Talk about something I never thought I'd say. And this is the story of how running became part of my identity.
I was a totally unathletic kid. Team sports still baffle me (as a player, at least, although I now quite enjoy being a spectator at team events). I had never worked out regularly in my life until I moved to Boston at the age of 27 and my best friend joined the Y and I thought, "Why not?" and I joined, too.
I wouldn't say that joining the Y got me hooked on exercising. I am, quite simply, a creature of habit who is prone to guilt, and once I regularly started doing something that I knew was good for me, I would feel guilty for not going. I'm also competitive, and athletic pursuits are perfect for pushing oneself harder. You can always be faster, work out for longer, try something new. I never loved going to the gym—still don't—but I'm supposed to and I beat myself up if I don't and so there you have it.
Yes, there is an element of this that is obsessive and mentally unhealthy. Sssssh, la la la, I don't hear you.
After a few years of doing classes, machines, and weights at the Y, I was getting bored. Really bored. The idea of getting on an elliptical machine made me want to fork myself in the eyes. The one cardio pursuit I had yet to try was running. The treadmill was my kryptonite. I abhored the very idea of running.
I also abhored the idea of forking out my own eyes.
So I got on the damn treadmill already, and I started to run. I still didn't love it, but I did love the goal-oriented nature of it and the stats I could gather. I could be motivated by time or distance, or a combination of the two. I started running outside, and appreciated the efficiency of getting in a workout without going to the gym. I loved what running did to my body; it's certainly the most effective whole-body workout I've found to date.
I wish I could tell you that I loved the "runner's high," but at that point, I found that I rarely experienced that. I was proud of what my body could do and I got the endorphin-rich feeling that any workout brought me, but I didn't find running to be different in that respect.
Back in the day, which was prekids and precancer, I ran 25 to 30 miles a week and was training for a half marathon. Then John got sick and my life changed and I never got back to running that much, then I had the twins and then and then and then.
But I've been slowly easing back into it since Maddie and Riley were born. I was running two to three times a week when we lived in Boston, either with them in the jog stroller after work or with a friend before work when we lived with CV and I could run before the kids got up for the day. Then when I got to Portland, I found that many of my coworkers at Reed were runners, and I started running with them at lunch. I've been back to regular running for almost a year now, although my mileage is not what it was lo so many years ago. Now I do 12 or so miles total over three to four weekly runs.
While I may not be doing as much running as I used to, what I get out of running is now different. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't still goal-oriented—I've got a half-marathon in my sights and I've been working towards my prekids pace for a while now—but I find that I need to run in a way I didn't before. I still don't get the high, but I definitely get a lot of stress relief and improved energy. And while I prefer to run with company, I end up doing a fair amount of solo workouts, which give me a lot of time to think and work through things. I used to have a lot of a-ha! moments in the shower; now I have them while logging miles. I notice a huge negative swing in my attitude and general demeanor when I don't get out a few times a week. Most days now I actively crave getting out for a run, and even on the days I lack the desire, I'm never sorry I went.
And so it came to pass, another one of the unimagined things that has become a part of my life, another thing for which I am grateful.
30 April 2010
28 April 2010
Updates: Shoes, Books
Since people asked in comments:
1. Shoes
They are here and there are amazing. They are comfortable and sassy. Two thumbs up.
2. Book(s)
Yeah, so, a while ago, I was going to write a book. In fact, about a year ago, I did write a book. I would link to it online, but I can't find it anywhere on the web. The book is called Four Seasons of Fun, and it was published by Hallmark, in their gift books division. It's all about free and low-cost activities to do as a family, with one activity per year organized seasonally. Long-time readers may remember that I pissed a bunch of people off by asking right here in this blog for suggestions on activities to include. Yes, I asked for help! I'M SUCH A BAD PERSON.
Anyway, the book has been published and I know that it's sold at least one copy because a Facebook friend of mine bought one. I should try to get a copy at some point. Huh.
Also book-related, about a year and a half ago, I talked to an agent about writing a memoir. The agent was very encouraging and I was excited and then, I totally dropped the ball.
