Grief Walking - A Coming of Middle Age Story

7 Years, 10 Months ... And others too

2012-02-29T18:57:00.005-08:00

Someone I love had a mastectomy today. We were not to share the news when we were told. We were not to talk to family or friends. It was their private news. Typing these words I think of how hard it was to carry the secret of my husband's illness for too many years. Him and I alone knew. They warn me not to share like I have a secret and I gain power from knowing it. It is not the power it is the load. Can I not share this load? I am sad for you and for me. I am sad and need a hug. But you tell me to carry it alone. I wonder if I was married if I would have the same restrictions?

When his illness was obvious and we shared with family we took the optimistic road. He was going to live. If we remained positive and did all the steps then we could return to our lives. I smiled. And I cried alone in the car. I wanted to be optimistic. I did not want him to know that it had any negative effect on my life. So when I was in pain I carried it alone. When I was scared I pushed it away.

I worry for my friend and their family. Will they stay optimistic and positive even in the privacy of their own bedroom at night when the children are sleeping and the door is closed? Will each one of them be forced to carry their fears alone, too afraid to share, too afraid to break the pack of positiveness to cry with their own mate, to voice out loud they are scared, to voice out loud that they don't want them to die? For one to voice out loud that they don't want to die, that they are scared of dying? I think of times, the looks my husband and I would exchange, the ones that said I am scared as if exchanging glances across a dinner party table. I was envious of my friend who talked to her husband about dying, was it cowardice, pessimism? Oh, to have had him make a video to me, to his children, to have a recording of his voice, his snoring. That would have brought so much comfort in the beginning. We were optimistic. We were positive. He died non-the-less.

We are not to talk of the 'c' work in cases that did not go well and positive. The face slap stings. Again another reason why I am not allowed to talk about a part of my life. I can not mention my husband or I am living in the past. I have to block over ten years of experiences from my life. Now I can not share because my husband was not a survivor. I hate all the talk that surviving is an accomplishment. What does that say about the non-survivors? Was our positive attitude and optimism not quite enough? Did we let a drop of doubt spoil our thoughts? Did we falter in being vigilant of our thoughts and attitude? Did we miss the bar that allows survival because of our optimism? Did the cancer sense my tears in my car down the street? Did it double its attack when the thought of being alone sneaked into my head before I banished it? Did we fail, so he died as a result? Will I kill you if I say it will be scary and I am here if you need a hug?

When he did died I was traumatized. I had convinced myself that he would live. It is all we talked about, the positive outcome and what we would do after it was all over. I had convinced myself. Then when I was standing alone I cried. I wanted to hug him when he was scared. I wanted to tell him what a wonderful life he gave me. I wanted to curl up behind him and wrap my arms around him and cry and for him to cry and to hold each other as our tears fell.

Is it nobler to be optimistic or to be realistic? Is it so wrong to say I am positive and yet I am still frightened? I can not believe that in their hearts they are not scared. Why is it so wrong to hold the one you love above all others and say 'I am scared.'

I am angry that you dismiss my experience because it turned out badly. I am angry that you imply that we were not optimistic and positive enough for him to survive. I am angry that your illness makes me sad and I have to pretend again that everything is fine.

7 Years, 1 Month - Advice for the Newly Berieved

2011-05-05T20:55:00.001-07:00

What do I say to an old friend when she tells me her husband has died? My chest clinches. I still do not know the right words but I feel the pain hit me in the chest. What do I say the first day? It is too early to say most of what I would say. Do I tell her one of the best things that I was told? No, it is too soon to tell her it will get worse, much worse, before it gets better. What do I say when everyone has driven away and she says tonight will be the first night I sleep alone? Do I tell her it will be sleepless? Will she too wake up on his side of the bed, as she moved closer and closer, searching in her sleep for what was no longer there? It is to soon to tell her that she will grieve longer than is comfortable for other people in her life. It is to soon to tell her that her children will grieve too and it will break her heart. He has only been gone a few days. Do I tell her the longing sets in after the usual time you spend apart, say a work day? Do I tell her the longing aches after the time passes that is the longest time they have ever been apart? When do I tell her, that the ache deepens into a need that intensifies without satisfaction as the time becomes double the time you spent apart. How do I explain such a need, such a longing that you carry all day as your hunger turns to starvation? I cry. Not because I knew him so well but because I can envision her suffering and cannot stop it. She will walk through the fire alone.

