Onward...

I think I am on the cusp of acceptance...or at least right now I am trying to tell myself this.  I know I need to move on and find gratitude in what good surrounds me.  I can't quite say that all the tears have dried but I know, no matter how broken my heart is to have one more ride...it won't bring her back.  I won't ever see her goofy smile.   I won't be dazzled by her wild mane and free spirit.   I won't be blessed by her kindness as she taught me life lessons.  It just won't ever be as it was because change is an indifferent warrior.

I have always thought that the serious changes in life happen over time; slowly.   That's just not true.   The big stuff happens in an instant.   It changes us and a new course is set, ready or not.

I water her tree faithfully every night.   Sometimes I rush through the task to get myself off that hill to stop myself from thinking about all that once was or could have been.   Sometimes I sit there in stillness, with tears seeping out as I will them not to fall.   

I haven't yet put all of her equipment away; cleaned the last bits of her sweat from the leather that was closest to her skin.   

I haven't yet found closure but maybe it's not part of my journey…

Tonight I walked through the trails on the farm with my dogs.   I have rarely walked the trails, as most of my time at the bush has been spent on a horse.   It felt funny.   I cried.   I lost my dogs…something that never happened on horseback.  I thought a lot about moving on and not looking back anymore.

I struggle deeply with the question why?  As I believe most people do when they experience trauma.  How this seemingly random act of unfathomably horrific juncture ties into my life story?   How can what just happened be part of my life learning?   What is the message I am expected to take from this to move on; make my life better; make me a better contributor to my family and society?

I am trying patiently to wait for the good in this to reveal itself.   In my heart, I know that she sacrificed for me; for my story to continue on; for me to learn.   In my heart I know that good things fall apart so that better things can fall into place.   So now I become still.   I breath.   I listen.  I wait for the message to reveal itself.  I move forward as best that I can.   Reminding myself that nothing is in vain that carried this much love.

Onward.....

Happy 10th Anniversary

Ten years ago today I married this man.

I have learned a lot in 10 years of marriage.   I have learned that marriage is made up of two good forgivers.  Because every marriage is made up of two sinners. (Romans 3:23)  
In 10 years we have seen the full cycle of highs and lows that love and loss generate in a decade of life together.
He has stood with me, behind me, at times in front of me and even against me....protecting me, supporting me, pushing me and forgiving me.    Through our 10 years I have more than tested him and vise-a-versa.   Our opposite dispositions at times creating our opposition; yet also creating a sense of balance.   

Coincidentally, when on holidays this summer our conversation somehow came around to him telling me that one thing he dislikes about me is that I am quite demanding.  He quickly added that it's not all bad, that at times the 'demanding me' is for all the right reasons.   He also quickly added that he knows that my demanding personality is with good intent but sometimes it can be difficult.   He recognized I demand a great deal from myself, not just from others.   I sat there listening in somewhat shock, in somewhat recognition of my own shortcoming.  It's not like that's the first time I heard it.   But does it ever get easier to hear negative feedback about yourself...especially from the ones you love?   The part that stuck and the part that has likely kept us married for 10 years was what he said afterwards.   He said, "I have learned how to manage you and ignore you at the same time.  I filter and I decide what I will let you push me around on and I just ignore the other stuff."   So in the end...his indifference to my demands (which I hate by the way) is also the personality trait he possesses that has kept us married for 10 years!   

You may be saying, Ok what's the moral of this story?   The moral is this...Sometimes love knows no limits to its harshness, its intimacy, its level of flexibility and inflexibility .   Love sometimes hurts us and comforts us in the same breath, by the same person.   It can make us crazy.  It's the same endorphins in our brain that get released by a loved one that get released from an addiction.   Love can make us feel like we can do anything, be anything and achieve anything...and once we have tasted it, we always want more.   The thing about love...when it's good, it's really good.   But when it's bad, it's really bad and it hurts like hell.   If you can find the way within your love to balance those ups and downs...that's what will keep you from going crazy.

In 10 years the romance of the early years is maybe less than it once was. (;-)   Life events tend to trump romance as time passes but love is the pillar that forms in all those dull moments were everyday life happens.   The infinity of house chores, the monotony of cutting acres of grass or weeding of gardens and the treachery of hard labor that comes with being working farmers.   Love is the peaceful dull moments that happen when all the other stuff is going on that seem like nothing.   But this is the love that adds up into a life.   Love shows up in all forms...the smallest gesture, the cheeky comment, the goofy grin when your exhausted and even the somber silence in a heated argument. 

It's been one helluva decade...We've certainly weathered a tremendous bunch of storms thus far.   We've grown, we've learned and we have become new people.
Much Love
xo

Goodbye

According to the dictionary grief is keen mental suffering or distress over affliction or loss: sharp sorrow; painful regret. 

The thing about grief is it looks different on everyone.   Death isn't the only thing we grieve, it's life, it's love, it's loss, it's change.    One of these things just opens us up, guts us and leaves us bleeding, so all those things we have kept inside come out to be reckoned with.   Grief leaves us questioning our power, our choices, our strength, our ability to overcome it.   Grief comes in its own way and in its own time for everyone.   So the best we can do, the best anyone can do, is try and be honest and gentle with ourselves.   Recognize that the really crappy thing about grief is that you can't control it, it just happens.   The best thing we can do it to let ourselves feel it and try and let it go when we can.   Then just when we think it's over and we've made it past it; it will be back, full on, back to where we started.   And every time it takes our breath away.   

According to Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, grief has five phases: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance.   When we suffer a catastrophic loss we all go through these 5 phases.  Catastrophic loss isn't always death either, so that's the part that can catch you off guard,   not expecting to be derailed by loss of love or a big life change.  But know this...No one gets a free pass and gets to take the next train.   We have to move through these phases to emerge on the other side.   Some of us get stuck in a phase for a long time...we get lost there trying to resolve what may never need resolving.   Some of us pass through a stage so quickly, we hardly know we went through it.   

We start off in denial that the loss is so unthinkable that it can't possibly be true.   Then we're just plain angry.   Angry about the circumstances and past hurt.   Angry at survivors and angry at ourselves.  Then we start the bargaining.   We start to beg.   We plead.  We offer up whatever we have, to have just one more day, one more kiss, one more anything to take us back to how things used to be.   Once we realize that the bargaining has failed and the anger is just too hard to maintain; we strike up a deal with depression.   We reach despair.   Then, finally we fall into acceptance.   We have done all that we could and we can't change the past.   We can't bring them back, we can't make someone love us, we can't keep looking back.   We let go.   We move on and we try to build something new with what we have left and what we have learned.

We all grieve.  We have all suffered our own personal losses.   We can’t always control what the universe sends to us.   We don’t always know what will set us adrift.   We just have to trust that the universe has a plan for us and that once we go through the phases we will be stronger and have more power than we ever thought imaginable for us.