There are a bunch of reasons why I dropped the ball. As it would happen, shortly after meeting with the agent, I went through one of the hardest stages to date in my grief process. I also went through a hard time personally outside of the grief stuff, with a job at a company that was clearly going south; the struggle with the decision to put my house on the market; a lot of crazy, mixed up emotions around getting back into dating; and little that felt stable or settled in my existence. I never wrote a proposal or first chapter or anything and I never even told my agent what was going on. Then I moved in with CV, got my job at Reed, moved cross country, etc. etc. etc.
Once I felt a bit more settled here in Oregon, I decided to reach back out to my agent. I had no expectations. It took a while for me to hear anything back, and in the interim, I tried to work a little on the memoir. In doing so, I realized that I have no interest in writing it. What do I really have to say? Woman experiences tragedy and triumpsh? BORING. OVERDONE. Woman handles adversity with grace? Snore. Woman survives and goes on to have totally mundane life? Super snore.
I've become connected to so many amazing people through blogging, many of them young widows like myself, some of whom are writing memoirs or creating resources and foundations for grieving families and friends. I'm so grateful to them for helping to make people aware of how hard grief is for everyone and for pushing our society to be more open in talking about death and grief and what it does to people.
As I watch my cohorts reach out to people, help and educate them in a more public way, I have come to understand that I don't wish to do that. I don't want to write a book. I'm not moved to start a foundation. I might want to do those things someday, but I haven't felt that click that indicates to me that I've found the thing, my thing, to do. I'm learning about patience and not forcing things, and this is another exercise in that. If I am meant to share—beyond what I do here in this blog—what I have learned from my life with others, then I'll figure out how to do that when the time is right.
As it would happen, my agent did eventually get back to me to say that she was in a different job now and not taking on new book projects. How's that for the universe looking out for me? I finally come to the conclusion that I don't want to do the project and she isn't available to mentor me anyway. Voilà.
Anything else y'all want to hear about? If I get no requests, I'm going to write about running. I'm so into the running! Consider yourselves warned.
1. Shoes
They are here and there are amazing. They are comfortable and sassy. Two thumbs up.
2. Book(s)
Yeah, so, a while ago, I was going to write a book. In fact, about a year ago, I did write a book. I would link to it online, but I can't find it anywhere on the web. The book is called Four Seasons of Fun, and it was published by Hallmark, in their gift books division. It's all about free and low-cost activities to do as a family, with one activity per year organized seasonally. Long-time readers may remember that I pissed a bunch of people off by asking right here in this blog for suggestions on activities to include. Yes, I asked for help! I'M SUCH A BAD PERSON.
Anyway, the book has been published and I know that it's sold at least one copy because a Facebook friend of mine bought one. I should try to get a copy at some point. Huh.
Also book-related, about a year and a half ago, I talked to an agent about writing a memoir. The agent was very encouraging and I was excited and then, I totally dropped the ball.
There are a bunch of reasons why I dropped the ball. As it would happen, shortly after meeting with the agent, I went through one of the hardest stages to date in my grief process. I also went through a hard time personally outside of the grief stuff, with a job at a company that was clearly going south; the struggle with the decision to put my house on the market; a lot of crazy, mixed up emotions around getting back into dating; and little that felt stable or settled in my existence. I never wrote a proposal or first chapter or anything and I never even told my agent what was going on. Then I moved in with CV, got my job at Reed, moved cross country, etc. etc. etc.
Once I felt a bit more settled here in Oregon, I decided to reach back out to my agent. I had no expectations. It took a while for me to hear anything back, and in the interim, I tried to work a little on the memoir. In doing so, I realized that I have no interest in writing it. What do I really have to say? Woman experiences tragedy and triumpsh? BORING. OVERDONE. Woman handles adversity with grace? Snore. Woman survives and goes on to have totally mundane life? Super snore.
I've become connected to so many amazing people through blogging, many of them young widows like myself, some of whom are writing memoirs or creating resources and foundations for grieving families and friends. I'm so grateful to them for helping to make people aware of how hard grief is for everyone and for pushing our society to be more open in talking about death and grief and what it does to people.
