Grief: What If I Can Hold On and Let Go

Whew.  I mean to be writing more often.  I mean to be doing a lot of things.  It's the holidays coming up.  It's Artie's birthday coming up.  I'm moving on his birthday. (December 11th)  How's that for showing up? I've taken the day that is hard to get through and scheduled my mover for that day.  Should be interesting. 

I have bought an apartment that will be beautiful one day.  Right now I feel like I'm building it.  It eats up money, time, and energy.  Artie would do it better.  He'd get things done, and get them done cheaper.  He'd hug me.  He'd argue about stuff with me.  I'm doing it by myself.  With the support of friends.  One day I have fried brains.  The next day I make time to have fun with a friend.  I eat healthy food.  I eat deliciously unhealthy food.  I feel I am alone.  I look at a picture of my daughter and grandbaby and I smile.  I want to share it with Artie and I can but I can't. 

Moving again.  It means getting rid of more of my husband's things.  There is a sign over the garbage chute in my building that says Rubbish.  I want it to say NOT RUBBISH.  Some things go down the chute.  His address book went to the chute and back in my apartment three times.  I bought him a little sign that says, "Artie's Laundry Room: Drop Your Pants Here!"  I'm giving it to my daughter.  I told her she can put it in her laundry room or throw it away.  I can't throw it away because it made him laugh.  I had his divorce papers (from previous wives).  They're gone.  I threw away some other papers.  I'm giving away more clothes.  His red leather jacket went to a thrift shop.  I always hated it.  I'm keeping the Yankee jacket and lots of cosy tops to sleep in.  When someone dies we throw away their dreams.  I have a book he never finished.  One copy now.  I kept some movie proposals that never got done - but threw away the rejection slips.  How many copies of his obituary do I need?  How many copies of how many pictures?  So many things I treasure my daughter will probably throw away when I die.  The seal for his company that doesn't exist any more.  His discharge from the army.

I read somewhere that middle age is when your memories are more important than your dreams.  That's partly true.  With all the women I know that have new realationships, I seem to be lonely but content with that loneliness.  I like being married to my dead guy.  I see the ridiculousness in it - and the romantic loyalty as well.  I had the delight of having a friend I met on a grief site come and visit for the first time.  Someone who understands that there is always sadness beneath the laughter - but there is always laughter to be found in spite of the sadness.  I actually handed her Artie's ashes (which are now in a green velevet bag with a gold cord that they were delivered in (the plastic sealed bag is inside) and said, "I'd like you to meet my husband Artie."  To my surprise, she took the bag of ashes and said, "Hi Artie.  I've heard a lot about you."  What a blessing to have a friend like that.  Before Artie died I would have said that was totally insane.  It seemed totally natural.  He's not in his ashes - but it's what I have left of him.

I had brunch with the father of my daughter's best friend who died of cancer at the age of 36.  I was able to let him know that things he was doing rhat he thought were strange are normal for a grieving person.  Sometimes those gestures of holding on are exactly what allows us to let go.

If I take time to be with Artie, in my imagination, by doing something in his memory, by looking at his picture - that gives me the energy to show up and do something else. 

It's been over three years now.  Some days it's easier, some days it's harder. 

In the middle of all my e-mails to plumbers, electricians, movers, painters etc... etc... there was an e-mail from someone thanking me for writing this blog.  There were e-mails from people I know but haven't met in person.  There were Facebook messages.  All to remind me I can smile.

In the middle of sleeping a little too much some days, being a little more grouchy than usual, wanting to avoid another round of holiday and birthdays and anniversaries without him amazing stuff happened.  I saw a play with a friend.  I spent a weekend two doors down from me at the Ritz Hotel being spoiled with a very special friend.  I spent a day helping a woman who is making a film on - of all things - holocaust humor.  Imagine being in a concentration camp and being able to laugh there.  That is amazing.  She has a lovely husband and daughter.  I wasn't jealous watching the three of them be loving to each other.  I keep being brought back into the present by my daughter and granddaughter.