7 Years and a few days

2011-04-29T13:18:00.001-07:00

The 7 year anniversary came and went. I called his sister and his dad. I tried to go visit the neighborhoods where we lived in the beginning. I ended up lost. You can't go home again if you can not find it, even with GPS. I have been thinking and dreaming a lot about all the people I have lost, all my loves and my mom.

5 Years - 9 months

2011-01-13T04:26:00.000-08:00

It is nearing the six-year death anniversary. Recently I started a blog as a means to organize my earlier journal entries. For a period, my only question was how to stop the pain. There were times I thought I was crazy and the only proof I had otherwise was a handful of other young widows that felt the same way. I finally reached a point where I worried how long past the traditional mourning deadline the grief would last.

Blogging my journal reminds me of how much I have healed. My continued friendship with widows refreshes my soul, as they are my true confidantes. Grief has been a non-linear journey that no longer overwhelms me yet has become a part of who I am. I hope others find in my blog the reassurances I received from that diversified group of young widows that met when our grief was visceral.

6 Years, 9 months

2011-01-10T08:58:00.000-08:00

There have been so many changes in my life trending negatively. Always in the background is wishing for you. You to hold me, you to tell me it will be alright, you to help me make decisions, you, who would have never let these things happen to me, to us.

6 Years, 2 Months - Alone

2010-06-27T00:07:00.000-07:00

I cried today. The tears started falling and then I let it go and sobbed for a minute. It is times like these that I really miss having a husband, a sounding board, a champion for your side, someone to give advice, someone to hold you when things go bad and when it feels like you are standing alone. My family has more than abandoned me. They have condemned me as inept, lazy, a liar. I miss you honey. I would not be in this mess if you were still here yet, even worse, is struggling through my troubles alone and not knowing if I have made the right decisions. I miss you dearly.

6 Years 2 Months - Loss of Past

2010-06-04T00:16:00.000-07:00

It is strange. All my past loves are dead and I am only in my forties. First was the death of my husband of eleven years. Next, the three-year love affair I have always described as obsessive. We had stayed in touch for years afterwards. I was feeling reminiscent during my lonely holidays and the urge to get together had been growing for months. Therefore, I searched on-line. I found a guest book with the right name. Once I opened it, my first thought was it was the wrong person. It was a memorial guest book. Even when I read the condolences, to the mother, the father, the twin, all with the right names, it still did not seem right. At the bottom, there was a link to pictures. Pictures I have copies of in my old photo albums. The entries were six months old.
Then this year I started re-connecting with high school classmates through social networking. That is how I found out my high school sweetheart of four years had died the same summer as my obsession. A quick search found the simple obituary. There was only one great love left. I knew he must be gone as well. It seemed fatalistic thinking. I researched and found nothing. He started appearing in my dreams. I do not know how long it had been since I had dreamed of him, decades perhaps. His sister found me, a week after he died this spring. During the first five years as a young adult on my own, he was my love.
It is unsettling. They are in my past, love long faded, hurts forgotten, only bits of memories remaining, mostly ones reinforced by story telling or photos. Yet, there is still a sense a loss. These were all people I had loved. I have discounted those old loves as less than the love affair with my husband. However, when I pull out the photo albums stored in a trunk and flip through the discolored pages, I am no longer sure. So many years shared. All the lovers, who carried our private memories with them, as I carried our shared memories, are now gone, passed, dead. Only a one sided version remains. It seems a natural occurrence, if I was in my eighties perhaps and not halfway there. Fourteen to eighteen, eighteen to twenty-three, twenty-five to twenty-eight, thirty to forty-one, a large chunk of life is closed. Obviously closed already, yet sealed shut now. The mystery of these unrelated deaths overwhelms me. Then last week, a heart attack. My first tiptoe back into dating, talks of marriage, hours every day on the phone, perhaps my rebound, a part of the past circling around to the present. A year moved too fast and ended as suddenly. I wonder now if I have a strange black widow effect on people who fall in love with me as I can add forty-six to forty-seven in the blank file.