As I watch my cohorts reach out to people, help and educate them in a more public way, I have come to understand that I don't wish to do that. I don't want to write a book. I'm not moved to start a foundation. I might want to do those things someday, but I haven't felt that click that indicates to me that I've found the thing, my thing, to do. I'm learning about patience and not forcing things, and this is another exercise in that. If I am meant to share—beyond what I do here in this blog—what I have learned from my life with others, then I'll figure out how to do that when the time is right.
As it would happen, my agent did eventually get back to me to say that she was in a different job now and not taking on new book projects. How's that for the universe looking out for me? I finally come to the conclusion that I don't want to do the project and she isn't available to mentor me anyway. Voilà.
Anything else y'all want to hear about? If I get no requests, I'm going to write about running. I'm so into the running! Consider yourselves warned.
27 April 2010
Definition
So, yeah, mmm hmmm, I guess I don't blog anymore?
I'm a total blogging cliché, the very person the anti-bloggers find annoying. I'm the blogger who is having an existential blogging crisis. Who am I? Why do I blog? What does it all mean??? Seriously, as if blogging were not by it's very nature the definition of self-absorbed, now I have to start processing and questioning and taking all to new heights.
The bottom line is this: I needed something when I started this blog. Like most bloggers, I needed a safe place to go with feelings that felt unsafe in any other context. I needed a place to be honest to the nth degree and a place to be raw in my chronicle of a difficult and beautiful time in my life. At the time that I started blogging, I was ruled by the pain and fear of knowing that my husband was going to die. I felt like a victim, and a victim-in-waiting. When I didn't feel like a victim, I would dress up as a martyr. My identity was built around the pivotal event of being cheated out of the life I'd wanted with the man I'd finally managed to find.
Don't get me wrong: I'm still flawed, and I'm often still angry, and I sometimes still feel like both a victim and a martyr. I am certainly still dealing with grief and have accepted that I always will. But I can honestly say that the experience of John's illness and death are no longer the core of how I define myself. I'm a person who experienced a great loss, a loss that has influenced who I am, to be sure. But it's a loss that on most days does not control me anymore.
This blog has been the place for me to examine my life through my grief. Through this lens, I've focused on parenting ad nauseum, dating to a certain extent, work, family, and friendship. For a long time, the grief was so overwhelming that I had something to say on these topics every day, sometimes multiple times a day. Now I find that to look at my life through grief-colored glasses more often than not feels forced and pandering. I feel like I'm supposed to write about grief, so I do, or try to, on the days when I'm there. But even when I'm there, it's not like I'm there, the way I used to be there, dwelling there, wallowing around.
It feels fake. For a person who prides herself on her honesty, that's the ultimate sin.
So instead of being fake, I've just been absent. Or I've blogged about shoes; those shoes were a real need, I'm here to tell you. The things about which I have some real, raw feelings aren't blog-appropriate in some instances these days, either because they involve people who don't want to be blogged about or work or certain aspects of family or various and sundry other things that I'm just not ready or willing to share.
Now that I've cleared the air, however, I think I will be ready and willing to share about some of those things. Now that I've said out-blogging-loud that this place does not exist solely for the sake of grief or my grief process or my dead husband or my sadness-related parenting fails or my widowhood-induced single-motherdom . . . now I can talk about all the other things that make me whole.
There's a lot more to me than grieving, anger, and sadness. Thankfully, there's a whole lot more.
I'm a total blogging cliché, the very person the anti-bloggers find annoying. I'm the blogger who is having an existential blogging crisis. Who am I? Why do I blog? What does it all mean??? Seriously, as if blogging were not by it's very nature the definition of self-absorbed, now I have to start processing and questioning and taking all to new heights.