I guess with all the cursing and whining and feelings of being stressed out I have been doing what I said I would.  I have been spending, if not enough time, more time focusing on what makes me happy.  I have been forcing myself to show up.  That play I saw?  I didn't want to go.  My friend and I sat on a bench after and talked for an hour.  I'm so glad I went.  I have 44 boxes packed.  One box at a time. 

I just had a strange thought.  I love grieving.  I hate the part where Artie is dead and I have to get used to him being in his new form - and I can't seem to do it very well.  But I love the part where I have these memories of this very special person and this very special love.  I love hearing stories.  I love telling stories.  Some people tell me that no one wants to hear about the person who died. I have had some friends disappear - but new ones have taken their place.  If you are with me you are going to hear Artie stories.  He's still alive in me.  You'll get to know him through me.  I ask people about their love ones that have died.  I love to hear their stories. 

I titled this before I wrote it.  I didn't know where I was going with it.  I think it is the same theme.  In order to let go I don't have to stop holding on.  I can move forward and stay in the past.  It takes some creativity, and some days, a lot of courage.  Sometimes I am good at it.  I take my memories and my grief out into the world and they are a powerful force for good in my present.  Sometimes I walk backward into the unwanted solitude and the self pity. 

Someone said I was amazing.  I think she's amazing.  It's that thing again.  We have to see ourselves with the eyes of those who admire us.  I have been watching someone on Facebook who I never met that lives in a different country make more and more healthy choices for herself.  I am so proud of her.  I forget to be proud of me.  Be proud of yourself today.  Grief warriors.  You are living without someone, a person or an animal, or multiple people and animals, that you love, that you miss.  You are unbearably sad (to use someone's words) and yet you are reading this and I know you are figuring things out.  We'll do the holidays together - with our sadness - but with our memories - and if we are lucky - with people that make us forget - even accidentally - that we are lonely.  For me, it's looking into the eyes of Gwendy blue eyes, my granddaughter. If she weren't here it might be someone else's eyes.  Maybe even my own.  Wouldn't that be something!  Let's trying looking in the mirror, into our own eyes, and seeing the flame of life in them.  Let's nurture that flame so until it is our time to go we can burn brightly with whatever passion we can find for the time we have left.  xo

Grief: The Courage to Go On

I was going to call this post Overwhelmed and Underhugged.  That's how I feel.  Then I saw a Winston Churchill quote, "Success is not final.  Failure is not final.  It is the courage to continue that counts."  Here we are.  In whatever way we can we are continuing.  We have experienced the death or loss of someone we held most precious and still we are striving to be.  We are alive.

I am overwhelmed with the day to day stress of dealing with people who lie and cheat or who just make things difficult.  I bought a new apartment and was lied to by my real estate agent and the lawyer she recommended.  I am dealing with all the confusion of having a money pit that will some day be a home.  They are gutting the restaurant I live over now so I listen to drilling from 9-4 every day when I might try to find a space to relax.  The list goes on.  I'm still doing what needs to be done but without a certain kind of grace.  I cry sometimes and curse sometimes.  I need Artie to help me find my way.  I can find my way myself.  I want Artie to help me find my way and then comfort me when it gets overwhelming.  I am underhugged because they aren't Artie's hugs.  You know.  It might be a child or a parent or a loved one or a sibling or a pet or anyone I am leaving out.  I am always underhugged because as many wonderful hugs as I get they aren't Artie's.

Over three years and I can't get used to walking in the front door after a stressful day and not having those eyes look into mine with love and understanding.  "Hi honey.  I'm home.  I love you."  I still say to his pictures.  The ones of him when he was young and healthy before the cancer got him.  I know that's the way he would want me to think of him.  I can't get used to it maybe because I don't want to get used to it.

I am working on what I said before.  I am trying to focus more on the things that make me happy.  There was a friend who betrayed me personally and in a business deal.  I was thinking of trying to get an important concession from her and decided it wasn't worth it.  I am better off spending my time being with people who are kind.  I spent some good time with my daughter and granddaughter.  I have a very special friend coming in to see me this weekend.  I want to forget everything else and be totally present with her. 