Quotes

2010-03-02T15:44:00.000-08:00

"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."
— Dr. Seuss

"I'm afraid that sometimes you'll play lonely games too. Games you can't win 'cause you'll play against you."
— Dr. Seuss

In honor of Dr. Seuss' Birthday

Sister, Mom, Husband - Need

2010-02-27T20:11:00.000-08:00

I saw Shutter Island with my friends tonight. Leaving in the car I cried for my sister and what I have lost with her due to her mental illness that did not occur until her late 20s. Then I felt such a longing for my mom. My life is in a lot of turmoil with major decisions required and soon to face substantial personal losses. I have been under extreme stress for six years and the grief for my husband was only the beginning. If I cannot have a husband to comfort me and provide me guidance it would be nice to have a sister which leads me to really needing my mommy.

6 Years, 10 Months - Widow Friends

2010-02-21T01:14:00.000-08:00

I just spent Happy Hour with some of my widow friends. It is hard to believe that we are starting to click-away our 6-year anniversaries. I believe I am the third in line of twelve, one of the early ones. This is mentioned in conversation not as time without our husbands but as time together as friends. I have to do the math in my head to determine how many weeks until my next anniversary. The approaching day is no longer an overwhelming thought. I realize it is not a marker of a forward step in grief. The impeding day has stopped scaring me. It no longer haunts me with slow-motion recreations of the final terrors. Well that is almost true. I am sure a few days before I will re-enact the awful decisions, to tube or not to tube, to feed, to not feed, to restart the heart or not. I will examine again the envisioned mistakes. I will see his suffering. I will feel my suffering. I will contemplate the unbelievable denial. I will visit the ripping of us into me. Not to worry now, I have several more weeks before my mind becomes a traitor and revisits where I no longer want to go. Now I am in that nice window between the holidays and the death and the windows become longer every year.

Some people tell me it is time to move on from my widow friends and about two-thirds of the original group no longer joins us. However, we are not sitting around talking about our dead husbands. That is what others assume we do. Yet even in the beginning, we talked about the grief more than we discussed our husbands. Nonetheless, even those conversations stopped years ago. Now we are a regular group of girlfriends. Today we talked about everyones various trips to Thailand, Machu Pichu, Eastern Europe, and planned trips to Morocco, South Africa, Italy, and Guatemala. We talk about men. Relationships have come and gone since we all lost our soul mates. An eavesdropper may believe us a group of divorcées. Yet, there is that common thread that binds us. Sometimes there is a twist in our perception that is different from our married friends, our divorced friends, our single friends. After remarking that we have been friends for five years, one of the women asked the youngest what her plans were for the next five years. Her response was not typical for a beautiful young woman who is successful in her job. Her response was she has learned not to make plans. When she says this, she seems old. She is not like my nieces her age. When she says this, we all just nod our heads. I think of her wedding only weeks away. Her dress pressed and hanging on the closet door, sending out thank-you cards for the gifts that begin to arrive, helping guests with their travel plans, the bachelorette hangover, shopping for honeymoon clothes, looking into his eyes and knowing he is yours forever. Another revision to the seating chart seems catastrophic. Then her cell phone rings. Plans are not much different from dreams. Before there seemed a difference, one involved taking action towards goals and the other was fantasy. Now plans appear delusional.

5 Years, 10 Months - In-Laws

2010-02-15T12:44:00.001-08:00

Just spent the weekends with the in-laws and it was nice.

6 Years, 9 Months - Stepchildren

2010-01-25T21:24:00.000-08:00

I am feeling very lonely tonight. My stepdaughter came to pick up her dad’s yearbooks. Her husband stayed in the car. She moved to this area with her mom so she could be by her dad. Her mom still lives her too. I only see my daughter a few times a year. She comes over, never sits down, and picks up things of her dads and then leaves. I have not seen her sister in years. The last time I saw her was at a family funeral and we never even made eye contact. She stayed in the living room and front yard and I stayed in the kitchen and backyard. It is not that I do not want to see her. She does not want to look at my face. She cancelled going to the family get-together the following day because I would be there. All the losses weigh on me tonight. Losing a spouse enviably means losing most of his family too. You just do not know this at the time. The morning after his service, half of the large tree in our front yard severed and fell and his family drove away.
I think of my mom. She told me when she was dieing that I only saw her a few times a year for an afternoon, a few phone calls a year, and a random holiday. My life mirrors hers now just like my face.

REVERSE METAMORPHISIS

2010-01-24T01:46:00.000-08:00

REVERSE METAMORPHISIS

I was a beautiful butterfly.
You found me when I was a flower dancer basking in the sunshine.
We gracefully soared together towards the open blue sky.

