Full Shneed Ahead

And for the Record...

2011-12-29T21:28:00.001-05:00

I still hate that it happened.

I'm Not Sure

2011-12-29T21:21:00.007-05:00

Jonathan has given me the most magical, most wonderful holiday season imaginable. Just being in love again is a very powerful gift for me. Being with a man like Jonathan, who sees so much good in me, who loves me, who helps me and whom I love back makes an immeasurable difference in my life. This is my life, now. Complete and utter happiness with a man I love.

I will likely say this for the rest of my life, but I can't believe seven years have just about passed. In some bizarre way, when I think back to my seven years of grief, I romanticize them, feeling as though I was somehow happy, which is ludicrous, because I was nothing but heart-broken. I think what I am remembering and feeling and holding onto is the growth I experienced during those years, especially the three years I lived in Cambridge. I loved how I healed, I loved how I learned to walk again, to feel again. I loved who I blossomed into...I think. The thoughts are so convoluted, that I'm having a difficult time deciphering them.

I skipped October and November this year, unaware that I had gone two months without writing. I forgot to write on Chris' birthday for the first time, this year. I posted a happy birthday message on FaceBook, but this is the first time I didn't record how I felt on his birthday in my blog.

I have been on vacation since December 23, and I will be on vacation until January 2. Jonathan has taken the time off, as well.

For the first time in seven years, I can truly say that I have had a joyous holiday season. Truly joyous. The mere thought of Jonathan fills me with feelings of joy, security and safety. I have laughed more in the past two weeks than I have probably laughed in the seven years prior.

I’m aware that the seven-year anniversary of Chris’ death is days away, and I have become teary-eyed over the past couple of weeks, here and there. I’m going to spend that day with my family, the family I gained through Chris; Me, Bonnie, Beth, Bryan, and the girls.

I haven’t been to Chris’ grave since the day of his memorial service in 2005. His family, friends, and I dropped a cherished piece of history of our own in with his urn of ashes, left before the hole was filled in, and I never went back. I might like to visit it this year and maybe take a photo of it.

Is that about closure? I’m not sure.

Reflection on the Water

2011-09-16T10:19:00.002-04:00

Of course the changing of the seasons is causing me to reflect on what happened to Chris. Trepidation of reflection and contemplation is the aftermath of my experience of Chris’ encounter with cancer.

Autumn has ever been my favorite season, full of new beginnings, the end of the 90-degree heat, and the start of my annual pride in my fashion choices. Added to that is a sense of melancholy, probably because Chris’ diagnosis occurred during the fall. I find that during the change in seasons, I just need a little more time in solitude to really remember all of the things that led up to Chris’ demise. I often surprise myself when I think about all of the dimensions of my memories in new light, and from new angles.

Chris’ diagnosis, his fear, my fear, my ignorance regarding the face of what I didn’t know at the time to be a diagnosis of terminal illness, are all topics that I still sift through the corridors of my mind. Hospitals, hospital gowns, helplessness, wishing to extents of which I had never wished before, profound sadness, and being thrown into autopilot as a form of denial, are all pieces of the vignette, the dance of grief caused by the cancer and death of Chris that claimed that span of my life.

After this past week of 80+ degree temperatures, I have decided to gift myself. Noticing the forecasted temperature for Friday (today) was 62 (well within my favorite range of temperatures), I looked at my calendar and, much to my chagrin, there was a meeting scheduled from 1:00-3:00. Still, I daydreamed about taking half a vacation day and kayaking on the Charles River, if only the meeting would get canceled. Then, lo and behold, the cancellation noticed arrived in my inbox and I jumped on the opportunity, scheduled my vacation time, and today I’m off at 1:00 to kayak from the Elliot Bridge to Kendall Square where I will then exit my boat and run 6 miles along the river back to my car. This afternoon has the makings of perfection, with just me, the water, the sun and my thoughts, and most importantly, renewed peace of mind.

Just thinking about it instills nirvana throughout my mind and soul.

Life was happy. Life was sad. And life is happy once again, and rich with reflection.

-Shneed

'Unstucking' Myself

2011-06-30T08:24:00.000-04:00

For the past couple of weeks, even though I haven’t been 100% aware that I have been feeling differently, I have been vaguely aware of another change in the winds. The most accurate way for me to describe this latest forward movement is for me to say that things around me ‘look’ different. My perception has changed.

When Chris first died, I experienced something similar with regard to the way the world around me looked. Back then, things seemed to have a ‘toy’ essence for me. For example, I remember walking over the Mass Ave bridge in Cambridge thinking that the city and everything around me looked like a model, made of plastic, and like nothing was real. I suppose I was experiencing a form of detachment. I remember how I felt during those first few months, very transparent, like a ghost visible to none floating through the masses as if undetectable to others. And I remember describing that to my then therapist (whom I did not respect), the first in a small list of grief therapists I saw during those first weeks. She raised her voice, telling me I was getting too depressed, and ordered me to throw away all of my books about the spirit world. Those books are the ones that helped me the most. Sometimes it pays to listen to our own voices and tend to our own needs.

The same switch that altered my life view then has been recently re-flicked, and now things look different again, in a different way – like a rebirth, or like the cell door has been opened and I’m walking out of prison for the first time in 7 years. I feel like I am back in shock, but this time the shock is from the realization (even though I cannot admit it with 100% lack of guilt) that my life is finally a happy one once again. When I walked out the door this morning, the sun was shining and there was a beautiful breeze, and I really, really wanted to keep walking past my car, and down to Mass Ave. I wanted to sit in Arlington Center with a cup of coffee, and relax all day. I haven’t felt that way in a very long time. In fact, I have spent the better part of the past few years rushing around, filling up my time with anything I could stuff into it.

While all of this is quite positive and uplifting, my unconscious brain has been waging war on my subconscious brain on the ‘moving forward’ process, so I have been experiencing a lot of cognitive dissonance – a push/pull effect, which is maintaining a certain level of anxiety within my body and mind at all times. Now that I am ‘out’ I’m feeling like running back in where it’s safe.

Because the two parts of my mind have been in conflict, I have been feeling paralyzed with respect to almost everything.

- I haven’t been practicing singing enough, so I feel unprepared
- I haven’t been thinking about or planning my own show, so I feel pressured
- I haven’t been spending enough time learning about my profession, web development, so I feel stuck

Unprepared, pressured and stuck does not make for a relaxed state of mind. My next order of business is to ‘unstuck’ myself.

Otherwise, I’m feeling very blessed and very lucky to be Jonathan’s wife, and I have just recently been allowing myself to feel and soak in his support. I could not have asked for a better husband and a better friend.

I'm certain that I'm not able to convey exactly what transpires in my brain and in my daily life with 100% accuracy – I’m not sure I even know how to -- but I do believe I have begun the process of popping the lid onto Chapter Grief of my life book.

The time has now come for me to accept my life as it is today, and to begin remapping my courses of action to try to put myself in line with my most recent healing stage.

There’s a lot of fun to be had. I haven’t felt this way in a very long time.

The Journey of a Lifetime

2011-05-08T19:38:00.007-04:00

The biggest difference I notice, these days, is that I’m not depressed. I’m finally not depressed. I guess on some base level, I had come to believe that I would always feel sad, that “sad” had taken over the neutral span on my emotional spectrum, that “neutral” had shrunken to a mere splinter of what it once was, and that happiness was at the tippity-top, still just as active as it always was, except not as often.

Marrying Jonathan closed the door on my active grief, finally, and now grief is as it should be, dormant in the most personal, private corner of my mind. I am in love, truly in love, with my husband, my living husband, and Chris has become a very cherished memory of a very cherished first husband. I feel sadness for him for all that he had to endure, but I know from the deepest part of my soul that all is as it should be. Everything is as it was always meant to be. I can see more clearly than ever that I was supposed to meet Chris, I was supposed to fall in love with him and marry him, we were supposed to learn a great lesson by moving 6,000 miles away and experiencing financial hardship and loneliness together, that we were supposed to come to the realization that love was all that mattered, that he was supposed to get cancer and die, and that I was supposed to grieve the great loss I suffered in losing all of the many wonderful aspects he encompassed. That was the journey that was always meant to be ours.

My journey is not new, and it’s not over. I’m on the same journey I have always been on. Me and Jonathan, Jonathan and me are what’s meant to be, now.

I find myself periodically terrified that Jonathan could die, too. I try not to think about it. How ironic would it be if I thought I learned all of my lessons about death, only to…oh, nevermind. Thoughts like that are a waste of time that could be spent enjoying his company and our love.

Our wedding was lovely. Our ceremony, even lovelier. The premise was “The Second Time Around” since I had lost my husband to cancer and Jonathan had experienced a divorce. We openly acknowledged our losses on our wedding day in front of our loved ones, admitting that neither of us would be the people we are today without our own personal past experiences. In fact, without our experiences, we may not have ever fallen in love with each other, at all.

Life is a beautiful, sometimes extremely trying journey during which we meet others who change us, others from whom we learn valuable lessons. The most beautiful part of life is that it’s not over until it’s over. We get chance after chance after chance to be happy. Past sadness only gives us the capacity to achieve more future happiness. The two, sadness and happiness, work in tandem.

I’m here. I never thought I would ever again feel as happy as I do now. Six and half years is a long time to grieve, but now that I’m through the hardest parts, I can see how much I have gained and grown from the experience of losing a spouse. I can now say the word “husband” and know that I mean Jonathan. And I can now also say that same word and know when I’m talking about Chris.

And most importantly, I can now know that both of those scenarios are okay.

Back to Bed

2011-03-16T04:53:00.003-04:00

It’s 4:00 AM. I’m used to being kept awake in the wee hours, needled by thoughts of how Chris’ death changed my life. The storm has passed, and my thoughts about the reality of death, and the chaos that followed, blow around in my mind like the last few leaves at the end of a crisp, windy autumn afternoon.

I still don’t fully believe that I was a happy single woman who met a happy single man, dated him for five years, moved across the country with and for him, married him, dreamed dreams with him, lost him and grieved my loss of him for six years. I no longer actively grieve my loss of his life. I do, however, still grieve the parts of my own life I lost as a result.

After everything I have been through, I know that overcoming my loss of enthusiasm for my passions (musical theater, singing and acting) lies entirely in my own hands. I tend to think I lost six years of time, and work that could have been spent honing my skills. But after the intensity of emotion brought on by the ending of two lives, one life together, I am left with the knowledge that my dream isn’t over unless I decide to allow poisonous, counter-productive thoughts and memories to constrict the door to my future happiness and to my dreams. I know many people who regularly follow their dreams. I must become and then remain one of them in order to preserve my authentic being and all sense of who I am. I am no longer the widow. I have experienced fourteen months of horror followed by six years of intense grief and anxiety, and now, standing at the finish line, I find myself evaluating some “much-needed-at-the-time”, albeit “not-needed-anymore” attachments to places, things and people who were there when it happened, attachments that hinder some of my forward movement today. Letting go is no easy task. Habits of hanging on have been burned into my soul for so long that I am in need of extensive mental reconstruction.

I miss my former therapist, Clay, this morning. I no longer need his services, and I haven’t seen him for almost a year. But he is one of the people who was there shortly after I hit bottom. He carried me along from week to week, giving me a reason for being, and even though that was just business, it felt like love and care. I sometimes feel like seeing him again because I miss him, but he’s not my friend. He’s just a therapist I pulled out of my health insurance database. Without Clay, my mind would have snapped more violently than it did, and I might not have regained and retained some very basic, vital parts of myself.

I’m frightened by how much time has passed since Chris died. In general, I have become frightened by the passing of time, by how old my own mother is now, by the realization that I met Chris twelve years ago, which doesn’t seem possible, because how could he be dead for six years? Where did those six years go? Where did the 32-year-old, naïve woman who met Chris go? How did I suddenly look up and see a 43-year-old woman in her place? If I place the old me in the past with Chris, can there now exist a brand new me in the present and in the future who walks forward holding hands with Jonathan? I’m still not quite sure where or how to put the old me in the past where she belongs.

If I could have one wish right now, it would be to lose the nagging, relentless anxiety with which I have been saddled, and walk, worry-free into my future with Jonathan. I’m not going to drone on about how much I love Jonathan. I do, but that’s for future posts, should I decide to continue writing here, or in a new blog. Maybe our wedding, which is now in just two weeks, will be the major life event, the marker that allows me to fearlessly and without anxiety walk into a brighter, promising future. It’s my choice, and I’m hoping I’ll have the courage to let go of the security blanket I wove from grief.

It’s time to move on. And it’s time to go back to bed.

Shneed

My Best Enemy and My Worst Friend

2011-02-24T10:57:00.003-05:00

Maybe it’s because I’m about to be remarried (more on that when I'm feeling better), or maybe it’s all the extra time on my hands now that I have joined (temporarily, I hope) the ranks of the unemployed, but I have been experiencing my emotions with reckless abandon, these past few days.