Sometimes all that good paying attention falls away and I am back in the feeling that it's too hard.  I can't cope.  That's how I'm coping by not coping!  I cancelled exercise until January.  I am making my schedule as open as possible to have time to maybe finally get to writing, to spend time being a grandmother, and to handle all these apartment details so hopefully I can actually move in before the end of the year.

If success isn't final then I have to decide what success means for me and strive to have a taste of it every day.  If failure isn't final I don't have to worry so much about failing - I can turn things around.  If having the courage to continue is what counts, that's what I'm doing.  Continuing.  Maybe in an awkward upside down crooked kind of fashion but continuing all the same.  Being me.  Making the things happen that I can make happen.  Trying to get out of my own way to allow more happiness and more peace in. 

The world isn't going to change.  I can make little spaces in it to touch someone else and make them smile.  I can make little spaces in it to curl up and find rest.  I don't really have to decide anything right now.  Maybe it's not so bad being me.  If I keep looking in the right directions I will keep finding new things. 

We continue on together.  It doesn't matter our political party, our country, our religious beliefs.  We have our grief in common and our joy.  We can fill each other's cup with the courage to continue when we feel ours is running low.  Ok.  Tomorrow.  Bring it on!   I'm ready for something to be easy.  I'm ready for something to go the way I think it should go.  I'm ready for my husband's hugs that are always there - I have to figure out to feel them when they don't have his arms any more.  I can breathe with that thought.  xo

Grief: What Makes A Happy Life?

Here I am, little miss cranky pants, asking what makes a happy life.  I have been writing so much lately about my last nerve being frayed.  The view from the black hole or halfway out of the black hole is like looking in a fun house mirror.  Everything I think is reflected accurately is distorted.  I'm not saying I've become some kind of perky being full of bliss.  You'd all think I was on drugs. 

I have been boring myself silly complaining about the same things over and over again.  It's like rubbing a sore tooth to see if it still aches.  It does.  There are some people in my personal life who have been insensitive and some people I have trusted professionally who have lied to me.  I hate being ripped off.  I miss Artie protecting me, even though I used to complain when he did.  He always had a much better bullshit detector than I do.  It hurts.  It should hurt.  I still believe in feeling what I feel, honestly.  Anger, sadness, hurt.

What I have been ignoring is being able to feel happiness.  Artie is going to be dead for the rest of my life. I am always going to run into people who do not have a conscience or who are too wrapped up in their own problems to think of anyone else.  I am always going to find that some people understand that I am a different person since Artie died and some people don't - or won't.  What I don't have to do is THINK about them all the time.  Artie used to say, "Don't let them live rent free in your head."  I like to allow some time to think about the sad or hurtful things.  I like to curl into bed some times and set the alarm for a half hour so I can feel sorry for myself.  Without realizing it, I have been spending too much time thinking about the bad things and not enough time thinking about the good things.  It's like I have two water holes - one filled with boiling water and one filled with water that is just the right temperature and I keep jumping in the boiling hot one and wondering why I get burned.

What makes a happy life is being aware of the things that make me happy.  My friends.  My granddaughter.  My daughter.  Elephants.  A bad pun.  Artie's pictures.  Memories.  Possibilities.  History.  A good book.  Someone surprising me with a compliment or a present.  Chocolate ganache.  Lions.  Fireworks.  People being kind.  An unexpected smile.  There are a lot of things.  I need to spend more time thinking about those things.  My friend Nick Kemp says, "You are one thought away from a good feeling."  You are also one thought away from a bad feeling.  How can I feel peaceful or calm or content if I keep thinking the bad thoughts over and over again and not make any room for the good ones.  I can even time it.  I can close my eyes and get in touch with the pain when I need to and then open my eyes and see what is actually present.  I can be annoyed at all the annoying things happening for as much time as I need to. Then I can stop and force myself to spend more time thinking about the good things happening.  I'm off balance because I have not been doing anything to achieve balance. 

Another thing that makes for a happy life is to think good things about myself.  I need to notice more the things I am accomplishing.  I don't know if is as important to be a writer as it is to be a grandmother.  I don't need to beat myself up for what I'm not doing - as long as I am doing some things.  I want my life to have meaning.  It can't if everything becomes lost in being critical and overwhelmed.  Maybe being here is meaning enough.

