In the last few years, there have been so many things that have happened in my life. The loss of my husband, the realization that “widow” is a word that applies to me now. These are just a couple of things. Learning how to live with a missing piece of who I am. Learning to redefine me. Death is not something that happens and then goes away. It is a shadow that can follow you. You can try to escape, however, you can’t outrun a “ghost”. You can try to bury those feelings so far down and not acknowledge they exist. This only works during the active hours; when the night creeps in and the quiet settles over, your mind will grasp a hold of those things you were trying to not think about.
This applies not to just those we have loved and lost, but all aspects of our life that we attempt to forget. Forgetting is not easy. Remaining busy, keeping active, pushing ourselves to the point of sheer exhaustion. These things will work only for so long before we are forced to face the things we have been attempting to escape. The solution isn’t to try to outpace them, rather, we need to face them head-on. We need to accept and incorporate them into our lives. Acknowledge each one as part of who we are. Find a home in our lives, our hearts, our heads, a place for them to live with some form of acceptance. These are things that we need to do in order to transition from one place in our lives to a new place in our lives.
It isn’t easy. Some say change is never easy. I believe that some changes are easier than others. Some changes take your breath away. They transform you from who you thought you were into a completely different being. They affect you so deeply that you no longer recognize yourself. The person you are, the person you become and the person you want to be can be all very different things. Most of the time we are moving from who we are to who we want to be.
Tragedy devastates us into a transformation that often times when you look in the mirror you don’t know who you are seeing or if you will ever feel and be whole again. Becoming whole isn’t an overnight occurrence. Rather it is a journey. It is often a journey you will take, for the most part, alone. Sure, you may find other travelers along the path that will help you put one foot in front of the other. People who will help you to learn who the “new” you is or help you to mold that new you into being and perspective. You may find you are doing things you never thought you would do or you may find that you are becoming the person you wanted to be. Free from the shackles that you may have placed around your ankle that kept you from creating and flying free.
Or, you may be placing shackles on yourself as a form of punishment for things you perceived you have done wrong (and perhaps did). You may find that you are holding yourself back and allowing others to clip your wings. Possibly making up excuses as to why this is the best thing for you. This is a season in your life that you create, shape, mold and eventually move through. Learning to incorporate grief and tragedy into life is not simple. It is not easy. It is not on a timeline, despite what others may think or say.
Someone who has never experienced it will never understand. They won’t understand that just because you are dancing under the stars that you aren’t ‘all better’. That since you are suddenly pushing yourself, you are ‘all better’. Mostly because there is nothing to get ‘all better’ from. No, we are learning to dance in the rain in order to feel again. We move too close to the fire, in hopes of feeling again. We are trying to learn to laugh again or fake it until we really can. It is these things that are so difficult to learn to do. To move. To accept. To be free. To incorporate pain and hollowness into the person we are so that we can be whole again. All the while under the scrutiny of those who love and care for us.
One day you will be ‘whole’ again. One day I will be whole again. Time is expansive and incorporeal. The time it takes doesn’t matter. The fact of the matter is that it will take time. How long is different for every person as it is a personal journey we take and along the way we may follow trails that take us away from where we want to be before we get closer. We will take some of these trails because we don’t want to find ourselves. Being lost is easier than being found.
We will traverse roads we never thought we would wander along trying to find ourselves. In search of what we aren’t even sure we know what we are looking for. Eventually, we will find ourselves along the roads we traverse. Unexpectedly. We will find that we are fully able to embrace all that we are; the joy and the sorrow that complete us.
Accept that it will take time and don’t allow others to tell you when your time is “up”. Accept that you may find yourself on some unknown path. Allow yourself to follow the path you need to go down in order to find you again. In order to be able to look in the mirror and fully face the life, you need to own. Remember, that if you find yourself in a place you don’t want to be, it is okay to turn around. It is alright to travel back a way and blaze another trail. Sometimes it is the trial and error that helps us. Other times we may just know what path we need to be on and push forward with what little strength we may feel we have. Alone? Maybe.