Time, you know (if you have been reading this blog from the start), is something I have been running from since Chris fell ill way back in 2003. I haven’t really allowed myself to stop running from quiet moments alone in a very long time. Such moments used to stand for breathing, regrouping, imagining, fostering creativity, and the like. Post Chris’ death, quiet moments fill me with dread, depression, feelings of lack of control, and tears. Now, faced with unemployment and days spent alone at home, job-searching, job training and thinking, I am aware that I need to place a new definition of what it means to be faced with nothing but time. I can’t spend my days crying. I can’t spend each moment overwrought with seven-year-old anxiety. It’s time to make a permanent change, if I can.

There are people from the past I shared with Chris with whom I am still friendly, today. Those people are very, very special people in my life whose presence means a great deal to me. I love them like I loved Chris, and I would love to be able to embrace them without bubbling over with tears in the private moments after we interact.

I don’t want to be the new me, anymore. I want to be the old me, again. When I was the old me, I took time to be alone. I demanded time alone to be with myself, and create my world. It’s hard to keep running. I’m tired, and even though I am an optimistic, happy person in many ways, I am still quite traumatized by Chris’ death, and still angry that he left me, even though I’m in love again…even though I’m in love again.

The great divide is very, very wide. Life is strange when you can’t talk to a person with whom you once shared everything. It’s like a mute person trying to speak. It’s like the scream in your nightmares that never quite makes it past your lips. I can’t tell Chris I love him. I can’t tell him I hate him. I can’t ask him what the name of that Red Sox player was who lost all confidence in his throw, or what it was like to take the bus to Oak Square when he first moved to Boston. We can’t rehash how we felt about moving to Los Angeles, or discuss Ellis Paul’s new single.

In the large scheme, it doesn’t matter anymore. I’m getting busy with new memories, now. I have let go of a lot of things, and there is still much more to let go.

Time is both my best enemy and my worst friend.

Addendum to "Happy 7th annivesary, Creej."

2011-01-22T17:28:00.004-05:00

"Chris loved audio production, and had just been hired by Car Talk, on National Public Radio, one week before he died. He got to work there once before he became too ill to hold a job. Even though this job was a breakthrough achievement for Chris, he was no stranger to the inner workings of the radio business. He had been producing and performing his own show on Allston/Brighton Free Radio, once a week, for a little over a year. That show was one of his proudest accomplishments. He fully acknowledged that he probably had one, if any, listener, but that didn’t matter to Chris. Talking on the radio, playing the songs of his choice, made him beam.

The other morning, I left to drive myself to the train station where I catch the red line to Kendall Square, which is where I work. I have been taking this particular routine commute since I moved in with Jonathan, five months ago. I plugged my iPod into the adapter, as I always do, scrolled through my song lists until I found my last voice lesson, and began to play back my vocalizations, practicing on my way to work. My brief daily car rehearsals make a huge difference in my voice quality, and help me to steadily improve.

Suddenly, through my car speakers, I heard, “You’re listening to Allston/Brighton Free Radio!”

I was confused. I wasn’t listening to the radio, at all. And even if I was, my radio is regularly tuned to NPR, not Allston/Brighton Free Radio.

I stared at the LCD panel, trying to figure out what was happening. My iPod began to play songs in random order. My confusion lingered for a mere moment before I realized that Chris was saying hello to me, the day after our wedding anniversary, and on the birthday of his beloved deceased grandmother, Edna.

Tears of joy came quickly, and my entire being filled up as it always does when Chris reminds me that he’s still with me, that he always will be.

I have only one explanation for how my radio took over my iPod, only one time since I have owned the car, broadcasting a show I don’t even listen to, a show that isn’t even available in my city, on which Chris broadcast his own personal program back when we shared a life together.

He’s here. I rarely have doubts about his continuing presence in my life, and whenever I do have doubts, something spectacular happens to assuage them.

How lucky am to have one husband across the veil, and one soon-to-be husband right here with me on earth?

There is love on every side of me. I know it, because I feel it coursing through my veins.

Shneed.

Happy 7th annivesary, Creej.

2011-01-17T09:38:00.003-05:00

"I do believe the soul cannot die."
-Tom Tom Club

New Year's Day, 6 A.C. (after Chris)

2011-01-01T12:43:00.006-05:00

I remember the last week of 2004 through a series of ominous vignettes. Waking up, Christmas Day, to Chris sitting on the bed, telling me he thought it was time for me to take him to the hospital, the pain in his stomach finally too much for him to bear. I remember him telling me to relax and have some coffee first, his way of denying what he probably knew, that the end was near. I remember Chris in the passenger seat of my 1996 electric blue Pontiac Sunfire screaming every time I rolled over the slightest of bumps, and I remember how guilty I felt for not being able to avoid them. I remember the orderly at Brigham and Womens Hospital taking him away in a wheel chair telling me not to worry, that he would take good care of Chris.

We spent Christmas day in the ER where Chris was given Ativan and pain killer, and I remember him saying how great he felt, that the pain was completely gone. We felt hopeful, thinking maybe the pain really was just caused by adhesion, scar tissue from his surgery the month before.

I remember calling my family, who had gathered at my father's house for our annual Christmas Day dinner. Nobody understood what was happening. My father suggested that I come by alone for a while to get my mind off of what was happening. He didn't understand. My husband was dying. How could I leave the hospital and join my family in celebration? I think everyone was in denial to some extent.

Chris was admitted to the hospital that day, Christmas Day, 2004, where Bonnie, Chris's mother, and my friends, Carol and Robby, joined us. Chris' regular doctor was on Christmas vacation. We sat with Chris as he slid in and out of sleep. I tried to believe the other doctors when they said Chris had only a blood clot, but believing was difficult when doctor after doctor walked into the room, looked at Chris, and shook his head in pity. My Chris was dying. They knew it, and they weren't telling us.

I don’t remember what day the doctors, Bonnie, and I gathered around Chris' bed to tell him his treatment for cancer was being stopped. I kept the poker face I had become so good at maintaining for Chris’ benefit. I never wanted to cause him any feelings of guilt by crying. He looked at me and I smiled at him. Then he said, “You’re taking it well.” And I smiled again and said, “I’ve known.”

At the urging of a social worker I tried to involve Chris in his own funeral planning, but when I asked him if he wanted to be involved, he said, “In what?” I whispered, “Your funeral.” Chris recoiled, a twisted expression on his face, not ready to believe what was happening, himself. I remember feeling as though I had delivered the final insult to a man who had already been delivered a life sentence, and I had to leave the room and try to forgive myself.

Even though we remained at the hospital until Chris’ discharge three days later, I don’t remember much else. I remember he thanked me for always looking out for him, and although I can’t remember when, I smiled at him and said, “We had a good run.”

At some point, I entered the hospital chapel, fell to the floor and lay there sobbing, uncontrollably, kicking chairs and rolling around on the floor. I called my mother in the middle of it all, for some grounding.

We left Brigham and Womens Hospital on December 28, Chris and me in the ambulance, and Carol and Robby in my car. My sister, Teri, who had been washing my clothes all week, brought me some fresh ones because I had been wearing the same ones for four days. I still remember the smell when I removed my hiking boots.

I rode home in the ambulance with a very thin, very gaunt Chris who, although under the gracious influence of morphine, still could not get comfortable. He pulled at the blankets and at the fastened bands holding him in place on the gurney. I joked with the EMTs, as the first real feelings of finality began to seep into my consciousness.

I didn’t know that the Tsunami had hit, or that a horrendous snow storm had taken Boston during those few days we spent enclosed in Chris’ hospital room. All I knew was my own bubble of fear and sadness.

Once home, Chris tried to jump off of the gurney, not realizing how high up he was. The EMTs caught him and helped him over to the couch, where he rolled over, his face in the back of the sofa, and fell asleep.

The rest of the week Bonnie and I remained on high alert, Bonnie feeding Chris morphine to control his pain, and both of us trying to keep him safe from falling, as he wandered around the apartment in a haze.

I invited all of Chris' friends and family to come be with him, offering everyone a moment alone to talk with him privately. We laughed with him, teased him, and recalled the past with him. He knew he was dying. He told one of his friends so.
January 1, 2005, Chris got out of bed and stated, “I want to sit in my chair.” We helped him move from the bed to the futon chair and sat with him until his breath changed, a tell tale sign that it was time for us to gather and say goodbye.

Chris' family, some friends, and I sat with him as his skin cooled, holding onto him until the undertakers came with their big black SUV. I watched as the two black clad gentlemen wheeled carried Chris out, loaded him into the truck, and drove away. I stood on the sidewalk, which was iced over from the snowstorm, and stared.

It was over. Our Chris was gone.

Six years has passed. Today is the dreaded anniversary, New Year’s Day. My Chris knew how to go out in style.

I’m sitting at my computer writing this as Jonathan practices his newest Mozart sonata on the piano upstairs, and I know I have come about as full circle as I’ll ever come. I still cry. I will always cry. Jonathan will always understand, and he’ll always love me, hold me and tell me it’s okay, that Chris loved me very much. He allows room for me to grieve.

Despite my best efforts to love like I'll never get hurt (Ellis Paul), I now know that husbands die before their time, but I try not to think about that too much. I just enjoy the time Jonathan and I have together, and I tell myself how lucky I am to have fought the good fight and to have rebuilt a life I never saw coming.

I’m as happy as I can be and, truth be told, that's pretty darned happy. I am eternally grateful for my ability to be resilient.

Happy New Year.

Shneed

Happy 40th Birthday, Creej.

2010-11-23T10:08:00.002-05:00

Today would have been Chris’ 40th birthday. His 34th was the last one I got to celebrate with him, although I suppose I have celebrated each of his birthday’s since in my own way.

Deciding that his birthday is a happy day is a matter of flipping the switch in my head. I could easily collapse and cry all day about his absence from my life, or I can celebrate his birth, which provided him with life, and enabled us to meet.

My newest miracle is that I have not cried over Chris, at all, in almost one month, and that has opened wide the door into my future with Jonathan. My lack of tears is a direct result of leveling with Jonathan about my emotions surrounding Chris’ death. I had been unsure about just how much it was fair to share with him. I don’t want to hurt him, or make him think I loved Chris more than I love him. It’s a sticky situation, one that many men might not be able to handle. Not for my Jonathan, though. He’s tough. I fall a little more in love with him each time I trust him enough to be honest about the effects Chris’ death have had and still have on me. Jonathan just reminds me that I loved Chris very much, and reassures me that Chris loved me very much, too. Then he tells me that he’s thankful for how Chris’ presence in my life has shaped me and made the person I am, today. Then he tells me he loves me and wants to be with me forever. Sweet. My rock.

I joked with Jonathan this morning about how I am eternally thankful for Chris’ life and how he’s probably eternally thankful for Chris’ death. He was shocked, of course, but I couldn’t help myself. I’m a shock-jock when it comes to death, now. Society takes it all too seriously.

Today, on Chris’ 40th birthday, I give him the gift of continuing to let go and move forward in my life together with Jonathan. After all, Chris gave him to me.

You can read more about that at http://creejnshneed.blogspot.com/2008/10/his-eye-is-on-sparrow-and-i-know-he.html.

Happy birthday, sweet Creej.

The Rock

2010-10-01T22:27:00.008-04:00

My perception has always painted my grief a monstrous, ominous, seemingly insurmountable sharp-edged mountain, surrounded in black clouds, towering in front of me, growing ever larger and ever darker, each time I have attempted to climb up and over. But that perception has never stopped me from trying, again and again, succeeding a little bit more with each try.

I think I may have had as close to a real major depressive episode as I am capable of having this past week. Generally, I’m a pretty sane person, and I’m aware that depressive episodes are very serious, which is why I provide this disclaimer. Because I listened to myself, and figured out what I needed, I was able to smash away a huge portion of Grief Mountain with my pick axe, and watch it separate from the rest of the rock, and fall to the ground where it disintegrated into a harmless cloud of dust.

I don’t know how my thoughts became so twisted. I doubted my future, calling my engagement and eventual marriage to Jonathan into question, along with my ability to laugh, to sing, to be my own person, and to feel free from the heaviness I had allowed to encompass my heart. I was ambushed, once again, drowning in my horror of what happened to Chris. I cried at work, at school, at home, all the while finding ways to masquerade as a happy and healthy fiancée to Jonathan. By mid week this past, I had convinced myself that I was better off not being anyone’s fiancée, and seriously began to think about jumping off the relationship ledge. I had returned to a place of great pain, and in doing so, forgot that people who have experienced loss can be happy, again. Each and every one of us deserves to be happy, again. And the people whose lives we touch, merely by existing, also deserve to have us in their lives.

I took two personal days off of work this past Thursday and Friday. Most of Thursday, I spent in indecisive turmoil, lamenting over my loss of almost six years ago. My pain over the occurrences of Chris’ illness and death returned full-force…no, more than full force, a flashback of sorts…wrapping around my ankles, tripping me up, and sending me crashing to the ground. I wanted out of my new life and back into my old life with Chris so badly that for the first time in a long time, I felt incapable of handling the intensity.

