writing – Page 2 – Love, Tennis, and Cancer

Write On…

Posted on July 3, 2025 by mfregien6c146e4539

Yesterday was a very big “ending” for me. In the story of my life, it marked the culmination of a chapter that only lasted 14 months, but was extremely impactful on my life. It was my last therapy session with Tara. We spent our time together talking about our chapter. Going back to May 3, 2024 when I first sat in her office. I don’t remember a lot of what I said, but I do remember how I felt. I was done. I was depressed and felt like I had no purpose in my life anymore. I struggled to relate to people and have any kind of relationship that felt real. I felt unseen…invisible…lonely all the time. I was tired of constantly wearing a mask to appear “normal” to society and not make other people uncomfortable by my grief. By that point, I had been struggling for years. It was a struggle that began when Jason was first diagnosed in May, 2020 and then became unbearable after he died in August, 2021. She was my last hope…and I told her that…at our first meeting.

And for 14 months she has listened to my story…witnessed my pain…shared in my joys…applauded my adventures…encouraged my writing. Her eyes never strayed from my face…she never tried to change the subject…she didn’t try to fix things for me. She occasionally gave advice when I directly asked for it…but mostly, mostly she just listened. And she not only listened, but THANKED me for telling my story…for being vulnerable…for sharing my whole truth. That was…and still kinda is…crazy to me!!

That chapter is a really hard one for me to turn the page on, but I am so thankful that I am the person that I am now for the start of this new one…and whatever adventures it may bring. I was hoping to start it with another camping adventure…but stupid decisions on Tuesday led to me being laid up with huge blisters on my heels. Lucky for me I have an awesome son who doctored me up last night when it looked like infection was setting in….so they are feeling pretty good…but not “let’s put shoes on” good.

So instead I’m going to embrace a weekend at home. Spend some good time in my gazebo. Do some writing. Read some books. See some family…maybe an impromptu get together with friends. And that feels just perfect.

Tara wrote me this note yesterday. It now lives on my desk. So many words of hers will forever live with me…but I really love these…

Beginnings…and Endings

Posted on June 19, 2025 by mfregien6c146e4539

I love to start my mornings out in my gazebo. Today is perfect for it. It’s Juneteenth so I’m off of work. The sky is clear. There’s no wind. It’s still cool enough that I popped on my fire table. The sound of water trickling in my fountain and the birds singing drown out a bit of the urban noise. The lilac tree that shelters my gazebo is blossoming. The dogs are laying peacefully by me without chasing squirrels or bunnies all crazy. If only I could train them to run in the house and refill my coffee cup for me.

My emotions and thoughts feel deep today. I’ve been thinking a lot about beginnings and endings. How life is full of them. Hell, every day has a beginning and ending. Some beginnings are the start of something we never want to end, and the end is painful and full of grief. Sometimes we can’t wait for the end, and celebrate its arrival. Sometimes we can’t wait for something to begin and can barely stand the anticipation and its arrival is marked with celebration. Sometimes beginnings feel uncertain and are marked with anxiety and trepidation. Most beginnings and endings aren’t that dramatic…they just ebb and flow with the passing of time…unmarked…unnoticed really.

Yesterday I had my third to the last visit with my therapist. Only two more weeks with her. We talked a lot about the ending of that relationship and how I feel about it. She is the one person on this earth who I can say completely knows and sees me…that I 100% trust. The only other person that I could say that about is Jason…and he died. So, it’s hard for me to keep the loss of my relationship with Tara (my paid therapist) in perspective. It feels like so much more than the loss of a business relationship.

I also am constantly reminding myself that last May, when I first walked into Tara’s office and sobbed on her couch, was also the start of a much more important relationship that will never end…my relationship with myself. She helped facilitate that…peel back a lot of layers…heal a lot of hurt…rebuild trust in myself. That was the real purpose of her time in my life.

So Monday I have a consult with a colleague of hers that she thinks will be a good fit. I’m trying really hard to be optimistic. To feel some excitement for this new beginning. But it’s hard. I told Tara yesterday that my fear is that I won’t be able to get over my weekly therapy sessions not being the same…I’ll lose my motivation for them…and I’ll just stop going. But maybe this will be a good beginning….sometimes we just don’t know.

February

Posted on February 1, 2025 by mfregien6c146e4539

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