Then the world changed color and the leaves began to fall.
We watched each one float away to finally settle dry.
So soon, the storms of winter came to crash their destruction.

I wandered.
Slowly I stilled becoming a chrysalis that could no longer move.
My wings crumbled.
Wrapped in darkness and quiet, I slept, I cried.
I mourned the days when we were butterflies.

A few butterflies flitted among the spring flowers praising the nectar I no longer tasted.
A ray of summer sunshine would flash its ultraviolet light but I never felt its warmth.
The fall winds tossed me cruelly until winter’s silence again filled me.
I slept, I cried, I mourned the days when I was a butterfly.

No longer cocooned I crept alone outside.
New layers forming as I walked away from the shells discarded.
I searched endlessly to fill the hungry void inside.
I closed my eyes and cried.
I remember the days when we were butterflies.

I turn my head to look up at the sky. I yearn to fly.
I remember the bright clouds and the endless sky.
Yet even now when I cry, I know I am no longer a butterfly.

By Me

6 Years, 9 Months - Wishing

2010-01-17T19:18:00.000-08:00

I hear our wedding song and smile. I wish you were here to dance with me in the living room.

6 Years, 9 Months - Time Passing

2010-01-17T19:06:00.000-08:00

His love feels fresh and I think of him everyday.

Yet, there are little reminders of how much time has passed:
The shirt I am discarding that I purchased while driving down the Oregon Coast to my girlfriend's wedding. She decided not to have me in her wedding party because my husband had just died.
Helping plan my niece’s wedding. She moved in with me a few months afterwards and fresh out of high school.
Getting together with the family and the new members that have never met him
The lack of hesitation in checking the ‘single’ box when filling out forms
A brief love affair started and ended
The need to repaint the house again although I was on a home decorating frenzy those first two years
Thoughts of replacing my car that he never drove
Going to restaurants and viewing them as places I frequent with someone else, although it used to be one of our favorites.
Being able to drive within walking distance of where he died without having my throat tighten until I throw up.
Having the ability to sell his book collection and vintage car when I held onto his socks forever
Knowing where everything is located at Home Depot
Going to the movie theatre we used to go to every week and barely thinking of him
Hearing the refrigerator make funny noises and thinking it is old and needs replacement. Then recalling that day we bought it at Sears was only a year or so before he got sick.

Lao Tzu

2010-01-12T11:54:00.000-08:00

Being deeply loved by someone
gives you strength;
while loving someone deeply
give you courage
-Lao Tzu

EMILY DICKINSON

2010-01-11T17:49:00.000-08:00

After great pain, a formal feeling comes
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?
The Feet, mechanical, go round
Of Ground, or Air,
or Ought A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone

This is the Hour of Lead
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons recollect the Snow
First-Chill-then Stupor-then the letting go
EMILY DICKINSON

5 Years, 9 Months - Other Widows' Blogs

2010-01-08T11:15:00.000-08:00

I find myself reading other grief blogs today. I am not sad, more curious on the similarities of our paths. After posting a lengthy comment on one blog, I decided to paraphrase it here.

These are a few questions asked by another widow blogger with my answers. I am not sure if I should cite her blog so I am leaning towards anonymous. I will change this if this is improper etiquette.

1.) When do I take my wedding band off?
When you are ready, repeat this mantra repeatedly for all questions relating to 'how long' and 'grief'. However, I did succumb to peer-pressure, as I was the last of my young widow friends to take my ring off. Although I did not feel ready, I thought it might be a step required to move forward. That was years ago and I think it did mark a step forward. Nevertheless, every few months I find myself absent-mindedly rubbing the underside of my ring finger.

2.) If I am remarried, whom do I get buried next to when I die?
The parallel question, depending on your beliefs, is what happens when the three of you are in heaven.

3.) Are my in-laws still my in-laws?
I found In-Laws becomes an option that can be retained or negated by either party and may include some but not all members.

4.) Everyone says the first year is the toughest. Will something magically happen on ’year one’ to make the second year so much better?
The one-year grieving deadline is an outdated belief that needs to be rectified. What happens at one year is you fall backwards temporarily and then continue on your grief journey.