The bottom line is this: I needed something when I started this blog. Like most bloggers, I needed a safe place to go with feelings that felt unsafe in any other context. I needed a place to be honest to the nth degree and a place to be raw in my chronicle of a difficult and beautiful time in my life. At the time that I started blogging, I was ruled by the pain and fear of knowing that my husband was going to die. I felt like a victim, and a victim-in-waiting. When I didn't feel like a victim, I would dress up as a martyr. My identity was built around the pivotal event of being cheated out of the life I'd wanted with the man I'd finally managed to find.
Don't get me wrong: I'm still flawed, and I'm often still angry, and I sometimes still feel like both a victim and a martyr. I am certainly still dealing with grief and have accepted that I always will. But I can honestly say that the experience of John's illness and death are no longer the core of how I define myself. I'm a person who experienced a great loss, a loss that has influenced who I am, to be sure. But it's a loss that on most days does not control me anymore.
This blog has been the place for me to examine my life through my grief. Through this lens, I've focused on parenting ad nauseum, dating to a certain extent, work, family, and friendship. For a long time, the grief was so overwhelming that I had something to say on these topics every day, sometimes multiple times a day. Now I find that to look at my life through grief-colored glasses more often than not feels forced and pandering. I feel like I'm supposed to write about grief, so I do, or try to, on the days when I'm there. But even when I'm there, it's not like I'm there, the way I used to be there, dwelling there, wallowing around.
It feels fake. For a person who prides herself on her honesty, that's the ultimate sin.
So instead of being fake, I've just been absent. Or I've blogged about shoes; those shoes were a real need, I'm here to tell you. The things about which I have some real, raw feelings aren't blog-appropriate in some instances these days, either because they involve people who don't want to be blogged about or work or certain aspects of family or various and sundry other things that I'm just not ready or willing to share.
Now that I've cleared the air, however, I think I will be ready and willing to share about some of those things. Now that I've said out-blogging-loud that this place does not exist solely for the sake of grief or my grief process or my dead husband or my sadness-related parenting fails or my widowhood-induced single-motherdom . . . now I can talk about all the other things that make me whole.
There's a lot more to me than grieving, anger, and sadness. Thankfully, there's a whole lot more.
11 April 2010
Three Years
Three years ago today, John died.
My sister-in-law is visiting this weekend. It's nice to have her here on a this significant date, although, as always for me, the day itself is only as significant as I choose to make it. Should I choose to use the calendar's reckoning as a reason to reflect on the passage of time, so be it. Otherwise, it's simply another day to miss John. So far, I've focused on enjoying the company of family and friends, the challenge and resulting peace of sharing my sorrow with the congregation at church, and gorging myself on an Edible Arrangement from a particularly thoughtful and much-missed member of my Boston tribe (thanks, CV).
There has been much healing in the past three years, but the most significant thing I've learned is that the grief is never over. It ebbs and flows, but it never goes away. I'll always miss John. Not to miss him would be to forget him, a terrible and impossible alternative. So I live with the grief and I try to learn from it, and today I think about John a little more. Love always to you, Goose.
My sister-in-law is visiting this weekend. It's nice to have her here on a this significant date, although, as always for me, the day itself is only as significant as I choose to make it. Should I choose to use the calendar's reckoning as a reason to reflect on the passage of time, so be it. Otherwise, it's simply another day to miss John. So far, I've focused on enjoying the company of family and friends, the challenge and resulting peace of sharing my sorrow with the congregation at church, and gorging myself on an Edible Arrangement from a particularly thoughtful and much-missed member of my Boston tribe (thanks, CV).
There has been much healing in the past three years, but the most significant thing I've learned is that the grief is never over. It ebbs and flows, but it never goes away. I'll always miss John. Not to miss him would be to forget him, a terrible and impossible alternative. So I live with the grief and I try to learn from it, and today I think about John a little more. Love always to you, Goose.
09 April 2010
Continued Frivolity
Thank you all for your great shoe advice. My mom thanks you, too. Unbeknownst to me, she was in the market for some shoe inspiration, too.
For now, I have purchased these:
Katia, by Fluevog. Pretty, huh? I just can't seem to move beyond the Mary Jane, alas. Would have loved something in a color other than black, but had to stick with what was on sale chez Fluevog, and in a style I liked, black was my option. If I love these and feel like it's worth it, I can always get something else in this brand in a more fun color.