During my two-day sabbatical, I did things only for myself. I returned to singing. I ran. I cooked. I tried to breathe, although I wasn’t very successful.

During the late afternoon, this Thursday past, I drove to the boxing gym, which now takes over thirty minutes, lifted weights, and took a 5-mile run. When I was finished, I grabbed my stuff from the locker room and left. On my drive home, I had an epiphany: I no longer need to go there. I don’t box, anymore, I never really did, anyway. I just needed to release my anger, anguish and shock. Boxing provided me a most effective method of doing just that. I had thought about joining a new gym for a while, but never really could let go of my old gym, which had become a surrogate husband to me. In a sense, the gym became my handle to Chris, his hand, a way for me to hold onto him, which is why the thought of leaving the gym, in the past, had sent me into mother-bear mode, protecting my right to hold on to my husband, the boxing gym. The mind's ability to make sense where there isn't any is very powerful.

My decision to leave the gym empowered me. I began to spring back into existence, the Robin I used to know began returning to this stage we call life.

Last week, I explained to Jonathan, my difficulty in moving forward with him, reassuring him that I would eventually be able to do so with ease. I described my vision to him, which is a vision of Chris dangling off of a cliff, holding onto my hand as I try to pull him to safety. In my vision, my grip weakens, and I try with all of my might to hold onto him, but he slips, my eyes widen, and I scream, “Nooooooooooo!” as he plummets to the bottom of the mountain. I fail in that vision, as in life, to save him. The thought takes my breath from me. Jonathan identified survivor’s guilt in my vision, and he was right. Even though it’s not possible for one human being to give another human being cancer, I carry a secret stash of guilt and responsibility for Chris’ demise.

Tonight, I shared my new epiphany with Jonathan, explaining how the black piece of rock cracked, broke from the mountain of grief, and fell to the bottom of the ravine. I shared another vision of mine with him, one of the boxing gym becoming dim, gray and covered with cobwebs immediately followed by a vision of Jonathan's house, our home, lighting up and filling with warmth.

After six weeks of living here in my new home, six weeks of fighting forward movement, feeling alienated, and wanting to run home to Cambridge, the city I love, but really wanting to run back to Chris, to my life alone, where I was free to indulge in my past. I am free. The gear has turned. I’m here by choice. My new gym is a five-minute walk from home, and I’m ready to let go of the blanket I knitted out of the grief I expended at the boxing gym these past three years. I feel ready to knit a new one, now, out of happiness, hope and my new love.

This event is a huge one. I can see the sun, once hidden by the giant piece of rock that broke away, peaking over the mountain, and the mountain keeps getting smaller.

Shneed.

Holding out for Eleven

2010-09-24T09:53:00.003-04:00

I have begun 2010’s descent into the mucky mire of grief, ever-present even at almost six years, even after welcoming a new love into my life, even after everything I have accomplished since Chris’ death...even after anything...ever...perhaps for the rest of my life. My annual slip-slide into the black hole arrives like clockwork. Mood swings and anger-spells seem to be the main ingredients in my emotional soup du jour as of late.

This year, navigating through the symptoms is trickier. I can’t just cry whenever I need to because I live with Jonathan now, and my engaging in a nightly 6:00 tear-fest would not be fair to him. But the truth is that I still miss Chris, I still love him, and I still wish he didn’t die. Those truths are sturdy enough to build a roadblock to my future if I let them, and if I don’t find/create yet another method of dealing with them, I will surely risk living my life in the past, possibly alone.

No matter what, Chris is gone, whether or not I cry, whether or not I run, whether or not I continue to (try to) move forward, and right about now I’m wishing I could forget he ever existed. If I never met him, I wouldn’t be hurting, right now. But if I never met him, I also wouldn’t be the person I am, today. There’s no erasing Chris. He either lived, loved me, and changed me for the better, or he didn’t exist, and I never learned how to love. His existence was pivotal for me.

Today is going to be a difficult one for me, I can feel it. Once again, I have become tripped up in the minefield of sorrow. Usually, a simple choice to be happy is all I need, but today, I’m fighting making that choice.

All things considered, today is just a day. This particular hour is just one of many potential happy ones.

Maybe I’ll feel better at 11:00.

Shneed

Here.

2010-08-25T07:52:00.003-04:00

I have a hard time believing that the spirits of those who have passed are not walking beside us or, at the very least, peeking in on us and helping us during our dark moments.

Yesterday was a tough day for me. I knew that moving in with Jonathan would initiate a grief backdraft, and that I would need to remain alert and aware in order to navigate through the smoke, but all day yesterday I was suffocating, lost in the fog. Anxiety and panic from the past two weeks, my first two weeks sharing a home with Jonathan, collected within my mind and body, and I found myself crying, off and on, over my loneliness for Chris, and my anger over the differences between my interactions with him, and my interactions with Jonathan. Like I said, I knew it was coming. It was just a question of when.

Jonathan and I had dinner plans, last night, so although I fell apart all day (I worked from home), I knew from experience, that I would be able to pull myself together and enjoy my and Jonathan’s evening together.

During one of several breakdowns, yesterday, I spoke to Chris. “You have to help me. I need to stop crying over you. I can’t do this anymore. Please help me.”

Jonathan and I had a wonderful time at dinner. We talked, laughed, and shared our entrees, sans the growing pains of our past two weeks of figuring out where we fall together, as a couple living together. Not that we’ve had any problems, but moving in together for anyone, male or female, takes a fair amount of adjusting on each side in order to create a smooth and easy existence together. Being a person who panics when things don’t go as smoothly as I want them to, I have found that over the past two weeks, every time we hit a snag, I wanted to run back into Chris’ arms, again, to the safety of a time before I knew cancer.

After dinner, Jonathan and I went our separate ways within the confines of our home, fed our separate interests, and decided to turn in for the night. Even though I spent the day in turmoil over the events of the past almost six years, I went to sleep hoping I could hold on to exactly the way Jonathan and I got along all evening. It was perfect.

I fell asleep quickly for the first time since moving in, and I dreamed that Chris was dying and that we (?) were all waiting for the phone call to tell us (?) when to arrive at the hospital. I was primping, styling my hair so I could look beautiful for him. The call came. I went to the hospital. Chris died. My floodgates opened immediately and I cried just the way I cried when I was told he only had 4 days to live.

I can’t remember whether or not I actually woke up crying hysterically, or whether I dreamed that I woke up crying hysterically. Jonathan said he didn’t hear a thing.
I went back to sleep, and awoke a couple hours later feeling happy and free from grief.

I believe my Chris stepped in, as he always does when I really need him, and infiltrated my dreams in a symbolic attempt to kill himself for me, so I could experience the reality that he is gone and move past yesterday’s snag, which wasn’t the first snag, and which won’t be the last.

He’s here. He’s with me, and he helps me let go and move on. Today, I feel light and happy, and I can see my future possibilities.

Chair

2010-08-13T22:24:00.001-04:00

The night before I moved, I caught myself thinking, “Maybe I can let go of the Chris-chair.” The salvation army was coming the following Wednesday and I was just thinking about how easy it would be not to have to move the chair. Chris’ chair was really my chair. It had been for a couple of years before we even met. It only became his chair after his cancer surgery. I set it up for him, without the footrest, so he could be comfortable while he recovered. There was so little I could do to make any part of the ordeal easier for him, but when he came home and saw it set up, he smiled and thanked me.

Jonathan and I tried to make the chair work at home, but it just wouldn’t. Single futon chairs are quite large and no matter what layout we tried, the chair didn’t work. I decided I was ready to let it go, especially since it was tied to a memory of Chris that was bad. The chair came to symbolize great sadness for me, an empty chair, the chair in which my husband took his last breath. I didn’t want it anymore. Not now. Not when I’m really taking huge strides pushing myself forward.

The salvation army came on Wednesday. They began loading up the truck with all of the boxes and furniture we had stored in the garage. When they took the chair, I lost my breath. I turned to Jonathan and said, “I don’t think I’m going to be able to get through this without crying.” I try not to cry about Chris in front of Jonathan. Hell, I try not to cry in front of him, at all. But when the chair went, I did.

Jonathan held me and said, “It’s okay. You can cry if you need to. It’s okay. You loved him. You loved him very much. And he loved you. He still does. He always will.”

How did I get so lucky? Twice.

Shneed.

A Huge Part of Who I Am

2010-08-03T19:49:00.001-04:00

I’m just about finished packing up my stuff for my move in with Jonathan, who, by the way, I got engaged to two weeks ago.

Even though I love Jonathan, this major life change has not been an easy one to prepare for. There are things of Chris’ I had been holding onto for the past five-plus years, that had been buried in the crawl space of my current apartment. I sifted through the rubble of “used to be” and surprised myself with how much stuff no longer held meaning for me. On the flip side, I melted down again and again over the stuff that still does hold quite a bit of meaning for me, and placed it into a brand new waterproof storage box to store at Jonathan’s house. Everything I have left that once belonged to Chris now fits into one plastic box, a time capsule of a part of my life that held immense joy…followed by immense dread, anguish, and five years and eight months (and counting) of grief-induced loneliness for my lost love.

I often talk about the magical (and fictitious) “one year of firsts” that everyone seems to think follows the death of a loved one. The firsts never end, unless life ends. I’m about to move in with a man I love for the first time since Chris died, a fact I have been simultaneously celebrating and grieving. My apartment has become an asylum of sorts, a place for me to cry, laugh, fall, get back up and scream. I’m happy every time I think about Jonathan and depressed every time I think about Chris. I wear a brilliant diamond engagement ring on the ring finger of my left hand, the hand closest to my heart. I wear my engagement ring from Chris, and both of our wedding bands which I had soldered together on my right hand. I think about both rings and I sometimes feel handcuffed by them. I haven’t decided yet whether or not to keep my right-hand rings on. Jonathan is a very generous, supportive, sweet man who tells me I should keep both of my rings, since Chris was such a huge part of who I am, today. Then he tells me he loves me because of who I am, today. Brings tears, doesn’t it? That kind of patience and understanding is just what I need.

I’m ready, Jonathan. I’m ready for something. And I don’t have to be ready for a lifetime of love. I only have to be ready to step outside my door.

Gone.

2010-07-05T14:40:00.001-04:00

I began packing up my belongings for my move in with Jonathan. I’m very happy I finally unfroze and started the process of breaking down the apartment in which I have resided for the past three years. Three years is the longest I have spent living in any one place since I left my family home twenty-one years ago.

Each place I have lived since Chris died has acted as a third-way house for me.

First I lived alone in the apartment we shared at the time of Chris’ death, where I went through the motions, simulating a life from which I was so far removed that I may as well have occupied a chair looking out onto the green at the nearest sanitarium. That was back when sitting on the sofa, warm and protected, wrapped tightly in my comforter was all I could do to keep the thoughts of killing myself from becoming actions.

Eight months after that, I occupied a third-floor loft apartment in Malden, where, despite the fact that I wasn’t ready at all, and I didn’t believe I ever would be, I began dating again, only one year after Chris died. I resented that I had returned to a place where I had to date, bitter that marriage hadn’t ended that roller-coaster for me.

Lastly, I moved into my current apartment, a charming third-floor cottage-like abode featuring Charles Dickens, twelve-pane cozy criss-cross molding. I thought the apartment would be enough for me for the rest of my life, that I’d never need, or want, to share my life with another man. I was proud of my home, proud of the independence I had inherited, and I viewed my being able to reside, on my own, in Cambridge as a huge accomplishment I never thought I’d be able to afford on my own. I did it. I rose from the ashes and showed myself inner strength I would never have guessed I possessed. I would much rather have had Chris. Inner strength is overrated.

So, today, even though I’m supposed to be heading over to Best Buy to unload three old Macintosh computers I no longer need (They belonged to Chris. We regularly engaged in the MAC/PC war), the heat is causing me to hide, in air-conditioned comfort in my living room, and pack up stuff I plan to donate.

The further away my life with Chris becomes, the more the entire six years feels like something I dreamed. That thought hurts. We met. I lived with him. I married him. We meshed.

And now it’s gone, and at the moment, I don’t feel like sweeping it under the rug by boasting about how happy I am to be moving in with my new love.

The Dance in the Middle

2010-06-29T20:10:00.003-04:00

I just gave my 60-day notice to my landlords. I’m moving in with Jonathan in August.

Jonathan and I looked at engagement rings on Saturday. We have been talking about marriage for almost the entire “just-about-two-years” that we’ve been together. We’ve also been talking about having a baby.

The past two years has had its share of sadness, anxiety and anger, all of which have been nicely tempered with happiness, feelings of good fortune, and a sense that I can begin (the starting line keeps moving ahead on me) to relax and try to let go of the tears that still plague me.

