Third anniversary

[hikermom]

I don't come here very often anymore - my job is too hectic, my life is too chaotic. But another anniversary has rolled around and I've been struggling with how to explain this life to myself and anyone else who would care to listen. It doesn't help that my dad died 1.5 months ago, my dogs have both had health crises, and I'm just not dealing with tween angst very well.

 

At three years, people have expectations of you - hell, we all know they have those expectations at 6 months. I don't really care all that much for those expectations but it is what I expect of myself that is hard. I'm doing okay. I'm in a job that I love, my daughter is doing alright although she is struggling with many issues but she is still going forward in her life with a pretty strong fearlessness that is impressive to see. I've managed to keep us going.

 

But there is a dichotomy to me, to my life. An appearance that I can't reconcile with how I feel. I can see myself laugh, smile, engage with others, share funny stories or complain about politics, do my job fairly effectively - generally appear to be fully engaged and interested in life. In a way I am but so often it just doesn't feel very deep - like all of that is on the surface and doesn't penetrate down into my soul, into my being. And so others see the smile, hear the laugh and assume that all is well. I'm okay with that until I'm not - until I need someone to just reach out and say "this sucks" or "let me do that for you." This is heavy shit to carry alone.

 

Perhaps that is how it has always been - living life on the surface - and I am just more aware now. I can't truly say when I was last deeply and profoundly happy. When I felt joy all the way to my toes. Instead of moving towards life, I feel like I am becoming more distant. I have a harder time connecting with my daughter (of course that could easily be "tween" years angst setting in!). I still manage to deal with crises or difficulties (dad's death, dog emergencies) or just plain annoyances (bear in the trash) as they arise but I feel as resentful today that I have to do it on my own as I did 3 years ago. I'm lonely but can't remember how to interact with people socially and am exhausted just thinking about dating. Gah - I can barely keep my life in order as it is!

 

And so I am at three years. Today I will be working from home and will take time at 1:50 to walk outside and breathe. I'll remember how I felt when I approached the scene that day, three years ago. How the drive to the hospital felt. How confused and lost my daughter looked - very likely mirroring my confusion and loss. I'll make a point of being grateful for what is in my life, for the time I had with my husband. I'll try to remember to appreciate all the joys and sadnesses and challenges because each one is real and gives me an opportunity to learn about myself. But I know that deliberate consciousness won't be sustainable. I will just have to keep reliving it, reminding myself to experience it. I know that things won't improve without a deliberate effort on my part. It is now time to summon the energy to make that effort.

 

Damn waves - they just keep coming and we have to just keep swimming.

[canadiangirl]

((hikermom)) Thank you for sharing these thoughts so eloquently.  I wish I knew what to say but what you wrote reflects exactly how I am feeling, to a word.  I empathize so much.  I hope you find you can summon that energy and feel the electricity of that joy again.  Thinking of you today.

[Captains wife]

Hikermom - your post resonated with me and, as Canadiangirl posted, so eloquently written. I am 3 years out as of May and feel I am doing ok but I do feel I am carrying something that will not go away. Single parenting is so tough - the burden of working full time, taking care of a toddler, house etc, trying to keep a social life overwhelms me sometimes. Just last week I fell into a real funk and "withdrew" from my world for a week.

 

Your attitude is really positive - and it is hard work to keep moving forward, establishing a "new" life and to be happy generally. I think it is good to remind ourselves of what is positive in our lives, even with such loss. I try and do that regularly, as well as figure out what I can do to make me happier and to make my son happy.

 

I am happy that you are in a job you love now and you have your daughter with you as you are in an isolated area I think. Wishing you all the best as you continue to forge ahead - as you said, keep swimming ! You can do this....

[Wheelerswife]

 

But there is a dichotomy to me, to my life. An appearance that I can't reconcile with how I feel. I can see myself laugh, smile, engage with others, share funny stories or complain about politics, do my job fairly effectively - generally appear to be fully engaged and interested in life. In a way I am but so often it just doesn't feel very deep - like all of that is on the surface and doesn't penetrate down into my soul, into my being. And so others see the smile, hear the laugh and assume that all is well. I'm okay with that until I'm not - until I need someone to just reach out and say "this sucks" or "let me do that for you." This is heavy shit to carry alone.

