-This was written on April 17, 2022, on the 4th anniversary of my husband’s suicide.
This quote hit hard today. I sit here with tears streaming down my face on the 4th anniversary of the day that there were no choices given to me, rather I was forced to live the rest of my life on a different path. One I never imagined. One that was full of even more darkness, pain, hurt, tears than I had ever experienced in the years before. I was force to figure out how to live each day moving forward without being told how…
This was like nothing I had ever experienced and it was hard. It still is hard. I was so used to being told what to do and how to do it that I didn’t even know if I wanted the responsibility to have to do it on my own. I definitely did not think I had the ability to make the choices, to be confident that I was making the right choices and to ultimately do it all alone.
Over the last 4 years, I have felt many different emotions. Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown, which I just finished enumerates many of those feelings both positive and negative. However, the one feeling that has stayed constant, with no ebb and flow, is the feeling of being alone. I am alone is my thoughts, I am alone in my feelings, I am alone in my decisions, I am alone figuring out what is for dinner or fixing a toilet, I am alone at night and during the day. This feeling is the hardest one and is one that I have every day.
The irony is that I have been alone for more than these last 4 years… it was just that in the years prior, that feeling of emptiness and solitude was masked by having someone else tell me what my every move needed to be. It was masked by the days, weeks, months and years of being in fight or flight. It was masked in my role as a mother caring for my children first and foremost each and every day.
It is only of late that I have been able to reflect on how alone I have actually been for the majority of my life. The feeling started as a child but I was too young and naive to realize that this isn’t a feeling that all kids have or that anyone should have to feel. The abrupt change in status to widow, head of household, single mom, sole caregiver… is what shook me to my core and brought to the forefront how alone I am and how alone I have always been. I mostly was a quiet and reserved child. I read a lot to escape into worlds other than my own to feel a part of something and a little less alone. Irony is I never enjoyed being alone. Most of the time I don’t even enjoy it now and unfortunately the ability to scroll into the outside world is just too easy and masks the fact that I am alone. Even the 20 years with a ring on my finger were a farce – while the ring symbolized a union, a husband, a companion, dare I say a soulmate and a best friend… I still always deep down felt alone. I was connected for him, to do for him, to support him, to be the wife he wanted… I couldn’t have been more alone in those days to raise four kids, to become the mom to a special needs child and to grieve the loss I felt by not having the emotional support I so desperately needed. Yet, at the time, in those years, I didn’t even realize how alone I was cause I was perpetually busy with life and my responsibility to take care of everyone else.
It wasn’t until that day 4 years ago that snapped me, like a ruptured rubber band, into a world still full of responsibility and caring for others but now completely and udderly alone. It has taken me years to realize how much this feeling hurts to the core. I still haven’t figured out how to overcome it. I have, however, had a strong hand in my ability to grow, work on my character and who I want to be, free myself of constantly being in fight or flight mode and finally finding a path to healing.
Four years is a long time to be working on healing, but is it? I mean that day four years ago is so imprinted in my mind, a mind typically clouding my memories, that it doesn’t seem possible that all of that time has passed. At the same time, who determines how long it takes to heal, I mean, really if I am honest with myself I have been trying to heal for the forty plus years of my life… why would I ever think four years is too long to still be healing?
Recently, I have given myself more grace… listening to my body, listening to my mind and embracing my needs in order to become my best self and to heal. One of the things, however, that is hard for me to allow happen, which hasn’t been yet, is my desire and need to be motivational to others, to become an author sharing my story, to become a speaker sharing my experiences in the hope to inspire others. I want to give others hope that there is a light that will always be found in the darkness. That the darkness is truly just temporary.
Light will prevail. (I heard once that love will prevail, but I’m not sure how I feel about that given the overwhelming feeling of being alone… but light, yes light will prevail but sometimes you need to let the spark happen and the light to slowly peak through). Going back to the quote that started this monologue… I am still healing. I have a deep desire to use what I have experienced to help others. I just have to continue to give myself time and allow myself to heal as clearly I am not in the final stage of my healing just yet and that is ok. I will search for the light to guide me on the path ahead, wherever it may lead.
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