brew…fed the dogs…started hashbrowns in the crockpot for brunch…Anna will be happy! Coffee in hand. Sat at my desk. Lit a candle. Dogs followed….curled up for morning naps…snoring…snoring…snoring. They know the morning drill. Ink flies from pen on journal pages. Thoughts and emotions turned into words and released.
But this morning…Christmas morning…my emotions are sticky. They demand more than a quick acknowledgement in my journal. I’m sad. I’m lonely. I miss Jason. I miss our Christmases past. The joy. The magic. The way we would work together to create a Holiday our kids loved…from the perfect gifts, thoughtfully chosen…to favorite foods…to favorite people to celebrate with. We were the perfect compliment to each other. When I got stressed…he would be right there to help me. The number of times he would say, “Ree, make a list!” and then he would be right there crossing things off.
Christmas used to be my favorite part of the year. I cherished every moment of it. Jason always had off work for the week between Christmas and New Years. We would spend so much time together. It always felt like the perfect ending of the year….stolen time…magical time. Time I can’t get back…no matter how much I want to.
So this morning…with my coffee growing cold…as the sun is just now coming up…I will give my sadness…loneliness…grief the acknowledgment and care that they need. I gaze upon the flickering flame of my candle and remind myself that Jason’s flame is not gone…just dispersed into the kids and I…and I’ll look for him there today…as I’m grateful that all three of our cubs are safe and happy…and we get to spend the day together. Christmas is forever changed…but it is still a time to be cherished. Merry Christmas!
For the past four years I have marked my personal “start of the Christmas season” by going to the Empty Chair service. It’s really been the same service…the same recycled words all four years…and that’s fine…it’s not the words that I go for. Church isn’t where I find my truth…my God. I don’t need the Bible quoted at me. It’s the “pause”. This year I really, really needed that “pause”. My Mama Bear has been on the verge of frantic. All of my focus has been on Levi. My inner-self that I have been paying so much attention to and rediscovering has been neglected. My mind is working hard all the time to separate his emotions from my emotions…his situation from my situation. I’m exhausted. I really, really needed the time to pause…sit by myself…close my eyes…and come back to myself.
As I was journaling this morning I was reflecting on how this time felt different than the other times…and the word my pen wrote was “comfortable”. After I wrote it, I actually stopped…and wrote “COMFORTABLE, REALLY?????” And then I decided that really was what I meant to write. Comfortable.
You may be thinking right now “well, it’s been over 3 years Marie. A lot of time has passed”. True. Time has passed. But for me…and I would imagine other grieving people as well…time is not part of the process. The process of grieving is much more active and painful than just sitting back and waiting for time to pass and magically heal everything. The process takes time, but time is not part of the process. The process involves facing grief…acknowledging grief…feeling every single bit of the pain. Coming to terms with loss…not only of my partner in my life…but the parts of myself that were his…the parts of our lives together that are gone…relationships with other people that are gone or changed. And then rediscovering a new self…and through that process realizing that grief is love…grief will not go away…grief will always be there…grief is a new constant in my life. I will always be grieving, but I feel comfortable with that because I am not fighting it. When grief comes over me I let it wrap me up like a hug…because that’s what it really is…and when I cry I let the tears roll down my cheeks with abandon because I still feel so much love for Jason that sometimes it just overflows with no where to go…and that’s not going to change.
At the end of the service I went up to the front and lit a candle for Jason. One of the Church team came up to me and asked if she could pray with me. Her eyes were very kind and compassionate…so I said “yes”. I told her that I was there for the 4th year…and a little bit about Jason…and the kids. She did an excellent job of making me feel seen and supported as “love” rolled down my face. And I left there feeling ready for Christmas in my heart…ready to surround myself with my kids…for us to support each other and have fun together…as we have become so good at doing these past years. And Jason will be there with us too…loving every second of it.
Last Wednesday I sat down in my therapist’s office and said, “I’m actually feeling pretty good! I even managed to string a few good days in a row!” And then Levi’s girlfriend of 2 1/2 years broke up with him that afternoon…
Thursday morning I wrote an SOS email to my therapist…”Help! Mama Bear is pacing and huffing. She’s wants to throw her cub up into a nice safe tree and maul somebody”. We talk about my Mama Bear a lot in therapy…so this wasn’t unusual. I went in for an extra therapy session last Friday and got Levi set up with one of my therapist’s colleagues for this week.
I realized as I was talking to my therapist on Friday…trying to get Mama Bear to “stand down” a little bit…that my emotions were so roiling and heightened because my mind wasn’t in the present moment anymore. Seeing my cub in that much pain and feeling helpless to do anything to take it away took me right back in my head to Jason dying. And then my brain was starting to make connections between the two in my head and I was reliving my own initial pain of losing Jason and imagining how Levi was feeling…and let’s just say that Mama Bear was ready to eff somebody up.
Gratefully, my therapist was able to help me talk through all that…help me separate the two events in my head…get Mama Bear to at least breathe and put all 4 of her paws on the ground. She is still on high alert though. It’s hard for her to focus on anything except for the well-being of her cub. If you have a Mama Bear inside, you know what I’m talking about.
I am extremely proud of Levi though. He is really good at seeking out support…either from me…or other people he trusts (shout out to the LT Tennis Desk ladies)…when he needs to talk. While everything sucks right now, I have no doubt that he is going to come out of this experience just fine…and have that much more knowledge about love and relationships to take with him. It’s gonna take awhile for Mama Bear to rest easy though.
Love, Tennis, and Cancer 