This would be a great discussion to have with my husband.  If he wasn't watching football.  Instead I get to have it with you.  I'm grateful for you.

Something that makes a happy life is that we have the ability to change.  For me, it also means showing up for both myself and for other people. 

What if I already have a happy life and I'm too damn stubborn to notice?   I can be sad and lonely and miss my husband and love him and still have a happy life.  Not all the time - but certainly, more often.  Looking into my granddaughter's big blue eyes and watching her curiousity and wonder is inspiring.  We shouldn't lose that ability to look at the world with a child's eyes.  I still have a lot to discover.  I still have a lot to enjoy.  It's not the life I want.  I want a life with my husband living beside me.  It matters and doesn't matter at the same time.  It's still a good life and I can make it a better one if I use my senses to appreciate things as well as criticize them.  There's room for both.

That's my new outlook.  I'll probably still be cursing and crying.  I'll also be a detective, searching out and finding all the clues to where the happy bits are.  When I find them I won't ignore them, I'll pay as much attention to them as I do to the other bits.  My husband's smile.  It still exists in my heart.  That's the happiest bit of all.  xo

Grief: Decorating The Waiting Room

Here's the problem.  Over three years since my husband Artie died.  I still feel like everything I do is decorating the waiting room.  I am waiting to be with him again in the same form he is.  I was in England and started crying in a graveyard.  I don't cry in public very much any more.  I don't even cry that much at home.  One inscription said, "To the world you were but a part, to me you were the entire world."  Another was simple.  A husband's name and his date of death.  His wife's name and her later date of death.  Then one word: Reunited.

Am I living in the past?  Sometimes.  I have a great present.  I am grateful for many things.  I have a new apartment that I am decorating beautifully.  People keep asking me if it is fun, if I am excited.  I stand off at a distance and know that I am creating a beautiful space.  Yet a small voice whispers, Artie won't be living there with you, why bother?  For me.  For my granddaughter.  For my daughter and my friends.  To create new memories.  It might be fun later.  Now it's hard and lonely work.  Sometimes doing it by myself is frightening. Don't hate me because I'm honest.  Someone said that they were picturing how fun it was for me.  I didn't belong in their fantasy.  It will be fun when it is - not before.

When I started writing this I talked about living a double life.  I do that.  There is the underlying part that is so hurt I have to do this with his loving spirit not his body and laugh and hollering, even.  I keep pointing to it.  Look at my hurt part!!  I laugh and smile and enjoy things but I don't want people to forget the hurt part.  They think it should be gone by now.  They think I'm not moving on.  I am moving on and staying still at the same time.  Maybe that's the difference between death and divorce.  If Artie left me because he wanted to I would probably want to forget about him and move on.  He didn't.  He left me because he was too sick to keep living.  That makes me feel like we are still connected; still on the same journey.  It isn't good or bad; but sometimes it complicates things.

I use some of the techniques I talk about.  I like the one where you close your eyes and feel the painful part and then open them again to be fully in the present.  I did that at the theatre one night.  A man in front of me was helping his wife put her sweater around her shoulder.  I closed my eyes because I miss Artie's touch and opened them again and looked at everything around me.  I bought a book called Do It NOW.  I wrote down eveything I have to do today.  I can check it off as I go along and then put things skipped today over tomorrow. 

I am most present when my granddaughter looks at me and smiles.  I owe it to her to be present.  Oh heck, I owe it to myself.  But I have no patience with anyone who is careless with my feelings.  I am too hurt to be hurt again.  Even in little ways.  I was trying to explain that to someone that has known me for a long time.  I was so mean and critical of her but I was only trying to make her understand that little gestures - or the lack of - make a big difference to me.  Sometimes I am calm and happy but a lot of times I feel like I have only one nerve and that is frayed. I'm so sad she doesn't understand.  I'm so grateful for my daughter and my friends that do understand.

Hello.  All you dead people.  Come back.  Let us love you in person all over again.  Let us love you knowing what it feels like when you are no longer here. 