 

 

Oh, HM, how I get this!  Even with I am with good friends, talking to people who really care about me, I don't ever seem to reach that place that deep down, I am happy, content, fulfilled.  Everything is colored by deep pain.  Somehow, I got past this once.  I found deep connection with someone a second time.  But right now, I don't see it happening.  I'm not sure I'm open to it (yet?) 

 

But more than anything right now, I just want to send you big hugs, so that even for a moment you know that someone else truly cares, even if the feeling is fleeting and it doesn't change the underlying sadness and angst and grief.  Sometimes, it is those brief moments of connection that allow us to get past days like today without a full meltdown.

 

Hugs,

 

Maureen

[IfIonlycould]

Hikermom-Your post could have been written by me at my three years...

 

I so hear everything you are saying but especially this....

 

"I know that things won't improve without a deliberate effort on my part. It is now time to summon the energy to make that effort."

 

Keep swimming, we are all in the ocean with you.  ((((HUGS))))

[hikermom]

So much for my plan to walk and be mindful. A huge thunderstorm brought torrential rains and hail which washed out my driveway - fortunately my car didn't get dented as far as I can see.

 

Not sure if the universe is saying "I'm going to fuck with you today!" or "I'm gifting you with all of these (relatively) minor issues to keep you from wallowing today." So farewell, centeredness; au revoir, mindfulness and hel-lo, Citizen Cider Dirty Mayor (hard cider - not yet but at the end of the day...yum!)

[Trying]

(((Hikermom))) the never ending, doing it all alone, takes an incredible amount of energy. There are days when I think, yes, I am doing a decent job managing it all on my own or I have a nice time with friends or the kids and think, yes, that was nice. Then I realize I have to wake up tomorrow and do it all alone again. I want more than just getting by, dealing with one crisis after another with varying degrees of competence. I want to feel inspired and connected!  I am making major changes right now in search of just that.

 

As proud as you should be of yourself for managing work, life and single motherhood so well the reality is that is still sucks that you have to do it alone.

[JeanGenie]

HikerMom, how I can relate...I totally get what you're saying.  We function and we appear to be holding it together, getting through day-by-day, but it seems that true, deep down happiness is elusive.  As you said, was it never there? Is it there but we are now cynics? 

Seeing that glass half-full is certainly harder.  Sorry it rained on your plans.  Enjoy your hard cider and know I'm thinking of you and wishing you a peaceful evening.

 

[Needytoo]

First off thank you for your honesty. I too still have those moments/days where it just feels off and I just want for it to stop. 

[moncoeur]

Hi Hikermom

 

I completely resonate with your feelings of being disconnected and wanting to feel like happiness comes naturally and is not just a front we put on for the rest of the world and sometimes ourselves. We want more than to just make it through another day to just make it through another day. Anniversaries are very hard. I am coming up on my second next week. ( Can it really be two years already) Wasn't he just here? Sometimes I almost think we want MORE out of life now than we did before because we know how fleeting it is. These mundane things/struggles were just part of life before our loss that we never paid much attention to before. Now because of what we had to go through sometimes I'm like ok God I just need a break here. I'm already struggling to  keep it together and now you give me this shit. The annoyances seem larger than they once did.

 

I am very proud of you and you are such a positive point of inspiration and encouragement.

 

Keep ridding the waves. and we are here to keep ridding them with you.

 

Sending you some hugs ( I know I'm a day late) and thinking of you and hoping you are well now that you are past that day.

 

xoxox

M

[Yaya]

Popped over to widda.org for the same reason. Just passed 3 year mark and life still seems colorless. I totally get the feeling less engaged with your kids. Our dynamic got changed without our permission.

[Helen]

 

Thanks for your post and your honesty HM, I consider us the same cohort and have travelled this road in the same timespan as you and it never ceases to amaze me that so many people with such different lives could experience so many of the same emotions at the same time. It is an overused sentiment maybe, but I could have written your post if I had your eloquence!