I really do wonder how long getting used to the death of a spouse takes. Spouse isn’t really the right word for who I lost. Chris was a soul-mate, a teacher, and a best friend and a savior. From experience, I know that grief lingers for at least five-and-a-half years. Reemergence happens alongside grief, both traveling in opposite directions, intersecting in the middle right smack where positive change begins. I’m ready for that change, now. I don’t believe I have ever been ready before now.

My landlords like to remind me that, when I moved in three years ago, I told them I was done with dating and love and all of that stuff. They joke and say, “Oh, she was done dating…no men for her…she liked being by herself.” It’s not a joke in which I find humor. It’s a joke that makes me want to say, “Well, when one of YOU dies, the other one will see how much fun it is to be widowed.” I know. It’s mean. Like I said, I’m still a work in progress.

I’m not sure if I can paint an accurate mental picture of how I see this pivotal scene in my head. Grief comes from the west, and reemergence approaches from the east. They meet, but don’t pass each other right away. The two circle one another at the point of intersection for hundreds of years (less in real-time). Grief ponders being on its way. Reemergence ponders resuming the joys of a life interrupted by a cancer diagnosis seven years ago. The dance continues until the time is right and then maybe grief leaves, taking chest-crushing anxiety and depression with it. And maybe reemergence finds itself standing on the ground with nothing but sky in view.

I want to sing. I want to act. I want to run. I want to exercise. I want to eat delicious foods. I want to bask in the sun. I want to cry less often. I want to spend hours engaged in frivolous activities with my friends. I want the eclipse to go away. I want the sun back.

There’s an upcoming audition for a musical I have loved most of my adult life. I began to prepare to compete for one of the two leading roles, both of which are played by women in their twenties. I wanted it seven years ago, and I wanted it as recently as this morning. On my way home, on the train, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the subway window, and even though I look much younger than my years, I took a breath and admitted to myself that I’m not going to snag either one of those roles. That time has passed. Perhaps ten years ago, when I looked twenty years younger than I do now, I might have stood a chance. I shudder to think of how many sweet, beautiful twenty-somethings are going to show up with the same desire to sing those roles, each more talented than I am. The time is theirs, now, not mine. It’s okay. There are plenty of roles that call for forty-three-year-old women. Plenty.

In admitting that to myself, I think I may have entered a very early stage of working grief and reemergence apart, loosening the knot that keeps them intertwined and sending them on two separate journeys into the future.

I was young once. I’m not old yet, but I’m not twenty, either. I spent my thirties falling deeply in love and then losing that love. Ten years gone. More.

But Jonathan’s here, now, and I learned that I can love very deeply again, even though the thought chokes me when it’s not filing me with joy and wonder. There’s that dance in the middle, again.

Sometimes I feel desperately tired and unable to cope with everyday occurrences. Sometimes I still feel the need to stay in and cry. Sometimes my head is full of negative existential thoughts. And sometimes I’m the luckiest woman in the world and I wouldn’t trade my life for anything.

I’m just dancing, right now, and it's nice to know I have moved from the beginning to the middle.

The Gift Came in a Box.............ing Gym

2010-04-19T21:58:00.004-04:00

I don’t box, anymore. I sustained a concussion in January and had to take a 4-month break, and even though I thought I’d come back to continue honing my boxing skills, I spent those 4 months thinking about myself, Jonathan and the baby we might still have the chance to bring into our life.

The boxing gym was extremely important in my journey towards peace and wellness after Chris died. I only went there because I wanted to punch things, and what I ended up with is a sense of inclusion and warmth among a group of people who are just as goofy as I am. I have never belonged to a gym that gave me that kind of payback before.

I was walking on shaky ground when I noticed the first signs of my breaking away from the boxing gym. In one sense, I felt very sad, like I was once again losing something special to me. In another sense, my lack of excitement about punching and exercising myself into utter exhaustion is a very clear sign that I’m feeling better…less angry, less like hitting things and less like placing myself in front of someone who can hurt me and assuage the guilt I felt surrounding Chris’ death.

I once equated my intense workouts at the gym (which used to consist of a 3-hour cardio, strength training and boxing routine, 3 times a week) to cutting, as in razor blades and inability to deal with pain in a constructive manner. Not allowing myself to quit before every last rep and every last set of way too many workouts all wrapped up in one was completed was my way of dealing with my pain. I also felt as though I deserved nothing better than pain and exhaustion for what happened to Chris.

Times have changed. I do like to run long distances now, but it’s different. I do it because I like it. And those crazy boxing drills on the wall that I used to love to do – I still love them, but I skimp. I cut out entire sets, reps and I leave just because I’m tired. I can do that now. I no longer feel compelled to punish myself.

All things considered, a person who wishes to inflict pain upon herself could have chosen many, much worse ways of doing so. I got fit in the process of working through my pain.

So now what? I don’t want to leave the gym. The boxing gym is my friendly neighborhood bar, where everybody knows each other. We see each other at boxing events, we have a beer together, we like each other. I don’t have to leave just because I’m not interested in boxing, anymore. I’m a little interested...I mean, I haven’t yet donated my headgears. Maybe I’ll keep one for some light sparring. Getting in the ring, although harrowing for me, filled me with excitement and adrenaline.

Nobody there would think it strange that a person who has all but lost interest in the sport would still come in to work out in a more traditional way. And if they did, it wouldn’t matter to me. I spend much of my life looking for environments void of pretense, and I found a good one. It’s my gift to myself for weathering a storm I thought couldn’t be weathered

And I get to keep it.

All That and a Load of Laundry

2010-04-06T21:40:00.006-04:00

Tonight I brought home the new futon cover I bought for Chris’ chair, the one he sat in right before he died. I remember him, in his morphine haze, saying, “I wanna sit in the chair,” and getting up from the hospital bed the ambulance drivers had pushed into our bedroom for Chris’ safety during the last four days of his life. There was no way Chris was going down in a hospital bed. Although he was incredibly weak, he got up and, with our help, walked over to the chair so he could sit upright and go out in style. I still remember him in that chair, finding me among his friends and family and locking his eyes on me. I talked him through his departure, because I knew it was best for him to go with as much guilt-free ease, and as little fear as possible. He did a good job.

I have sat in that chair a few times since his death, but the one single time that haunts me still is the night I realized, for the first time, that Chris was really gone forever. I can’t describe the pain, other than remembering how much I needed him. The pain was searing, like my skin being ripped off of my body, a hollowing feeling like screaming into an abyss. Nobody could hear me because I couldn’t make sound. I could just hold onto the futon chair and hope and pray that I could open my eyes and find that it was him I was holding, and not some stupid chair. I almost lost my mind that night. I had never before felt on the brink of snapping…really snapping…and never since.

Thinking about that night puts me back there, and I know I shouldn’t be doing that, but sometimes, that’s really all I want to do with a quiet evening at home.

I remember that even though Chris was dead, I still thought he was coming home. I still remember the piles and piles of unopened sympathy cards I came home to after being away for a time, the length of which I still can’t remember. I hated those cards. They were anything but a comfort to me. I grabbed them up and threw them, as forcefully as I could, into the trash without opening them, threw away all of the food from the days preceding his death, and emptied all of his toiletries out of the bathroom cabinets with one sweep of an arm. I couldn’t get away from his stuff, and that’s all I wanted to do.

Everybody felt sorry for me, and I wanted to die and I wanted everything to stop, and I wondered how long I was going to remain in the state of shock I was in, and I just wanted to be able to breathe again.

I still wonder where he is, and if he’s okay, and if he still knows me.

Last week, I took the old futon cover, the one on which Chris died, folded it up, and placed it into my little Chris-box of his stuff I keep for myself. There are only a few things in the box, but they’re important things that remind me that he was here, and that we met.

Tonight, before I left the futon store, I asked the salesman behind the counter if it would be okay for me to share a story with him. I told him about how Chris died in my chair, and how after five years I was giving my chair a makeover and giving myself hope for a brighter future. I said all that without crying. He smiled, God-blessed me, and wished me luck.

When I got home, I put the new cover on the chair. It’s Chris’ chair, the one I set up for him when he returned home from having surgery, so he could be comfortable while he recovered. Now, it has a new face, a brighter face, a face of the future, my future together with Jonathan, and it has a chance to become my and Jonathan’s chair.

I just don’t know how long that will take.

Shneed

Nobody

2010-03-07T21:00:00.004-05:00

I no longer have a reason to feel crushed, yet that's exactly how I feel every Sunday when Jonathan and I part.

I don't feel slightly down, or moderately lonely. I go right back to the month, or so, I stayed out of work after Chris died, where I sat on my sofa, wrapped tightly in a comforter feeling as though the colorful quilt was the the only thing holding me together. I was safe inside the cocoon I had crafted, and reality could not reach me within.

I didn't know that the death of my spouse could leave me feeling as though my spouse has died every single time I am by myself; every Friday evening after work, when it seems that nobody is available to pass some time with me, every Sunday evening after Jonathan leaves, every night after the lights are out and all of my friends are sleeping, as I should be.

The pain of losing Chris is never going away, and although I feel much better in general, these days, I still have to fight to choke back tears on a regular basis.

Passing time opens me up like a meat hook tearing through flesh and I still don't want the day to come when I wake up and realize he's been gone for ten years. It has already been five years.

I don't really know whether or not I am still traumatized, but I cannot come up with an explanation for why I still have flashbacks, intrusive memories and sudden tearful breakdowns. Clay thinks I'm afraid that Jonathan will die, too, and since he has twenty years of experience in the field of psychology, to my B.S. in Psychology and about zero experience in the field, I feel inclined to believe him. I don't always believe I deserve to be with somebody I love and who loves me. If that were true...oh forget it.

Our society treats death as though it was a broken leg. Nobody expects me to still cry and fear loss and remain affected by what I witnessed Chris endure.

And I Do

2010-03-05T20:51:00.002-05:00

So many changes, so many changes.

I haven’t written in such a long time that I’m having trouble deciding where to begin.

I have been feeling sad, lately, which isn’t surprising considering my systematic, gradual weaning off of Zoloft. I don’t want it, anymore. I don’t need it. My Z-tox is going well. I have decreased from two 50mg pills/day to one-quarter of one 50mg pill/day. By this time next week, I will have successfully kicked the habit.

Going off of Z has not been without discomfort in the form of withdrawals. I decreased nice and slowly, though, to keep the after-effects to all-time low.

I’m moving in with Jonathan in September. We love each other and I’m ready, even though there really isn’t any such thing as ‘ready.’ One of the things I love about him is that he knows everything about how I’m feeling. He doesn’t ever expect me to give up Chris in any way. He makes it known that anything I give up is entirely my decision and that he’d never ask me to give anything up until I’m ready. The load that takes off of my shoulders, my soul really, is worth everything to me.

I don’t like us living apart. I miss him when we’re not together, but I strike a nice balance between wanting to be with him, and wanting to make sure I respect his time and needs. Living together will be easier because we’ll get to be together even when we don’t have plans.

There’s a fight night at the boxing gym tonight and I have been thinking about how I don’t want to be there. Not wanting to be there is new for me. For more than two years I exercised myself to exhaustion to keep my grief in check, to cope and to have somewhere to be when I felt alone, which was all the time. I liked that the members were mostly men because I felt like maybe I would find someone there and even when I didn’t, I liked feeling like a desirable woman in a room full of men, even if that was only my mind.

The gym took on a surrogate meaning for me. For the past two years, I got to feel safe, and I got to work though so much of my fear, sadness and loneliness. This particular gym promotes a culture of camaraderie and support. There, I got to feel like somebody cared about me, and I really needed to feel like somebody cared after
Chris died. Now I have Jonathan, so instead of going out to fight night tonight just to be around people, I can be home knowing that Jonathan loves me.

I have never been comfortable with change, and feeling myself separate from the gym is no exception. Time keeps marching on and my life keeps changing and find myself fighting change just slightly more than I welcome it.

Tonight I’m left wondering if the boxing gym has served its purpose and if I will notice myself backing away now. I’m proud of the fact that I boxed for a while. I’m proud of the concussion I sustained. I’m totally, ever-proud of the changes in my body since the day I first walked through the door. I walked in wearing size 10-12 jeans and today my size 6 jeans are getting loose. I wonder how long I’ll be enjoying my new self before Jonathan and I try to have a baby. We both want to, but we also both realize that I’m 42. It’s in God’s hands.

Anyway…most of the time, because of the changes I am experiencing, I can’t collect my thoughts well enough to write about them. Like I said, I spend a bit more time fighting them than accepting them.

Chris is forever in my mind and in my heart, and instead of having to get rid of my memories of him, I get to nudge them over a little so my memories of me and Jonathan can fit, too.

And I do.