It turns out that when you buy a pair of really expensive shoes online, a sales rep calls you to discuss the size and confirm your shipping address and let you know when to expect your goods. How lovely!
It's now hours after I initially started this post and I've enjoyed a lovely evening of wine and snacks and IKEA furniture assembly and a visit from my best friend and the ensuing great conversation. Time to turn in.
For now, I have purchased these:
Katia, by Fluevog. Pretty, huh? I just can't seem to move beyond the Mary Jane, alas. Would have loved something in a color other than black, but had to stick with what was on sale chez Fluevog, and in a style I liked, black was my option. If I love these and feel like it's worth it, I can always get something else in this brand in a more fun color.
It turns out that when you buy a pair of really expensive shoes online, a sales rep calls you to discuss the size and confirm your shipping address and let you know when to expect your goods. How lovely!
It's now hours after I initially started this post and I've enjoyed a lovely evening of wine and snacks and IKEA furniture assembly and a visit from my best friend and the ensuing great conversation. Time to turn in.
06 April 2010
Book Review: The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott
I'll be honest: I didn't have the right attitude when I started this book. Historical fiction is not my thing. It's been ages since I read Little Women, and it wasn't a particular favorite of mine, so while I had a vague sentimental notion about Louisa May Alcott and What She Means (or Should) to Me, I had never thought to wonder much what her own life had been like. In addition, I don't do well with tales that interweave the imagined with the real; I either want all imagination or all reality. Color me easily confused.
So much for judging a book by its cover: this was the first novel I've truly enjoyed in months. After slogging through things too heavy or too esoteric or too greusome, Kelly O'Connor McNees's story and prose were just what I needed. McNees does a masterful job setting the stage of Alcott's austere life under a brilliant, eccentric, controlling father; I was quickly rooting for Alcott to get out from under her father's thumb just as she wished that for herself. Although I don't remember Little Women well, the relationship between Alcott and her sisters and mother as described by McNees brought back for me details of that story that I didn't realize still resided in my brain. And the Alcott McNees brings to life is one to whom any independent woman can relate. Just as many of us do, she struggles to reconcile her ambition with her devotion to her family and to strike a balance between her practical nature and her fiery emotions.
On of the touches I enjoyed the most was that McNees has done an impeccable job of research on this story. She includes vivid details of late nineteenth century life that make the whole story shine. I could see every detail on the dresses, taste the meals on the table, and imagine myself riding in a graceful buggy to the circus. Social relationships and norms of the time were given the same attention. The depth of those details were crucial to the success of the story for me, but they never felt heavy-handed or overdone.
Sure, I can find a few things to quibble about. Alcott's father, Bronson, was insufferable. This is not McNees's fault; I'm sure her research proved this to be true, and in some ways, his character quirks were fascinating. In other ways, I felt that I understood him fairly quickly and got tired of having to be annoyed by him over and over. By the same token, Alcott's mother felt weak and her character undeveloped. I would have liked to see more of her relationship with her daughters, although I recognize that this was not central to the story. Some of the burgeoning romance felt contrived and a little forced, but overall I thought the development of the very independent Alcott's relationship with Joseph Singer was quite believable. That McNees was able to make Alcott as strong and principled as she did yet still create a romance that did not compromise Louisa's principles is an achievement.
This book was released on April 1. It will be a great summer read if you can wait that long. It's quick and enjoyable, but smart. And even if you don't think the story's for you, I'm here to tell you: you're likely to be surprised.
Read more about the author and the book at Kelly O'Connor McNees's website.
Disclosure: I received an advance proof of this book from TLC Book Tours for my review. I was not otherwise compensated for my participation in their online book tour for this novel.
Frivolous
All this introspection and emotion these past few weeks is starting to feel overdone. I commented to someone today that reading my blog gives a very skewed impression of my thoughts and general mental state. I can see how readers would be left with the idea that I wallow in my grief 24/7, unable to think about anything but what I've lost.