I would like to write a post someday that says I no longer feel like I am in a waiting room.  Maybe.  I would like when I die to be with Artie again and tell him I was faithful to him my entire life.  My love was that pure and strong.  Then I think - what if there is no life after death?  Am I denying myself companionship and a chance to love again?  All you get from me today is questions. 

I'm doing it.  I'm accomplishing things.  I'm making people laugh.  Artie called me Panache.  I do some things even now with Panache.  Sometimes I can shrink the empty Artie space.  Sometimes it takes up so much room I have to lie down for a half hour in order to get up and move again.

If it still feels like a waiting room to me, at least I am decorating it.  I am making it as full of life and kindness and humor as I can.  The trip to England was full of amazing things.  When Elizabeth I's love if not husband Robert Dudley died she wrote took his last letter - writing on it - "his last letter" and kept it in a box next to her the rest of her life.  They say she closed the door to her chamber and refused to come out and even that they may have had to break it down.  She had other favorites. And yet...

Well,  I have a lot left on my list of things to do.  I am living and won't stop fighting to make that life as meaningful as I can.  Fight team, fight.  Beauty and silence.  I can hold it all.  I keep saying that it's too hard.  That's the wrong language.  It's easy.  It's easy because Artie loves me and that love doesn't die.  That love will help me if I let it.  Breathe in the good, scream out the bad.  Ram Dass' book is called Be HERE Now, not Be Anywhere Else But Here. Let's reach out and be here together.  xo

Grief: Thank You

I wanted to write a separate post to thank all of you who read this.  I also want to thank those of you who comment or e-mail me.  If you read from the beginning you will see that after my husband Artie died there was a time when I considered suicide.  It seemed, in my skewed way of thinking, as simply a trip I was destined to take to rejoin my husband.  It was not the right thing to do.  It can be forgiven, but it is rarely the right choice because it is an act that brings great harm to others.  I owed it to my daughter and my friends - and even the people who would have to deal with my dead body - to stay alive.  When I decided to live I asked myself what I could do to give the life I had left some meaning.  What was the answer to my Why?  My husband was a recovering alcoholic who, whatever he failed at, always made himself available to other alcoholics and addicts.  I decided that I would honor him by following his example.  I would make myself available to other grieving people.

When I started writing it was partly in response to the idea of "complicated grieving"; that grief is somehow a disease or a mental disorder instead of a normal response to death.  I decided to be honest and share my journey no matter what twists and turns it took.  I thought that if I was able to reach even one person it would be worthwhile.  I get a smile sometimes from a young person when they hear that this 61 year old woman with the snarky sense of humor is a blogger.

Instead, what has happened is that my words have manage to touch many people.  I have many friends both known and unknown because we share similar feelings and because we support each other.  I don't know how many people actually read my posts because the blog is sometimes used by grief counselors and other professionals.  Any post I write belongs to anyone who reads it.  Alway feel free to share it, to include it in a newsletter, to do whatever you want with it.  When I talked to the literary agent, one of the reasons she was willing to look at my book proposal was because of the blog.

I talk a lot about showing up whether you feel like it or not.  I didn't know how to write a blog.  I didn't know if it would have any effect besides the fact that I could share my feelings in cyberspace.  The fact that it has become something more is not a fact I take for granted.  I am honestly touched, surprised, and very grateful that you take time out of your day to read what I write.

I'm not a "group" person.  In spite of that I believe that the people who I call grief warriors are a very brave, courageous, special group of people.  We work hard to live the kind of life that comes more easily to other people.  Grief may not involve just death - it could be any kind of loss - divorce, depression (which in a way is the loss of self) - anything that gets in the way of our being fully alive.

So...thank you.  Thank you for doing everything you do, for being everything you are, for mingling laughter and tears.  Thank you for letting me know that even if I feel alone, I am not alone.  Even if you feel alone, you are not alone.  Together, we will get through this in a way that when we die if we are reunited with our loved ones they will say, "Hooray!  I'm so proud of you."  xo

Grief: Am I Still Alive?