5.) Why do people commemorate the anniversary of someone's death?
The death anniversary almost forces recognition. Your body marks its approach before you even realize the date is nearing. It is better to have a plan than possibly find yourself alone and spinning backwards. The first year my stepdaughter and I went to Disneyland. That was sensory overload and the day ended in her screaming, ‘Why don’t we talk about dad today? It’s his day.‘ For the next few years, my we went hiking in National Parks. Being in nature together was very peaceful and positive. I believe if we had been alone in those early years, it would have been a day of uncontrollable grief. Now I purposely leave an empty calendar. I go somewhere where my husband and I used to go, maybe a restaurant or a walk on the beach. I may read or see a movie. I spend the day quietly, remembering our love and the memories, with maybe one short cry. The next day I am refreshed and back to my quasi-normal life.

6.) How long will my friends and family put up with me?
My widow friends agree that your friends and family hit the times-up buzzer long before you are ready. It is romantic to think they will always be there but do not count on it. Other than these friends, I have only met one other person who understood. More than a decade had past since she lost her child. She told me in about my third year that it never ends. This was just when I was convincing myself I must be wrapping up my last year before I graduated from grieving and returned to the old me. Now I understand. Grief just calms and tucks itself away in a corner of your heart, becoming a part of the new you.

5 Years, 9 Months - Why I Blog My Grief

2010-01-08T10:51:00.000-08:00

It is nearing the six-year death anniversary. Recently I started a blog as a means to organize my earlier journal entries. For a period, my only question was how to stop the pain. There were times I thought I was crazy and the only proof I had otherwise was a handful of other young widows that felt the same way. I finally reached a point where I worried how long past the traditional mourning deadline the grief would last.

Blogging my journal reminds me of how much I have healed. My continued friendship with widows refreshes my soul, as they are my true confidantes. Grief has been a non-linear journey that no longer overwhelms me yet has become a part of who I am. I hope others find in my blog the reassurances I have received from that diversified group of young widows that met when our grief was visceral.

5 Years, 5 Months - Healing

2010-01-04T02:52:00.000-08:00

Healing has been a non-linear journey.

5 years, 9 Months - Holidays

2010-01-02T04:05:00.000-08:00

My mother's birthday, the anniversary of our engagement, Thanksgiving, the anniversary of my mother's death, Christmas, my birthday, New Year's Eve... if only my husband's birthday, the anniversary of his death, our wedding anniversary and Valentine's day could be squeezed into the same two months. Then all the bad days would be done with for the year. There are too many, too close together, as I fall with Autumn to the darkness of winter.

5 years, 9 Months - Holidays

2010-01-02T03:59:00.000-08:00

Thankfully the holidays are over. Wherever I go I still feel alone. I do not feel as if I am grieving any longer, just lonely and empty. It is amazing how one person can make you feel. I can spend time with the same people yet feel so alone now.

5 Years, 8 Months - A Glimpse of Grief

2009-12-14T17:33:00.000-08:00

I was starting to do okay. The fall was a bit rough. I stopped cleaning my house and gained a lot of weight but I was not too blue. I started feeling rather cheerful this last week. Today, on the way to the post office, I had the radio on in the car. A man jumped from the bridge. Automatically I prayed for his soul, for his family, for the rescue workers as the sisters instilled in me. Then my next automatic thought was, “I understand”. On the way back home a sense of panic started to constrict my throat. I had a flash of my honey sick. I was panicked, saddened, and grieved. My heart was gaining weight and crushing in on my lungs. I had just a glimpse of that old feeling of grief. I experienced ten minutes of the old grief. I tasted the grief that is a full body experience and not just sadness or depression. How did I carry that feeling unending?
I went to a drive-thru for a hot fudge sundae. I did not even think of how he would take me if I had a bad day at work. Nor did I think of how we would go get sundaes on evenings of laughter. I have stopped associating this tradition with him. It is just I, getting a calorie-laden snack to pacify my mood. I think it will help bring me back down. Not up, as in uplifted, but back down from the edge of the precipice. Quickly I walk to the house. If I can write then I can breathe. I will not jump. However, a part of me envies that man today and feels sadness for the people that love him.