5 Down.

2010-01-14T15:25:00.001-05:00

This coming Sunday, January 17, Chris and I would have been married for 6 years. After Sunday, I will have made it through yet another concentrated anniversary season crammed into its usual 3-month span:

Nov. 23 – Chris’ Birthday
Thanksgiving – Chris’ favorite holiday
Christmas – The last time I rushed Chris to the hospital
New Years Day – Chris’ last day
January 17 – Our wedding anniversary

Even at the 5-year mark, I had a rough go of it this year. I fell a couple of times, cried more that I wanted to, hurt from a place inside that I just can’t reach.

The big difference this year is that I am in love with Jonathan. While our lovely relationship doesn’t obliterate my grief, it helps me to move forward, to realize that I am now living in the present, possibly for the first time in five years.

I will always miss my Chris and I am so thankful that so much of him now resides in me, because he was such a great, fun, sweet, creative and kind man, and I get to keep all of that positive energy within myself, and give it to others in my life.

5 years feels different. Chris has become a distant memory; a happy one and a sad one. I have placed him where he belongs, in my past, even though I have carried his beliefs, mannerisms and values into my present. We’ll see each other again…and again…and again…and again… and I’ll get to introduce Jonathan and Chris, if they haven’t already met before…and before…and before.

Cheers,
Shneed

Rite of Passage

2010-01-01T20:10:00.003-05:00

My new life has begun. I’m tired. I have given up my fight, a fight I can’t win, anyway. Chris is gone. No matter how much I screamed and cried over the past five years, he was never coming back. He’s gone.

I miss him, greatly, even now, and I’m still so sorry for what happened to him. Terminal illness is horrifying for the afflicted, and extremely painful…and sad.
We laughed. We laughed a lot. We also bickered and annoyed each other. And I learned what love is, and I really, really wanted to keep it. I didn’t know I wasn’t done searching, yet.

However silly the notion, I still wonder if he remembers me.

The good news is that the fog is gone. I see us for what we were, and neither of us stands on a pedestal in my memory. We were just doing our best, and our best was the best I had ever experienced. What I have learned is that absolutely everything in life is a gift intended to help us learn and grow.

Jonathan and I share a whole different best. It’s nice, too. I love him. He loves me. We’re good together. And I wonder if I’ll ever really allow myself to let go completely, or if I’ll be scared forever.

Five years is a long time. I have arrived at a rite of passage, from the past into the present, and I will continue with my life with Jonathan as we share a brand new future together.

Fighting It

2009-12-15T23:22:00.002-05:00

I’m more tired than I should have probably let myself get, tonight. I left work with the best of intentions, did a bit of Christmas shopping, called some friends, hopped on the bus and started home. I stepped off of the bus and began to walk through the park to my apartment and suddenly found myself crying.

I hate nights like these. My crying-while-walking-home spells have become very few and far between, but when they hit, I don’t even try to stop them. I have only my tears to pay tribute to Chris and if I have to stop, I don’t know how I would reassure the memory of him that I cared, that I still care, that I loved him and that I will always love him. It’s a game I play with myself.

I cried for a while, and then ate, and then toyed with my computer and now I’m over-ready for bed, drunk with exhaustion. I could fall asleep right here on the couch with my fingers still on the keyboard.

In just 2 weeks, Chris will be 5-years gone. I hate that.

And just like that…

2009-11-09T15:12:00.001-05:00

I didn’t go to work, today. I’m not feeling well. I still feel guilty because, by most peoples’ standards, ‘sad’ doesn’t really qualify as ‘not feeling well.’ I woke up and started to get ready for work and then decided that I needed to stay home, instead.

Chris’ birthday is in 2 weeks, and even though I didn’t feel like I was going to be sad, sadness kicked in last night and spilled into today. I’m taking the day to cry, to fall, and to pick myself back up and continue on. In a perfect world, I would run and lift weights tonight in the spirit of feeling better. Right now, I couldn’t even begin to set foot out of my apartment.

The more Jonathan and I talk about getting engaged, married, living together and having a baby, the more I feel like I’m laying Chris to rest. I’m scared. After almost five years, I’m still afraid of losing him…even though I already lost him. I just want to be with Jonathan, now. I want to feel safe with him and secure that he’s not going to go anywhere or die on me.

I’m ready to step outside of the past and into the future…almost. Five years. How did this happen? Where did the time go? Where did my old life go?
Okay. Enough. I’m just waiting for Jonathan. His going away on business has triggered a small grief-spell in me. I want him here. With me.

I’ll just cry myself out, and then try to go to the gym, tonight.

Shneed

Admittance

2009-10-13T20:05:00.002-04:00

Being smarter than myself is crucial to my forward movement. I am an extremely self-aware person and as such, I have found that being able to decipher and dismantle my psychological facades has proved to be a most helpful skill.

Most of the admissions I make evolve out of writing about my emotions and thoughts surrounding my tragedy.

After writing about my perceived distance between Jonathan and me, I admitted the possibility that I, myself, might be responsible for our stagnating would-be growth. I began to take steps to pull down the barrier I had built between my past and my present. It wasn’t an easy task.

I began by talking a little bit more to Jonathan about what upsets me, how I feel about him, and what I want in life and in love. He also shared his own needs with me. It was hard. I had to keep nudging myself forward even though my heels were planted firmly in my past.

Jonathan is too good a man for me to give only choice parts of myself. He deserves my passion, my honesty and all of my love. We are both alive. My love no longer belongs to Chris. Only my love of his memory does.

There are still some things I cannot do, yet.

I planned to swap the lamp next to my bed with the lamp in my office, the other day. I entered my bedroom, office-lamp in hand and I froze. Chris picked out the bedside lamp. He didn’t even like home décor, and I remember wanting to encourage him, since he took the leap and chose an accent for our apartment. How could I say no? It wasn’t my type of lamp, but he picked it and I loved it for that reason, alone. I couldn’t move it. My body wouldn’t let me.

I have been wanting to watch our wedding video, lately, but I’m too afraid to see him in motion. I’m afraid I’ll cry and I won’t be able to stop. I still have trouble with the truth that a person who exists on earth can, one day, cease to exist.

Intellectually, I get it, but on a very basic level, I just don’t understand. And sometimes I still feel like I did something wrong, even though I know it isn’t true.
I had the most wonderful weekend with Jonathan. I am letting myself go. I’m letting myself live. I’m letting myself grow with him and I am letting myself begin to place my memories of Chris into storage, as cruel as that sounds.

I’m finally in love, again. I didn’t believe I could be. I never believed I would let myself be. I think about Jonathan and I feel safe, even though I know safety doesn’t really exist. Life exists. The ‘here and now’ exists.

And the only guarantee I have in life is the knowledge that I exist right now, in this very moment. And I believe that I will, someday, be reunited with everyone who has ceased to exist.

The Ritualistic Autumn Fall

2009-09-21T19:21:00.006-04:00

I feel like I haven't written in forever, but only one month has passed since my last entry.

I'm having "one of those nights" this evening. With autumn, always comes a great sadness for me, operating right alongside a great happiness. I don't know if I'm making sense. I only know that I have waited all year for this beautiful weather to come, and I love it....by day. By night, I'm sad. I miss him. The void is gutting me tonight.

I still know everything he would say in reply to anything I might say. Chris and I were fused in some way. I could feel it. We were cut from the same mold. My best friend. And he understood me like nobody else ever has.

The night's fall temperature and ever-earlier darkness brought me right back to my week-nightly walk up Pearson Road, straining to see the warm, amber lights glowing from our apartment windows. When I saw them, I knew he was there. Home. And I was so happy to be there.

After Chris died, I bought some timers for the lamps in our apartment, so I wouldn't have to come home to darkness. I used to fool myself on the way up the street. I wanted him to be there. I wanted to laugh with him. We truly enhanced each other.

And tonight, for some reason, I feel like screaming.

I don't know what's going to happen with me and Jonathan. There's a distance that perhaps only I feel. It's possible that I put it there and that I keep it there. I don't know.

I'm too scared to share my grief with him. How do you tell someone that you love that he's not the only one, that you have never been able to pull the knife out of your heart? It's still there.

I want to go to heaven and say hello to my husband.

Someday, I suppose I will.

I hope he'll be waiting for me.

My Very Freudian Dream

2009-08-15T20:44:00.001-04:00

Last night, I dreamed that Chris and I had moved into a new apartment in a bad part of town. I was scared. I left to go running and ran about halfway up the street, when I found myself feeling as though I had run into the middle of imminent danger. I turned and looked, and saw a man standing behind me, immediately became alarmed and ran, as fast as I could, to get away from him. When I stopped and looked ahead, past our new, decrepid, ramshackle apartment, I saw a beautiful horizon, blue sunny skies, a big orange sun and green lawns and mansions as far as I could see. Behind me, things were ugly, scary and gray, but up ahead there seemed to be warmth and hope. I stood in place for a moment, taking in the beautiful promise up ahead. I turned, once again, to look behind me and saw gray, cold structures, and felt mean undertones, and saw men dressed freakishly and evil clown-like, one in a hot pink tutu and one in women’s clothing and smeared hot pink lipstick. The scary man behind me was still there, dressed as though he had just stepped out of an old western. The scene reminded me of a circus. I looked ahead of me again and saw beauty. I wanted it so much, but I stood still, gazing and feeling like I could run towards the sun and be in that picture instead of the one I was in.

I am in love with Jonathan. We’re in love with each other. Last night was our one-year dating anniversary, and I wished it was our one-year wedding anniversary.

I think, eventually, it will be.

Still frozen, yet steadily thawing,

Shneed

Independence Day

2009-07-05T20:54:00.002-04:00

July 4, 2009 was the most wonderful, happiest fourth of July I have had in many years.

This entire weekend was perfect. I spent most of each day outside, which is what I love doing. I ran 7 miles Friday, and then shopped and dined with a friend. I kayaked on the Charles Saturday morning, dined with more friends and walked to Harvard Square, sat on a bench on the banks of the river, let the river breeze soothe me to my core, and walked home. Then today, I ran 3.5 miles, dined with yet another friend and shopped some more.

I worried that I might be sad, once again, about that singular 4th of July back in 2004 when, despite the fact that Chris was experiencing horrid chemo side-effects, and I could do nothing to help him, the rest of the world celebrated with barbeques, beers and patriotism. I knew I was inside a bubble back then, that we two were not connected to the world the way we had been before the cancer came. Holidays, back then, always felt like nobody cared, because people who are not experiencing adversity of their own don’t want their own holiday ruined by the horrors of others. That’s just the way it is.

Case in point, on Christmas Day, 2004, when I called my family from the emergency ward at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where Chris and I spent the entire day after his abdominal pain became completely unbearable, I was invited by my father to come to dinner, anyway. I know he didn’t realize at the time that he was essentially asking me to leave Chris at the hospital and come to Christmas Dinner (by the way, we’re Jewish), but there is a certain level of denial that spreads to those who come into contact with the adversity of others. For fourteen months, I had to investigate and find out if anyone at our family gatherings was sick, because nobody understood that Chris’ chemo treatments weakened his immune system and posed a very real threat to his health. I know it’s a compliment that they wanted us there, but that type of compliment could have killed Chris long before his actual demise.

I feel better this year, than I have felt in all of the years that have passed since Chris’ death. I feel happy and I feel able.

I will always cry for my Chris. I will miss him always and I will love him always. I suspect that I will always shudder at thoughts of all of pain, fear and anger he endured and the injustice of cancer. The broken promises of a life snuffed out like a candle flame will always make me doubt love’s durability, even when a relationship is good. But all of that stuff now fits into a much smaller compartment within my mind and most of my mind is filled with optimism, as always.

And I continue to trek forward.

Grief is my Mistress

2009-06-29T19:30:00.004-04:00

Well, I’m finished with school. I’ll be taking the walk on August 29th to make my graduation official. As of last week, there will be no more rushing around, trying to write papers and collect research data. I have no more chapters to read in academic textbooks.

And I have so much time to myself, which is something I have craved for a long time. Time to be quiet, to be still, to rest.

The end of my school days has leaked into my workout schedule and created a pocket of ”I don’t wanna do it.” I’m just relaxing. And I’m still dealing.

I’m glad I have time, again. Time used to scare the daylights out of me. Now, I welcome it, even though I cry sometimes, simply because there’s time to, now.

July 4th is a trigger date for me. I don’t feel like going into detail at the moment, but I’m sure I have written about it in blog posts from Independence Days passed.

I still just remember a promise -- not made by anyone -- but a promise, no less, or a hope for a promise. I remember the History Channel all day and night for an entire day when I sat in my bed staring at the screen, watching men scalp other men and wishing I could walk out the door with my husband and enjoy the Charles River festivities. All we wanted to do was walk to the Esplinade, since we lived so close. But Chris was too sick. He slept the entire weekend, and anyone who has ever witnessed somebody fight cancer knows that by “entire weekend” I mean 24 hours a day, waking only to use the bathroom once or twice.

I was lonley for the life we had together. I was angry that he couldn’t rise up from the couch and hug me. I was helpless as he lay sleeping, and I wanted out of that nightmare so badly. I wanted Chris to get well and stay with me.