 

As the years pass I realise that the 'swimming through waves' analogy is the one which is closest to my truth. The more I swim, the stronger I get, but I still feel the riptide of depression hauling me in another direction and I have to work hard to keep afloat. The shore sometimes feels further and further away and I look back upon the life I had before the cancer bomb and want so much to be back there and to experience, and appreciate, the ease of it all; my desert island life, life was a breeze and I just didn't know how much.

 

These last few weeks I have thought so often how wonderful it would be to have a 'do over', there are so many things I would do differently. No regrets really, just a different perspective on life that would appreciate so much more.

 

From the start HM I have felt we had a similar outlook, focusing on the good, pushing forward and doing what we could to embrace the positives remaining. I hope you find your peace again, you are right, this is such a heavy burden to carry alone and that I feel most keenly, it is the reason I still read posts here often, to know I am not alone in my aloneness. Like you much of my thought recently has been on just how tough life is to shoulder alone, and that constant thought that if I don't just do it, it will not get done.

 

It's still crap at this junction, but when I look back from the perspective of sickness or old age, I want that certainty that I did my best, even if that was superficial and exhausting.

 

Massive respect to you as always =)

 

[hikermom]

yaya and Helen - so good to see you both again! I miss my cohort - those women and men that I met in my early days all in the throes at the same time.

 

It was a tough anniversary this year. Not that the day itself was hard because of the anniversary but because there were/are so many other things going wrong that I have to manage. The hardest part of it being the anniversary was that I couldn't mark the day/time the way I usually do. The first two years I had a plan - to be alone or with my daughter, to be outdoors, to be present to what I was feeling and remembering, to honor whatever came to me, to be grateful for my time with him and the lessons his death has taught me. That plan worked well for me in years 1 and 2. The anniversary was peaceful and calming - not terribly sad. I felt a connection to him that I thought had been lost.

 

Because of a whole slew of crises, I was not able to approach the third anniversary in this way and I am, in retrospect, shocked by how much that mattered. Missing the opportunity to be present to myself left me in a reactionary mood all day and I feel like I'm still reeling from it.

 

I hope you both managed your anniversaries as most helpful to you. I hope we can get together again sometime, yaya. And I hope to meet you some day, Helen!

[Kat538]

I too checked in here as I am approaching the 3rd anniversary. Your words really resonate with me.  As hard as it is to experience this journey it is helpful to know that others are going through this too and some have come through even stronger than they were before. Although to the outside world I may seem like I am doing ok that never ending sadness is still hanging on. I don't let everyone see it but it is there and comes out at times like these.  I hope that we will all someday be able to truly feel happy again.

[Catnip]

I?m so sorry for the loss of your Dad. There?s no one like a Dad and to experience his loss without your husband to lean on must have been difficult.

 

It?s been 8 years for me. Time marches on.

 

I went to 2 funerals this week. One was for a 91 year old friend of the family. Her son and only child (my age) had MS and passed away in his late 20s. Her husband died years ago. Bravely she lived on. I hope her husband and son came for her. What a wonderful reunion that must have been.

 

The other funeral was a 55 year old who worked with my husband. In fact, he took my husband?s job when my husband died. It was difficult at both the wake and funeral as I was acknowledged by co-workers as ?here?s Dave?s wife.?

 

Life and death are so intertwined. Hopefully we can catch a little bit of happiness when it comes our way.

 

Peace to you,

~Catnip

 

[littlebirdie]

My mid 2012 people! Year three milestone was the weirdest one yet, and I can't really explain why. I just stopped by to check on you all. You were my lifeline and I still think about all of you.

 

I don't post anymore for a couple of reasons, but I do have a FB page now so I'll stick the link in my profile in case anyone wants to connect there.

 

I really do love you guys. <3

[jennybug]

It's over eight years for me, too.  It wasn't until about the fourth year that I really started to live the reality of this new life and it felt normal.  I actually have to count back to 2007 to remember how long ago Michael died...I never thought that would happen.

So time does move on, we adjust to a new normal...but we never forget.  I still think about Michael every day and the kids talk about him all the time...I love that!