SO NOT TRUE.
But it is true that when I have those thoughts, I come here to work them out. And lately, for myriad reasons, those thoughts have come up a lot. Work and personal stress and joy. Significant calendar dates. The random, unpredictable cycle of my own thought processes. Parenting.
This post is to reassure readers that I think about plenty of other things besides my own navel. Plus, I need some help, and blog readers have typically been great with the help in my times of need, small and large.
Here's what I need right now: new shoes.
I usually wear Danskos, as has been previously documented. I have black ones, red ones, Mary Jane ones, sandals. They are . . . practical. Sturdy. Suitable for many occasions. But I'm getting kind of sick of them and I don't know what to do. Everything I look at seems to be either too tall or too strappy or too old-lady or too trendy.
I want a pair of shoes that I can wear with jeans or skirts, stylish enough to give me a little flair, comfortable enough to walk all over campus and beyond. I live in the casual and wet Pacific Northwest, so nothing terribly avant-garde or that can't stand a little rain. I'm a totally average shoe size (7.5, or Euro 38), regular width foot, super easy to fit. I just have no idea what to get.
Ideas? I'm totally open on style and color. Heel is OK as long as I can still walk a fair amount before they get uncomfortable or I trip and kill myself. Help me out. Please.
SO NOT TRUE.
But it is true that when I have those thoughts, I come here to work them out. And lately, for myriad reasons, those thoughts have come up a lot. Work and personal stress and joy. Significant calendar dates. The random, unpredictable cycle of my own thought processes. Parenting.
This post is to reassure readers that I think about plenty of other things besides my own navel. Plus, I need some help, and blog readers have typically been great with the help in my times of need, small and large.
Here's what I need right now: new shoes.
I usually wear Danskos, as has been previously documented. I have black ones, red ones, Mary Jane ones, sandals. They are . . . practical. Sturdy. Suitable for many occasions. But I'm getting kind of sick of them and I don't know what to do. Everything I look at seems to be either too tall or too strappy or too old-lady or too trendy.
I want a pair of shoes that I can wear with jeans or skirts, stylish enough to give me a little flair, comfortable enough to walk all over campus and beyond. I live in the casual and wet Pacific Northwest, so nothing terribly avant-garde or that can't stand a little rain. I'm a totally average shoe size (7.5, or Euro 38), regular width foot, super easy to fit. I just have no idea what to get.
Ideas? I'm totally open on style and color. Heel is OK as long as I can still walk a fair amount before they get uncomfortable or I trip and kill myself. Help me out. Please.
05 April 2010
Seven Years
Seven years ago today, John and I went on our first date.
Seven years.
We had a warp-speed life together. We moved in together four months after our first date, then got engaged four months after that. Our wedding was another eight months later. Then one more month and we got John's diagnosis, followed by two-and-a-half years of utter insanity.
17 months + 2.5 years = 4 years, just about.
4 years is just over 10 percent of my life.
I could keep crunching numbers, but they all mean the same thing: it wasn't enough time. It could never have been enough time.
The way I miss John is becoming more and more abstract. It's now usually about the general feeling of how it felt to share a life and less about him specifically. I say this without judgment, just as an observation; with the passing of time, it only makes sense that the specifics would fade while the general feeling of happiness I had during our time together would endure. I do still try to call him on the phone on occasion. Old habits die hard. He was one of the only people in the world I didn't mind talking with on the phone.
Seven years. Funny how that's starting to sound about right. Even given all that's happened, I can wrap my mind around it all fitting into seven years. Today, I can think about our first date and feel happy. I can remember the promise that evening held. I can understand how full life can be. And I can be content, if wistfully so, with the life I have now.
Seven years.
We had a warp-speed life together. We moved in together four months after our first date, then got engaged four months after that. Our wedding was another eight months later. Then one more month and we got John's diagnosis, followed by two-and-a-half years of utter insanity.
17 months + 2.5 years = 4 years, just about.
4 years is just over 10 percent of my life.
I could keep crunching numbers, but they all mean the same thing: it wasn't enough time. It could never have been enough time.