I can still see him passed out in a chemo-induced pseuda-coma. I would never leave him. Never.

Independence Day is coming, again, and I know if I try, I can have a very happy long weekend, even though Jonathan is away. That’s probably for the best, actually. When grief comes calling, I’d rather not have to explain to anybody. It’s nice, in a strange way, to be afforded the time to temporarily fall apart.

Our time is coming. We’re talking marriage and kids and living together, these days. I’m so happy I have him in my life.

Okay. If I'm gonna do it at all, tonight, I’d better cram something down my throat, wash off these tears and head to the gym.

...or maybe I’ll just curl up and read. :)

Shneed

A Little Help

2009-06-21T10:53:00.003-04:00

What I have come to understand is that anti-depressants are not the enemy. And I know that if there was no such thing as medication, I would be just fine. However, I am happy that I have the option to choose to use an antidepressant to help me get through the rough spots that still arise in my life.

After a small personal struggle, I recently decided to increase my dose, again, since I could feel depression creeping up on me. I know the signs like the back of my hand. I begin to feel angry for no apparent reason. I use more profanity. Motivation is in low supply. Loneliness takes over. Boredom sets in. I know the signs.

During the onset of depression, however, I still go out and have fun and laugh and carry on like my optimistic self. When the day is over, though, and I’m alone, I feel all of the symptoms mentioned above.

I have come to accept that because of the trauma I experienced, I am prone to depression. I refuse to say, “I suffer from depression, though. The real truth is that I manage depression on a steady basis. That scenario is more accurate, I think. I tend to focus more on alleviating the symptoms than on the pain I feel when I know it’s time to change my anti-depressant dosage. Doing well on medication is not something to be ashamed of. I have been through the mill and come out on the other side, with my life in tact. So what if my seretonin levels need help every now and again?

I’m in love. Jonathan and I have talked about moving in together. I am finally in love, again. I live a life filled with blessings from the lessons I have learned. I didn’t choose for Chris to die, but since he did die, I choose to view his demise as a gift in my life, a lesson in selflessness, resilience, a gift in the form of the knowledge that when faced with a horrible circumstance, I do the right thing. I’m a loyal partner. Once I give my heart away, my heart belongs to the person to whom I gave it, and the only reason I will ever reneg is in the event of infidelity. I have a zero-tolerance policy where cheating is concerned.

I digress.

Increased Zoloft = increased concentration, increased seretonin, increased well-being.

Shneed

Angie and Counting

2009-06-16T20:48:00.003-04:00

Sometimes I really do wonder if it’s ever really going to be over.

I have good news...good news that sent me right into a grief reaction, as per usual. I got cast in the role of “Angie” in a production of “The Wedding Singer” in the next town over.

Every time my life begins to retake the shape it took back before I ever met Chris, I feel overwhelmed with guilt, like I’m erasing him from everything and everywhere. It’s happening, though. My life really is becoming what it was, again, and I’m terrfied.

I’m 42. I used to be 31 and I used to have a husband who was 4 years younger than me, who is now 8 years younger than me, and counting.

I’m moving forward, ever-so-painstakingly, and life is good, and things hurt, and I’m happy and I miss him and I feel so much guilt about moving on, but I do it, anyway.

This play is going to be a ton of fun.

And so is the rest of my life.

Even though it hurts.

Shneed.

Phew.

2009-05-27T13:44:00.004-04:00

It's back. I e-mailed our coordinator at the front desk and she reported that someone at the office put my Chris-mug in a basket, high atop the refrigerator. I had to commandeer a tall guy to get it down for me, but I emerged virtually unscathed. I'm happy, again.

And I bought her a gigantic chocolate bar as a symbol of my gratitude.

Shneed :)

…and sometimes progress is forced.

2009-05-27T12:04:00.002-04:00

I’m sitting at my desk, at work, trying to gain control of an very strong urge to cry.

Yesterday, after lunch, I brought all of my containers and mugs to the kitchen area to wash. I left, and was going to come back in a few moments, but I forgot. This morning, my dishes were nowhere to be found. Among them was Chris’ big soup-mug that he bought (he bought me a blue one) so we could enjoy enormous amounts of coffee on Saturday mornings. I still have mine, but his now seems to be gone. I wasn’t ready for this.

I know it’s a very small thing in the large scheme, but that doesn’t seem to be helping me at this precise moment. I want to go hide somewhere and cry, and I want to apologize to him for being careless.

Maybe it’ll turn up. I don’t want to think that a disgruntled cleaning person threw my mug away in an oppressive outburst. But I do.

It’s silly, but if I moved forward after witnessing Chris’ deterioration and death, I know I can move forward after the loss of his green mug.

Stuff is going away…and I’m scared…and sad.

Slowly I turn, step by step, inch by inch...

2009-05-26T16:18:00.002-04:00

Another shift has occurred. I know, because my brain has become clouded over in its usual protective manner. I thought I had seen the last of “the fog” four years ago, when it first lifted from the cloak of shock that enveloped and protected me from combusting into a ball of fire from too many emotions felt all at once. I still remember the feeling of reality incrementally entering my psyche, shred by shred. There was no rest. Each time I survived a shred, I instantaneously graduated to the next shred. I don’t think I can ever truly describe what it feels like to have had my terror that Chris might die transformed into reality. For as long as I live, I will never forget the sensation. Even now, when I think back on everything, I begin to exhale, only to remember, with a start, that Chris’ death actually did happen.

My fog of late, although much lighter than in the early days following Chris’ death, is protecting me, not from my experience, but from myself. I am beginning to let go of Chris. I can tell. I looked at a photo of him over the weekend and no longer saw “my husband.” Instead of seeing, I felt a friend, a guiding spirit, a love and a presence I believe is with me for the rest of my days on this planet. He’s here. He’s just not here in the same form in which he was here before.

I’m still afraid to completely release my grip on Chris. I’m afraid he’ll be alone. I know he’s not, but I still feel as though he needs me…or maybe I feel as though I need him. I don’t know. I sometimes feel as though I couldn’t take care of him enough, even though I know, logically, that I did everything I possibly could do for him. He thanked me, too, for always looking out for him.

I like my life with Jonathan, even though I’m really scared of history repeating itself. I wanted to tell him, this weekend, that I had felt a shift in my ability to feel and to let go of Chris, but the words never got past my throat. I’m not yet able to admit to him that I’m beginning to let go. He tells me he’s not interested in replacing Chris, which is the perfect thing to say to me. Jonathan always knows what to say to me.

I didn’t know I would be lucky enough to meet two wonderful men in my life.

Stay

2009-05-19T10:46:00.001-04:00

It’s really no wonder I fell apart last night. I didn’t realize all of the issues building over the last two weeks into a culmination of heart and spirit-crushing grief and anxiety.

Of course, my birthday began my back-pedal into grief and anxiety, followed by my brother’s dream about Chris. Ever since his dream, I have felt as though Chris is here with me, and that pattern of thought always throws me into a futile cycle of “He’s here!” followed by “He’s dead.” followed by “He’s here!” followed by “He’s dead,” etc. It’s an exhausting pattern, really. Sometimes I just don’t know what to do with my belief in the spirit world and the afterlife. My faith has the capacity to exhaust me beyond all exhaustion.

I have also been watching “The Sopranos” beginning with season 1. Chris and I did that in L.A. when we were both so unhappy to be there that we rented every season as means of keeping us busy and occupied while we saved money to move back home. I didn’t realize how much the opening theme song would bring me back to our futon couch in West Hollywood, amidst our growing love…and Chris’ growing tumor.

In addition, I found out that someone I know and admire deeply is going to have a baby. The news, although very joyful, left me feeling very regretful over a lost life I didn’t get to realize with Chris, the promise of a family, a child of my own and Chris’ lost opportunity to be a father. My bubble burst and I came home feeling painfully envious of this man, who is 40 years old, and his wife, a young woman of 27. Knowing her age filled me with senseless regret. I don’t want to be 27, again, but at 27, beginning a life with someone has promise. Beginning a family is a real possibility, a gift a couple can share with one another. I may have lost my chance when I lost my Chris.

I came home, carrying a very heavy heart. When it finally burst, and the floodgates opened, I found myself quivering and crying uncontrollably, once again, about all the pain and fear Chris had to endure, and about all of the loss anybody in this world has to experience. I was not capable of calming myself down, last night, and the clock kept on clocking along. Finally, at 1:15 a.m., I got up and took the 2nd half of the Ativan I swallowed an hour earlier, and prepared to be rendered unconscious. When I awoke at 7:00 a.m., I was okay, again. I’m always okay, again. Things just get dicey, sometimes.

I’m 42 years old. I know women have children at my age. I’m feeling so very lucky to have found Jonathan and, love not withholding, so happy we work well, together. We’re easy, together. Our relationship is quiet, peaceful, fun, adoring, and filled with love. I never thought I would find that again, certainly not in time to ponder the possibility of becoming a mother and making my own mother a grandmother by me. I want that. I want a life with Jonathan, as his wife…his young wife (why not, right?) and I want to have children with him, and just be with him.

And I want our opportunities to stay, this time.

Born Again?

2009-05-17T00:13:00.004-04:00

My brother woke up out of a dream about Chris the other night. He has never dreamed about Chris, before.

The two were lying side by side on a couch. Chris looked good, with his tossled hair, glasses and facial hair. Oddly, he was smoking a skinny cigar with a white waxy tip on the end of it.My brother said to Chris, "I love you! I am so glad you're my brother!" He ruffled Chris' hair and gave him a big kiss -- Mwah! -- on the head and then ruffled his hair, again. He then said to Chris, "Please take care of Robin. Promise me you will, okay?" Chris said, "Oh God, Always! In fact, I'm moving right in down the street, but she doesn't even know it."

My brother woke up.

I always believe that Chris is around me. Always. I know he is with a certainty that I cannot explain. This kind of knowing exists deep within my soul. I can feel him. I know he helps me. I know he loves me and, of course, I know I love him.

My brother left the message about the dream on my cellphone, and I listened to it as I was leaving work. I was overcome with emotion that I could not keep below the surface. My heart swelled and I felt very safe.

Maybe Chris is about to be born again. Maybe he's being born to someone who lives right up the street from me.

On the "Jonathan and Robin" front, we are in love. He's wonderful. I am so happy to be with him. I spent the night with him, last night and I'll be seeing him again, tomorrow. I couldn't be happier. My love continues to grow. My guilt continues to dissipate, albeit very slowly. I can feel myself relaxing and as a result, spending time with Jonathan is becoming more and more fun.

I am truly blessed.

Sofa, so good.

2009-05-03T15:25:00.003-04:00

I slept on my living room couch last night, which is something I had always done in my childhood whenever the common cold came calling. My mother and father’s bedroom was right off the living room, so if I cried in the middle of the night, they could hear me and come to comfort me with cold medicine and kind, loving words. I suppose the symbolism has lasted over the years, so whenever I’m feeling sad, I have a tendency to grab my pillow and blankets and head for the sofa, where I can still feel remnants of the safety that awaited me back then.

The thought didn’t dawn on me until now, but yesterday was my first birthday spent with another man since Chris died. When I woke up this morning, I couldn’t figure out why I felt so much anxiety and sadness. I took half of an Ativan, hoping to alleviate some of the heaviness in my heart, and I did for a while. I even went out to have lunch with two friends. I did some grocery shopping and then I was going to call Jonathan, but instead, I burst into tears. That’s when everything became clear to me.

I have a feeling I’m going to be experiencing “firsts” for a long, long time. I’m adjusting to a new life, learning to accept my tragedy and the fact that I did everything I could possibly do to help Chris, to make him comfortable and to take care of him while he was sick. I did.

Grief has always had a way with sneaking up on me when I’m not expecting it. I was supposed to call Jonathan after lunch, and I tried, but he didn’t answer his phone. Now that I have melted down, and recovered, and no longer sound like Rudolph after his father pushed the mud onto his nose, I think I can try again. Maybe we can just be together for a while.

Why?

2009-04-20T21:37:00.003-04:00

I have been thinking about Chris a lot, lately. I wish I could remember clearly, the kind of person he was. I wish I could remember how we were together, what my life was like with him in it. I love him. I miss him. I’m still disturbed by his exit from this life.

Guilt has been slowly infiltrating my mind and body since I began loving Jonathan. I tell myself it’s okay. It’s just guilt. It doesn’t have any power, other than the power to fuel my anxiety. It doesn’t stop me from loving Jonathan. I suppose its purpose is to keep the image of my beloved Chris’ face as crisp and clear as possible. I am scared half to death of his image fading from my memory. The thought steals my breath.

Jonathan and I had a wonderful time together in California. I loved being with him for more than just a few hours. I loved waking up next to him. I love his good-natured demeanor. I love how he loves me.

