The Journey Continues

I wish there were a tracking device to measure how far one has come in this mourning journey, similar to the Domino's order tracking app.  It would be too complicated to create one.  Grief is not a linear process--there are so many twists and hairpin turns that one could get whiplash trying to follow.  And the grieving experience is different for every person and every loss.  But it sure would be nice to know where one stands in the process. In the beginning all I knew is that I wanted it all to be better fast.  Like really fast.  Like I'd be all better in a year.  Ha! In my experience I do not know how far I have come until I look back.  I can only measure backwards, and have no perspective on how far there is to go.  I would like to neatly wrap it all up and say "I'm 95% through the process and after the next 5% I will be all done."  Yeah, right.  In reality I do not know how far I have yet to go. 

A year ago, I thought I was almost done.  WRONG!  The third year of my widowhood was about a lot of releasing. I thought I was pretty well through with that, but I was not.  I released almost all of Tom's belongings.  I released a lot of emotion.  I started a few new adventures.  And I dealt with a health setback and wrestled with some changes that I did not want to embrace.  All in all, I did A LOT of big emotional work.  It really shouldn't be a surprise that my heart went on the fritz.  Tom's loss literally and figuratively broke my heart.  I have to release the old, with love, in order to build the new.  I cannot live in the past, as much as I might like to.  I must and I want to move forward.  When I look back, I am amazed that I have survived it.  2017 was a transition year of letting go (or in some cases, beginning to let go) of that which had been weighing me down.  It has been hard work.  But what I can say, which surprises me to no end, is that I am happy with my life as it stands right now.  It isn't exactly what I want it to be, and is not the future that I hope to build.  But I am happy, or perhaps content is a better word, more than I have been in a long, long time.  I still miss Tom and wish he were still here.  And I will continue to talk about him.  Love never dies.

2018 is only 30 hours away.  I am rapidly approaching the third anniversary of Tom's death.  The next month will not be easy.  It is packed with too many losses and very painful memories.  I trust that 2018 will be a year of transmutation and perhaps even transformation.