The way I miss John is becoming more and more abstract. It's now usually about the general feeling of how it felt to share a life and less about him specifically. I say this without judgment, just as an observation; with the passing of time, it only makes sense that the specifics would fade while the general feeling of happiness I had during our time together would endure. I do still try to call him on the phone on occasion. Old habits die hard. He was one of the only people in the world I didn't mind talking with on the phone.
Seven years. Funny how that's starting to sound about right. Even given all that's happened, I can wrap my mind around it all fitting into seven years. Today, I can think about our first date and feel happy. I can remember the promise that evening held. I can understand how full life can be. And I can be content, if wistfully so, with the life I have now.
01 April 2010
Friends
I'm pretty quick to make friends. I like people. I like to talk. I'm not shy, I'm extremely social, and I enjoy different perspectives.
After John died, I found a lot of comfort in my friends. They took great care of me. They still do. I found it helpful to spend time with people who remembered and missed John, and people who know John from childhood or as a coworker or in other ways that I did not. I knew how much richness John had brought to my life, and it was sweet and comforting to know how much others had loved him, too.
It's been almost exactly three years since John died, and my life has changed a lot since then. I have had two different jobs and moved twice. I've met new people along the way, people who never had the chance to meet John, some of whom I consider to be among my closest circle of friends. I've reconnected with people from childhood or other parts of my life that didn't include John. And now, here in Portland, I'm forging an entirely new life of which John will never be a part.
This means that I'm at a point where many, if not most, of the people I interact with day to day never knew John, never knew John and I as a team, and can't compare and contrast my life pre/with/post John. When I realized that this shift was happening, I found it profoundly disturbing. Going through the intensity of falling in love with John, getting married, his illness and death: that defined me. Those years were the happiest and saddest of my life. It almost felt like people who'd never known John could not, by extension, really know me.
That's all changing. I now find that it's harder for me to be around people who knew John and with whom he and I had a relationship as a couple. Being around those people brings up memories of what it was like when John was alive and we were together, and while the memories themselves are happy, the contrast between the memories and my reality can be painful. On the other hand, if I'm with people who never knew John, I simply take our interactions at face value. I forge that friendship based on my current situation, which makes who I am and the life I've created feel somehow more legitimate. Nothing has to be modified to the new reality.
I hear a little tune in my head, something about silver and gold and old and new friends . . . anyone, anyone? So trite, but at this point in my life, so true.
After John died, I found a lot of comfort in my friends. They took great care of me. They still do. I found it helpful to spend time with people who remembered and missed John, and people who know John from childhood or as a coworker or in other ways that I did not. I knew how much richness John had brought to my life, and it was sweet and comforting to know how much others had loved him, too.
It's been almost exactly three years since John died, and my life has changed a lot since then. I have had two different jobs and moved twice. I've met new people along the way, people who never had the chance to meet John, some of whom I consider to be among my closest circle of friends. I've reconnected with people from childhood or other parts of my life that didn't include John. And now, here in Portland, I'm forging an entirely new life of which John will never be a part.
This means that I'm at a point where many, if not most, of the people I interact with day to day never knew John, never knew John and I as a team, and can't compare and contrast my life pre/with/post John. When I realized that this shift was happening, I found it profoundly disturbing. Going through the intensity of falling in love with John, getting married, his illness and death: that defined me. Those years were the happiest and saddest of my life. It almost felt like people who'd never known John could not, by extension, really know me.
That's all changing. I now find that it's harder for me to be around people who knew John and with whom he and I had a relationship as a couple. Being around those people brings up memories of what it was like when John was alive and we were together, and while the memories themselves are happy, the contrast between the memories and my reality can be painful. On the other hand, if I'm with people who never knew John, I simply take our interactions at face value. I forge that friendship based on my current situation, which makes who I am and the life I've created feel somehow more legitimate. Nothing has to be modified to the new reality.
I hear a little tune in my head, something about silver and gold and old and new friends . . . anyone, anyone? So trite, but at this point in my life, so true.
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