Yes.  I am still alive. I have been using the slightly out of whack coping technique of doing a lot, crashing, doing a lot, crashing and more crashing.  By crashing I mean laying in bed and sleeping or watching DVDs.  I'm sorry I skipped writing blog posts during this process.  Closing on a new apartment and now owning a new apartment is frightening without Artie.  It's odd to me how independent I thought I was while he was alive.  I wasn't.  I did a lot of things on my own but I took it for granted that he was there for me to come home to: waiting for me, loving me.  I fought with him sometimes when he tried to protect me, but how I miss his protections.  I made some mistakes in not checking things before I bought the apartment.  He wouldn't have let that happen.  The good part is that I am showing up for most things, the bad part is that I feel all the time as though I am living on my last nerve and that is badly frayed.

I am writing you from London.  The last time I was here I talked about Queen Victoria and how she never recovered from the death of her husband Prince Albert.  I realized today that there are a lot of people that are waiting for the old Jan to come back.  It's been over three years now, surely the old Jan will be back soon.  I am still alive.  The old Jan isn't.  She isn't coming back.  I try to explain that to people.  I'm not better, I never will be better.  I can have great,  happy moments but I won't be the person I was when Artie was alive.  It hurts too much.  A lot of effort goes into my being me and doing what I do.  I don't have a lot of energy left for the kind of caretaking I did of other people while Artie was alive.  The people who understand that stay close.  I am very lucky that my daughter understands that her mother is wounded in a particular kind of way.  If I had lost a leg I would still be me but I would have certain limitations.  I would never get that leg back.  That's how I feel about Artie's death.  I'm still me but I have limitations I didn't have before.  That may not be true of every grieving person; but it is true of me.

I have friction with some old friends who don't understand that.  I have fight with people who still expect me to plan everything and figure everything out and I don't want to any more. I need more support now from people than I did before.  Artie was my life line, my support.  If I fell apart I could fall into his arms and it would be okay.  Falling into my own arms isn't the same!   My daughter gets it because she misses her dog Stonewall so much.  She has given me empathy for people whose pets have died.  It doesn't hurt them any less than having Artie die hurts me.  I respect all kinds of grieving, and all ways of moving through it.

My sense of humor helps a lot.  (I'm on a British computer which is telling me I am not spelling humor right - it should be humour.)  :)  When I was standing on line at the airport they made the announcement about boarding people with disabilities and people with small children first.  I said to my friend, "What about cranky pants?  Shouldn't they board grouchy people first?"  The man in front of me who looked very nice, handsome, and sane said, "Yes!  They should definitely board tired, grouchy people first.  I would wear a big button that says Cranky Pants."  So... I am starting the Royal Order of Cranky Pants. After all, everyone who believes in acceptance and that it is all good and everything happens for a reason should be delighted to board last.

I have to remember that I am alive.  I have to learn to focus on the wonderful moments and the wonderful people.  I get lost in my unhappiness sometimes.  My granddaughter  (with apologies to people who have had children and grandchildren die - it is okay if you hate my writing about her) Gwendy is my biggest helper in that.  She is nine months old now and when she looks at me with her big blue eyes and smiles because she knows I love her and I'm silly and she's safe - that's the one moment when I feel it's maybe okay to still be alive.  Which is a lie.  There are lots of moments when I feel it's okay to be alive, when I forget that I am sad and lonely.  So, we must help each other pay more attention to the happy, living moments.  We must create them, hold them, treasure them as much as we do the moments when the ones we love were still alive.

I've avoided writing a blog post for too long.  Here I am, at a computer terminal in the lobby of a hotel in London, making time to write.  Guess what, I feel better.  Make time today to do something that makes you feel better.  I think - and act - like lying down and not doing anything make me feel better.  Sometimes it does - but a lot more times taking action - showing up - doing something - is what really makes me feel better.  Artie's smiling.  He knows that now.  I hope some of you are smiling too.

