So I am now a month in to year three of loosing Dustin. YEAR THREE!! How has it been three years already?! It feels like an eternity to me, but it also feels like it was yesterday. I guess that's grief's way of putting it into perspective for me. I've noticed something about my grief though and I don't think a lot of people know or understand where grief has taken me.
Year one was rough.
So many firsts.
So much to wrap my brain around.
So much to figure out.
So much self-induced pressure to make life as perfect as it can be.
Year two was even harder!
So much feeling and emotions surfaced.
So many second firsts that actually could be remembered and felt.
So much guilt for trying to hold on to a life that wasn't living anymore.
So many unfamiliar situations that I had to face "alone."
But where has all of this, and much more, brought me? It has brought me to where I am today. It has made me who I am today because I didn't let any of it stop me.
After my first year of being a widow, I went to a Widow's Conference. In that conference I learned a very important lesson. I was taught that it is OK to be sad, mad, frustrated and discouraged, but its not OK to stay there. It is OK to give myself time limits to feel those negative emotions, but its not OK to unpack and stay in those emotions all the time.
Starting year three, I realized that a lot of people thought I would still be so incredibly sad that Dustin died. But I am here to tell you that I am not nearly as sad as I used to be. And it is because of what I learned at that Widow's Conference. Life doesn't just stop when you loose your spouse. So you are forced to make a choice. To unpack and live in that horrible pity party, or to let yourself feel your emotions, work through them and let them go.
My new season of grief involves random grief triggers that you didn't know existed. It involves explaining again to my kids what happened to their dad, why it happened, when they will see him again and it not affecting me so badly that I'm paralyzed for the rest of the day. It involves figuring out how to keep him alive in the appropriate way for my kids. It involves figuring out how to be a single parent in the best way I can be, doing the best I can with what I have and being OK with that. It involves being the only voice for myself and my kids. It involves so much more than what meets the eye because its just become a part of who I am.
I am grief.
Grief is me.
But it doesn't stop me like it used to. It doesn't paralyze me like it used to. It doesn't fog my brain as badly as it used to. It is my new season of grief and I am excited to see what I can do with it!!