I had my moments in California. We visited a few of the places Chris and I had been to and a couple of times, my heart felt heavy. We drove through the neighborhood where Chris and I lived for two years, past the very street we lived on. Part of me wanted to drive up the street and see our old apartment, but somewhere inside of me, I knew the effort would be futile. I felt strange, sort of numb, knowing that driving up that street would not bring Chris back, nor would it bring me back to 2001, the year we first embarked upon our trip out west.

Since our trip, I have fallen more in love with Jonathan. We don’t see each other too much, because we’re both pretty busy people, but I cherish the time I spend with him. I’m beginning to feel that we are kindred spirits. I’m starting to want to be with him more.

I wish I wasn’t so terrified of losing Chris. I still choke on the thought. He’s somewhere. I have always felt that he is somewhere. Why do I feel that?

What’s been eatin’ me.

2009-03-27T16:55:00.000-04:00

I have about two and a half hours to go before landing in San Diego and I can feel some anxiety beginning to creep up on me. I’m about to meet Jonathan there and not Chris. My nerves are not born of discontent. I’m very happy to be meeting Jonathan there. But there’s a disconnect in my brain and I’m having trouble understanding what happened to 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008. 2009 is upon me and I’m on my way to California for the first time since the entire saga began.

I’m scared. “Chris and Robin” is now a time capsule, filled with love, memories, fun, marriage, sickness, health, food, family, laughter, clothing, terror, sadness and friendship. Two lives exist in that capsule; two entire lives. Chris wasn’t just a part of my life. He was an entire life of mine, encapsulated into a larger repository of additional lives all woven together to create the larger picture of what life really is; a series of time segments. My life with Chris is over. My life with Jonathan has just begun. Two separate parts of my entire existence. And there will be more.

I’m afraid Jonathan doesn’t know the depth of thought that permeates my conscious and I’m not sure he would or could fully understand. My brain is telling me that I’m flying back to 2003, the year Chris and I decided to leave Los Angeles and move home, the year we realized that happiness, for us, lived in Boston. Summer of that year overflowed with hope and excitement. We were finally home and we knew we wanted to stay this time.

Wednesday evening, again, on the platform, this time at Park Street Station, I became entirely enveloped in my love for Jonathan. The feeling overwhelmed me and I began to feel tears well up in my eyes. I then began to envision two ends of a stick of dynamite, both ignited. I remembered an evening after work in 2003 when I had to run into a building maintenance room at Filene’s headquarters, where I leaned against and slid down the wall between two trash receptacles, hiding because I couldn’t control a sudden, unexpected surge of anguish and horror from overthrowing me.

Standing on the platform the other night, the tears that threatened to surface toggled back and forth, from tears about the love I now feel for Jonathan to tears of terror at the thought that Chris might die. Love, fear, love, fear, love, fear…just like that, one moment beaming about how lucky I am to have found love a second time and the next grieving my loss as I waited for the next train to Alewife to snatch me up and deliver me to Cambridge. If I had been alone or outside, I would have allowed the salty waters to flow. I would have invited and welcomed every single suppressed emotion Alas, I’m not one to express feelings of sadness in the company of others. Crawling up the three flights of stairs to the privacy of my cozy cottage-like flat, collapsing onto my bed and purging every emotion inside me until I feel completely spent is more my style.

Two equal, opposing emotions, share the spotlight in my soul. I have come a long way since the first few days after Chris’ death. I still shudder when I remember the events of that period. I believe that I will always.

But today, I’m on my way to San Diego to meet Jonathan. My mood is light. I am filled with happiness and love. I’m excited about landing and spending a group of days together for the first time since we met.

Plus, the cute little boy sitting next to me just contributed to my blog with “s42wXVB..6711AQ`3%^&#rrrrrrrrrr” a most inspirational comment on life’s many twists and turns. Who can sum that up better than a child?

Shneed

I may be crazy, but I really don’t think I am.

2009-03-27T16:12:00.001-04:00

I imagined my eventual return trip to Los Angeles would be wrought with tears, anxiety and unrelenting trips through the dark and damp tunnels of my mind. I figured, once off the plane, I would visit my and Chris’ old haunts, our old apartment and the park across the street, our favorite restaurants and the streets on which I used to run. In my mind’s eye, I wandered past our old bank and past the old thrift shop with the painting of the dark, gothic vampiress in the window, a work of art that taunted and haunted me during a time in my life when all I wanted was to run, my tail between my legs, back home to Boston. I figured that revisiting the ghost of that period in my life would leave me choking back tears, remembering the strife the two of us faced during our mutually-agreed harrowing stay in La-La Land.

I have experienced some anxiety these past few days, my trip dangling in front of me. I have had a couple of post-workday meltdowns before heading out to the gym. Emotions born of muscle memory, fear and anguish-of-old have recently invaded my soul, threatening to bring me down by way of severe over-eating and inevitable weight gain.

Times like this remind me of how lucky I am to still have three pills in my Lorezapam bottle. Luckily…well, skillfully, I am still managing to stretch a bottle of twenty pills across a period of six months. I think I have proved again and again that I simply do not possess an addictive personality, at least where drugs are concerned. Baked Lays potato chips, Chicago Grill flatbread pizzas and Ana’s Tacqeria burritos tell a whole other story of addictive drugs in food’s clothing. I veered away from those culinary meds yesterday morning and headed straight for the bottle (the prescription one), swallowing my usual half-a-pill, in an effort to dislodge myself from a freeze-state. I had homework to finish before leaving for my trip, yet I sat motionless on the living room sofa, dreading nothing apparent. Were it not for sweet Lorezapam, I would, no doubt, be sitting there still.

But now I write as I wait for my flight to depart to San Diego where I will meet Jonathan, now that his business trip has come to an end, and then to Los Angeles. We will drive up the coast to destination number two and have a lovely vacation, our first together.

I’m not sad. I’m in love. I’m excited to share this time with him. I no longer feel like crying about my time spent in California with Chris. Instead, I feel fortunate to have met two wonderful men in my lifetime.

I stood on the redline platform in Harvard Station earlier this afternoon waiting for the train that would bring me to South Station’s silver line. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a man next to me rocking back and forth as he stood, also awaiting the train. He pulled my focus and my first thought was, “He looks like Chris.” I hadn’t even looked at him, yet, so my very next thought was, “That’s ridiculous. I haven’t even looked at him, yet. I’m sure he looks nothing like Chris.” I looked. Aside from his Asian ethnicity, the man could have been Chris’ body double. Same hair, same glasses, same height and same full lips. I stared, just to make sure I hadn’t created the likeness, myself. I hadn’t. “The only difference,” I thought, “is that Chris would not have been moving and bouncing around so much.” After the train came and I lost track of the man, the thought occurred to me that he was Asian. Jonathan is Asian. This Asian man looked just like Chris. Now, I may be stretching here, sometimes I don’t trust myself, but if I were Chris, and I wanted to tell Robin that everything was going to be okay and wish her a happy trip, I would probably bounce around and rock back and forth in an effort to catch her attention and make sure she received my message.

I got it. I remain open and I accept the signs when they come. I am very grateful.

California, here I come.

Gradually Gaining Altitude

2009-03-23T20:54:00.002-04:00

I am so many things. I’m full of bliss, relief, grief, happiness, anxiety and disbelief, still, about what happened to Chris. Somebody I knew died. I still have such a hard time believing that he got cancer, got angry, got sad, got weak and got dead. As absurd as it sounds, I think, on some level I still don’t believe it. I never will.

I’m finally going back to Los Angeles. Jonathan has a business trip in San Diego, so I’m flying out to meet him and we’re driving to L.A. together. I’m happy. I love him. He loves me, too. And we continue to get to know each other.

Knowing somebody takes a very long time. After six years together, Chris and I were still getting to know each other. Jonathan and I have been together for seven months. Our love is young. I like it.

Not surprisingly, I’m a bit frozen with regard to my return to L.A. I haven’t been there since Chris and I left and I have never been there without him. None of that matters. I’m buzzing with excitement to be with Jonathan, to sit on the beach with him, dine with him, sleep next to him and love him. The rest is the past. I can’t change it and I’d never want to go backwards.

I once told my therapist that I sometimes wondered what I would do if Chris ever could come back. Would I go to him? Would I stay with Jonathan? She asked me why I was torturing myself with a scenario that will never happen. In doing so, she freed me.

imprisoning myself behind bars of guilt is similar to inserting a pacifier into my mouth. As long as I’m guilty, I was a good wife. As long as guilt courses through my veins, I loved him. I’m getting better about realizing that guilt is a useless waste of energy. I loved my husband. There’s nothing to do after that. That’s the highest compliment. Guilt is a downgrade, a nuissance whose only purpose is to infect goodness with badness.

I’m melting into Jonathan. I feel euphoric in his presence. He’s different from Chris, as I knew he would be, and he is just as wonderful in very different ways. It’s true that there really is no comparing people. What I had is gone and what have now is not gone. I have it. And I grow ever-happier each day I live as Jonathan’s girlfriend. He's my man. :)

The Metamorphosis

2009-03-11T08:22:00.003-04:00

I have turned a corner, it seems...finally. I am loving my life with Jonathan. Life is fun, again.

After Chris’ death, I thought lightness was a feeling confined to my past, but I’m beginning to see what I have been told since the beginning of the end -- that I will be happy, again. I already am.

I can tell I have turned a corner, because every few days, I experience a sudden shortness of breath when I realize I haven’t thought about my sweet Chris in a while. I’m having trouble holding onto the horrors of the events leading up to his diagnosis and ultimate death. I’m beginning to lose the sharpness and strength with which those memories used to choke me.

The change is mostly welcome, but I have also been feeling some guilt, which is natural, I suppose. I never want to forget my Chris. Ever. I still want him here, even though he has been gone for over four years. Not a day goes by that I don’t hold images of him in my mind and love for him in my heart, and gratitude towards him for making me the person I am today.

Jonathan and I are in love. I never dreamed love could happen for me, again.

It Must Be Love

2009-02-23T22:29:00.000-05:00

I woke up in the wee hours of Sunday morning and coulnd’t get back to sleep, so I whispered to Jonathan that I was going into the other room to watch the TV for a short while until I felt tired, again. I began to relax and decided to pour myself a glass of water in the spriit of keeping myself hydrated after dehydrating myself with too much exercise and not enough liquid these past few weeks.

Standing at the sink in the dark, I began to feel signs of impending weariness. I closed my eyes for a second and in that second I was overcome with terror. I gasped to catch my breath as the thought invaded my mind, “He’s going to get cancer and die.”

Ah, Sweet Guilt.

2009-02-19T07:35:00.002-05:00

Chris was in my dream, again, last night.

I was trying to wash out the mason jar from which I drink water each day, but it kept overflowing with soapy suds. My sister said, “Oh, that’s too much soap. You can’t drink that.”

I began filling a large pot with water. Once filled, I placed the pot on the edge of the counter, but it fell onto the floor and the water spilled. My sister yelled, “Oh my god, Chris!”

When I turned and looked, Chris was on his back on the floor. He had slipped in the water and fallen and he sat on the floor laughing.

I raced over to him and hugged him, telling him “I’m so sorry!” I held onto him and my thoughts raced through my head, rapid fire, “cancer he has cancer he has cancer he has cancer he has cancer I gave him cancer.”

Then I woke up.

Not My Creej

2009-02-17T15:53:00.002-05:00

I had a strange dream about Chris last night. His friends from Vermont and I were at a folk festival. I was talking with his friend, Bec, when I looked up and saw a man who looked exactly like Chris. My heart leapt and I couldn’t stop looking at him. I felt as though my heart was going to explode out of my chest. But I knew this man wasn’t Chris. He just looked like him. And I knew that, even though he could have been Chris’ clone, ultimately, he wouldn’t be my Chris, no matter what. He’d be different, and I’d notice the difference and my life wouldn’t be the same as it was with him in it. Still, I stared and stared and tried to find even the slightest difference in his and Chris’ appearance, but I could not. He even wore the same clothes; baggy khaki shorts down to his knees, beige suede sneakers, oversized short-sleeve button-down plaid shirt, same glasses…same everything. But not my Chris. This man didn’t know me at all.

I woke up feeling tired and sad.

A Very Late Response to my Commenters

2009-02-17T07:15:00.003-05:00

First of all, I have been wanting to answer the comments that Alicia, Anonymous from CA and Django’s Mommy left on my last post. As always, thank you for sharing and for your well-wishing. I always appreciate the support.

Anonymous, I’m so sorry for your recent loss. You're right about loss being confusing, devastating and crippling, but I hope you know those symptoms, however long they make stick around, are ultimately temporary ones. A friend of mine is living a story similar to yours. Her husband, with whom she has shared her life for 18 years, became ill with MS and then became a heroin addict. I talk with her about it, periodically, and try to offer as much understanding and help as I can. Each loss is unique and only the person who has lost really knows his or her own pain. Loss is death, whether or not the person lost is alive or not.