We ARE still alive.  What are we going to make alive look like?  I was such a cranky pants when I started to write this - and I will be again - but maybe - just maybe - I will put some more happy moments into the rest of my day.  xo

Grief: Hope and Being Willing to Feel Good Things

I went to the chiropractor today.  He asked me how my writers' conference was.  I told him that a literary agent had asked to see my book proposal on a grief book.  The working title is Alive With Grief.  If you read this you know that my perspective is you can be a fully alive happy person even with the sad part that hurts your heart.  The format for the book will be part memoir, part techniques, part poetry and art - creative stuff.  I told the chiropractor that I got my new apartment and would be moving in October or November.  I told him my grandbaby, Gwendy blue eyes, was crawling and she chases after the dog now and tries to steal her toys.  He said it was so much good new he had to sit down.

This is a person who only knows me because I see him once a week when I am in town.  Yet, he felt my good news more than I do.  What's wrong with this picture?  I am a very lucky person.  I have a lot of wonderful friends.  I have the opportunity to do many things.  I am a talented writer.  I love my daughter and granddaughter.  I have problems.  Things dont' go well.  I just can't seem to get that Artie space in my heart to loosen up.  I'm scared without him; even after three years.  I'm sad without him; even after three years.  I know all these ways of getting past my fear and sadness and yet I have this attachment to being stuck.  I have watched some folks who have read my blog or gotten to know me in other ways move through their grief better than I am. 

No, that's not necessarily true.  I say that we have to look at ourselves through the eyes of those who love us.  If you asked my friends they would say I was pretty amazing.  I don't feel amazing.  I need to notice the things I am doing.  I need to stop flailing around.  One of my husband's quotes was, "You won't give up failure without a fight."  Another one was, "What's wrong?  Nothing's wrong.  That's what's wrong."  We get used to being unhappy.  I make a joke that I'm going to change my first name to Malcontenta.  I make another joke that I am following my bliss...it just runs faster than I do. 

There's something more serious going on here.  When I was at Bread Loaf - the writers' conference - I felt this glimmering of something I hadn't felt in a long time.  Hope.  Hope for me, for my future.  It blinks on and off again.  It's up to me to hold on to it, to make it shine brighter.  I want to find a way to feel my own good news more often. 

I have many happy moments.  There are things I enjoy.  I am starting to read a lot more.  I used to read all the time and then when Artie died I stopped.  Writing is something that requires self discipline.  I wish I was writing the blog more often.  Some people stop after a while but I think it is important to keep the process going. 

I was in the airport in Vermont and a TSA agent asked me about my book idea.  She said her husband died 11 years ago and she went to a wedding recently and it all came back.  I know this is all normal.  A TSA agent who was supposed to be impersonal told me something very personal.  We want to share our grief as well as our happiness.  We want others to understand and honor it.  I want to flip that over though; my pancake needs to cook on both sides.  I need to want and feel my happiness as well as my grief.

There are moments.  Artie used to say that moments are all we have. 

I sat next to a young girl at lunch.  She was beautiful and sweet.  She said when she first got to Bread Loaf she was frightened and thought she shouldn't have come.  She thought maybe she wouldn't fit in.  I doesn't matter how old we are or what we look like.  So many of us are insecure on the inside.

There's that DVD watching/sugar eating part of me.  Then there's the part of me that has someone interested in a book I haven't written yet.

I know what Artie would say.  He would say, "You go girl!! You can do it." 

I bought a book that is called "Do It Now!"  I haven't opened it.  It is a way to organize my day to accomplish what I want.  Maybe I will do that when I am taking the train from NYC to Boston (4 hours) near where my daughter lives.  It's so easy to have it be 8 pm, have been busy all day, and have the feeling nothing has been accomplished.  I told the chiropractor that.  He said the same thing happens to him.  I never thought he would feel that way.  He does so much good for people.

Let's promise to look around and notice the happy things and find some way to let them in.  Breathe in happiness, breathe out sadness.  I need the lightness of hope.  Not the hope that Artie and I will be together soon, although I need that too.  I want the hope that that my life will be a rich and full one.  I can miss my husband and be happy too.  I can have my heart hurt and be scared and still write my book. 

I want to have things to whisper in my husband's ears, things that I have done.  I want him to look at me and be proud.  Okay.  Good feelings.  Bring them on!  xo