2 Years, 1 Month - The Widow's Vacation

2009-12-07T03:28:00.000-08:00

I am sitting on Wailaa beach with my old roommate from Maui who has just arrived. One of my oldest friends has been here for a week and is leaving tomorrow. I have been here thirteen days. I have barely been to the beach three times. We hiked the bamboo forest in Hana to two waterfalls with a mutual friend who moved to Maui. We brought one of my husband’s rubber ducks and let it go. Wish I remembered their names. He had three travel ducks, one female and two males, all named. Though they appeared identical at first, they all had a little marking that allowed him to identify them, a color misprint on the bill or a stain from traveling. When we packed for vacation, he would stand in the hallway at his disorganized bathroom shelf, and line up the ducks. He would hold each one and ask himself who would go on the trip. He asked himself aloud and with me nearby. Then he would choose one to pack in his backpack. We were so immature. Nevertheless, those childlike ways made us laugh, and maybe not feel so old among the approaching death, commutes, overtime, mortgage, and ex-wife.
I took one of the ducks and put it in the river by the waterfall. My long time friend took pictures. The duck took off, floating sideways, and we turned to hike back. We passed a break in the bamboo and the friend that lived on Maui said, ‘There he is!” I missed the rubber duck as he floated downstream. We searched for him when we had to cross the river but he was either upstream or had passed us.
I fell into depression for three days after his birthday and the anniversary of his memorial service. My girlfriend headed to the beach alone. I stayed home on the computer. We did go to the beach with our Hawaii friend. She chose some music to play in the car. The one song, one that was on the radio a lot when he died, one about love and loss and wanting to go back. The tears streamed. I was silent. My head turned towards the rolled down window, watching Hawaii roll by. The Hawaii I loved and where I had lived twice. The place we had tickets to go finally with my brother and his family. The tickets we cancelled but did not request a refund in hopes we would go when all the cancer was over, the chemo, the radiation, doctor appointments, the pain, sleeping, the social security forms.
How could I be so foolish? Why was I so hopeful? How could I have been so naïve? In retrospect, I see my husband knew and accepted his death. He protected me by leaving my hope. I thought I was protecting him by not giving up, not losing hope, staying strong, crying alone in the car. All we did is hurt ourselves by grieving and suffering alone. We tried to protect each other and only left each other alone in the worst part of our lives, our marriage.
I am jealous of the widow who cried with her husband, of the ones who could crawl in bed with them and hold them. I am jealous of the wives whose dieing husbands wrote letters to their children or made recordings. Oh, I wish I had his voice, his movements, to view again. I do not even remember his laugh. I know the details of his face will fade from memory as time disintegrates our time together and I slowly replace the framed photos with newer ones. Will I remember his flat jean pockets, his hairless chest, the sight of his bull legs, and the memory of the first time I saw him standing at the foot of the bed? Will I forget his kisses with the mixed smell of Right Guard deodorant, T-gel, sweat, cologne, and Lubriderm?
I know this will happen. I can only remember another love’s face if I think about it and the face shifts and is blurry, finally settling on a face from a photo, a one-dimensional memory.
Why do I have to let him go? Why do I have to move on? Would he have moved forward? I think he would only work and fall asleep in front of the TV. He would work so he was exhausted, could sleep, and had no free time to be alone, time to fill-up with things he would have rather done with his wife. Would he have moved? Would he have dated by now? Would he have purposely died too?
He used to apologize for leaving me, for leaving me alone in grief and not being able to be there when I was old and sick. I told him not to be sorry. He was the one dieing, the one that lost the stick draw. He knew. He knew because he faced the truth I was ignoring.
Couples surround me here in Maui, newlyweds, old couples. All of those happy and in love couples walking by me. The old couples make me the saddest and jealous. Maybe they hate each other back home. Perhaps they cheat, stay late at work to avoid coming home, fight, bicker, sigh of the boredom and routine. The life path that finds them standing in a kitchen, maybe one they can not afford, one that needs remodeling, one in a neighborhood they hate, one that constantly needs cleaning or plumbing repairs. Nevertheless, here for that week or two of their lives they escape, are relatively happy, and have glimpses of the one they used to love. I sit alone with just grief and some old friends.

2 Years, 1 Month - Hope

2009-12-05T02:35:00.000-08:00

I am deep in depression on days and yet other times I feel on the verge, the brink. I am leaning forward, knees straight, body stiff, leaning and peering over the edge of an abyss and I am a bit excited.
Am I healing? Am I feeling hope? Is this what hope feels like raw? When you have not felt hope in so long, it is new again, unknown. Have I become a virgin to hope too?