I hope my journey through the woods has helped and continues to help clear some sort of a path to navigate for anyone who reads my experiences.

I could not figure out how to add my e-mail address to this blog, but if you ever want to contact me privately, Anonymous, and anybody else who would like to, I’d like you to know that you are always welcome to e-mail me at robin@shneed.com.

I hope you’re finding even the slightest bit of peace in your life as you move forward. Your pain will heal and you will feel better, eventually. Please believe, and have faith, and take care of yourself every day.

Shneed

Mount Shneed: A Volanic Eruption of Rage

2009-02-05T08:06:00.002-05:00

I blew up at Susan (therapist), yesterday. I never blow up at anyone. Typically, I go home and blow up all alone in the safety of my solitude. I am usually a self-contained, reserved, in-control person whose emotions remain within the shell of my physical being. My personal belief is that people do not deserve the wrath of my anger, and if I become angry at someone, I usually suck in, process, cool off and then diplomatically air my feelings, when they are no longer on display. But yesterday, I completely lost control and unleashed a backdraft of anger, which has been smouldering below the surface of my psyche, probably since Chris fell ill five years ago, and certainly since his death four years ago, but which has intensified over the last two weeks for a number of reasons I haven’t yet fully admitted or realized.

Susan was trying to arrive at an agreement with me about her cancellation policy which, in itself, is an entirely benign subject. Combined with my cup of rage which had been teetering on the edge of “cup runneth over”, the subject opened the gait that had previously contained my fury, and before I knew what was happening, I was yelling, fighting for my right to be loved, screaming at her for “turning on me” and well on my way out the door promising never to return.

Susan’s good. She remained calm and composed, steering me inward, coaxing me to locate the source of my anger. At first, her calm angered me even more and even though I threatened to leave, my inner-most desire was to sit down and stay. My pride almost got in the way, but ultimately, I engaged in battle with myself, swallowed hard and sat back down to disect what happened.

I’m glad I did.

Expressing anger does not come easy to me. I fear abandonment. The fact that I unleashed my rage on Susan speaks volumes about how much I trust her. I hate that truth. I view that truth as a weakness in my otherwise inpenetrable emotional fort that renders me vulnerable to manipulation, deceit, abandonment and to my own fear, which tells me I have never been worthy of love, and that I never will be. Almost the moment I found love, it was stripped away from me in the most final manner, and if that ever happens again I will not survive the trauma. I’ll die a thousand deaths, right where I stand.

I’m committed to exploring my explosion with Susan. I’m terrified of the emotions trapped inside of me, but I want to let go. My anger gets in the way of my natural demeanor, which is mainly composed of light humor, love, kindness, serenity and joy.

A Framed Gesture of Acceptance

2009-01-30T12:08:00.002-05:00

About a week ago, I decided I was going to take my and Chris’ wedding picture down from its place on the wall at the top of the stairs at the entrance of my apartment, and replace it with a picture of Jonathan and me. I think that when, and if, he notices (Let’s face it. He’s a man, and for all of the importance I placed on the deed, he’ll probably walk right by my framed gesture.) he may be delightfully surprised at my token of affection and forward movement from the “then” into the “now.”

Removing our wedding picture stung. I’m still not sure what to do with this very special record of my past love. At the moment, the photo, still in its frame, sits on the end table next to the chair Chris sat in as I held his hand, talking him out of this world and into the next.

I’m saddened and I feel guilty (of course). I’m erasing my husband. No. Cancer erased my husband. I loved him. I loved being his wife. I loved telling everyone that I was wildly in love with him. I was wildly in love with him.

Still, the fact that he has been transformed into a flattened, paper likeness of the man I knew and loved stings less and less with the entrance of acceptance and the exit of denial and anger.

Jonathan helped me make the switch. He helps me make the switch every day, whether or not he realizes.

Jonathan. I wonder if he’ll notice. If not immediately, then eventually.

Happy Anniversary, Creej.

2009-01-17T07:50:00.003-05:00

There’s a nor’easter brewing within me this morning, and I’m hoping I can drink my coffee, get dressed and get out of my apartment before the storm hits. I can feel my suppression-engine thrusting into overdirve. Not staying in is, perhaps, among the six-hundred milion best plans that have ever hatched in my mind. Today can be a good day, as long as I stick to the plan. Coffee and a movie with a friend, running, weight-training, dinner with another friend. The storm will come, but if I can manage to delay the rain until bed time, at least I can just fall apart and then fall asleep.

I’m afraid of my wedding video, now. I’m afraid to see Chris in motion. I’m afraid to see how happy that bride was, how unbelievable it was to her that she had met a man she loved, who loved her and who, together with him, created a unioin as perfect as the healthiest unioin can be. I’m too afraid, now.

Still, there’s happiness all around me today. I have a choice to follow the sun or the rain. The decision is mine. I don’t want to cry just yet. I don’t want to cry, at all.

Happy 5th wedding anniversary, Creej.

I love you.

Shneed

Grief's Hostage No More

2009-01-16T08:09:00.004-05:00

I’m tired. I have been going to sleep on the couch for the past week, waking up after midnight and transferring my half-sleeping body to my bed.

Tomorrow, Chris and I would have been married 5 years. I can’t believe our wedding, on the Boston Common, was 5 years ago. I can't believe we would have been celebrating 10 years of knowing one another.

I have had a measurable amount of anxiety over the last couple of weeks. Last night, I fell apart, again, just for a short while. Still, I managed to get out and run, donning my brand new cold-weather running apparrel. Unbelievably, 13 degrees didn’t affect me at all. I remained warm enough throughout my entire 4.5 mile run, and then I entered the gym and lifted weights for an hour. Who’s better than me?

I’m glad I have Jonathan. He doesn’t know I cried, last night, but knowing he’s in my life makes my life easier, more safe and less lonely. He’s like a giant queen-sized down comforter who keeps me warm on nights like last night.

I’m not grief’s hostage, the way I once was. I can easily come in and out of the state. I suppose “lucid grieving” would be an accurate label for the state of my grief, these days. Life has gotten easier. Dealing with my loss has become easier, just like other widows before me assured me it would. What I am left with is sort of a “ground zero” of anxiety akin to earthquake aftershocks or tremors. I remain ever-affected under the surface and I really don’t know what I would do without the knowledge that my bottle of Ativan is always full. I almost never take the drug. Each prescrption of 20 pills takes me an average of 8 months to swallow. Not bad for a person who has grown to really enjoy it’s effects. I often refer to Ativan as “the new marijuana” -- bottled peace.

So, another January 17 is before me and of course I’ll feel sad, but I have come a very long way since that first anniversary, when fantasies of suicide promised a possible permanent respite from my pain and anguish.

Initially, I thought I’d stay in for a while tomorrow, watch our wedding video and fall apart, but now I plan to run, hit the gym and hang out with one of my friends, a much more adaptive choice.

Peace out.

Shneed

Spirit Guide

2009-01-12T22:57:00.002-05:00

Dear Chris,

I wish you could be here with me, right now. I’m just sitting on the couch, with the tv muted, thinking about contacting your spirit so I can feel our souls meshed together, again.

I’m nervous that I may not ever feel that soul meshing with Jonathan. Will, I Chris? Can you help me get there? You’re all wise now, right?

What’s it been like in Heaven, if there is such a place? Almost from the moment you died, I have imagined you flying around euphorically, celebrating freedom from your cancer-ridden body. Is Howard with you? Abada? Edna? Are they in love, again?

I think about you every day and I know the times when you’re with me. I can feel your presence sometimes and I become so happy. I feel hugged, cared about and safe when I know you’re with me. You comfort me. How does that work?

You sent that sparrow, didn’t you, to tell me that Jonathan was the man for me. I believe you. I love you and I trust you. Jonathan’s wonderful. How did you get that little bird to climb onto my finger and hop up my arm to sit on my shoulder? I loved it. I love sparrows. You knew that, didn’t you? That was quite a way to let me know you were watching and guiding us towards one another.

I’m scared, Chris. I’m afraid I won’t be good enough for another man. You and I were cookie cutter matches for each other. We were the same. Some days I just don’t know how I’m going to get along without you. Some moments I don’t get along without you.

I need you very much. I wish you hadn’t gone. I still cry. I still need you. I still love you. You’re still precious to me. I can still see the little boy in you and I can still hold you, sometimes, just like I feel you sometimes holding me. Thank you for that.

I need you more than ever now. I’m scared. I want to be strong enough to allow myself to go with Jonathan completely. I still feel like I’m hurting you by doing that. i still feel like I’m cheating on you. I still feel like it’s wrong to leave you standing alone on the other side when all I really want to do is run through the veil, wrap my arms around you and hold you, and thank you for knowing me.

I wish I could see you tonight in my dreams. I wish you’d come.

Shneed

Dual

2009-01-05T22:27:00.005-05:00

I got through the anniversary cluster; Chris’ birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. One more anniversary to go. Our anniversary. January 17.

I had a wonderfully joyous weekend, this past, and I’m a bit surprised to admit that I’m feeling some more sadness today, probably due to the upcoming anniversary. It’s okay. Actually, it isn’t okay. I feel anxiety. I hate it. I feel sadness. I hate that, too. I worked out extensively this evening, and the exercise helped a lot, but endorphins, like any other vice, are a temporary fix. I know I’ll be okay.

I have been thinking about Chris, a lot, lately. I can see his face so clearly in my mind’s eye. I feel like I just saw him, yesterday, and I feel like I haven’t seen him in years. I miss him.

I’d like to be open, but there’s a part of me that’s terrified to feel. When I’m with Jonathan, I love him. When I think about him, I love him. But I think about Chris, too, and I still love him, too. I love someone I can never see again and I love someone I can see whenever I want to. I don't want to lay this on him, though. It's my crap, not his.

Maybe I’m just tired, tonight. I’m chalking up my sadness to weariness. A good night’s sleep and tomorrow’s cup of coffee are just around the corner.

Griefquake

2008-12-29T12:40:00.012-05:00

My husband died almost 4 years ago, and contrary to popular belief, the pain doesn’t go away in one year, in fact, I believe the pain never goes away and that I’m just going to move on with a cavity in my soul for the rest of my life. But that may only be my belief this week, the anniversary week of Chris’ death. God, I hope that’s true, because I can’t feel like this for very long if I intend to continue being the basically happy person I am.

Lucky for me, Carol just called and interrupted my brief but powerful griefquake. Its intensity level exploded off the rector scale.

I answered her call by saying, “Wow. Your social worker senses must have been tingling.” She laughed and asked me if I was having a meltdown. Then we talked and laughed for a while about how my car broke down on the Pike last night and how I called her just to let someone know what was happening. The state police couldn’t find me, so I waited two hours for them to locate and push my car to the breakdown lane. Ugh. Then I waited another hour for the tow truck. Not surprisingly, I remained calm and upbeat throughout the entire experience.

Experiencing the death of a soul mate has changed my entire perspective on life. Being imprisoned within my car on the Pike for three hours is hardly a daunting experience by comparison. Instead of getting upset, I visited the guy who was broken down ahead of me and we chit-chatted about how thankful we were that we didn’t break down in last week’s snow storm, and that it was reasonably warm out and that the police came and that the tow truck was on the way. Life is all about choices.

True, I did not choose to be widowed, but an endless supply of choices are always at my disposal. I did not choose to be sucked into a whirlpool of grief this morning, but I did choose to answer the phone when I saw it was Carol calling. I knew I’d feel better after talking with her.

Choices.

I get it, God.

I was just reminded of an Alanis Morrisette song from a bazillion years ago. The song’s lyrics always had a strong impact on me, even more so, now.

You Learn

I recommend getting your heart trampled on to anyone
I recommend walking around naked in your living room
Swallow it down (what a jagged little pill)
It feels so good (swimming in your stomach)
Wait until the dust settles

You live you learn
You love you learn
You cry you learn
You lose you learn
You bleed you learn
You scream you learn

I recommend biting off more then you can chew to anyone
I recommend sticking your foot in your mouth at any time
Throw it down (the caution blocks you from the wind)
Hold it up (to the rays)
You wait and see when the smoke clears

Wear it out (the way a three-year-old would do)
Melt it down (you're gonna have to eventually anyway)
The fire trucks are coming up around the bend

You grieve you learn
You choke you learn
You laugh you learn
You choose you learn
You pray you learn
You ask you learn
You live you learn

During my griefquake, I cried, I called Chris a fucking asshole for getting cancer and leaving me alone. I swore I would never feel as much in love with anybody else as I felt with him. I felt that love, again, and then I felt the exact reflection of that love in blackened, rotting hatred toward him.

And now I have emerged from the darkness back into the light and I’m looking forward to enjoying Jonathan’s presence over dinner, this evening.

Chapter Next

2008-12-24T22:01:00.003-05:00

The body’s ability to act out a memory is quite an amazing phenomenon.

I had a wonderful day today, visiting my mother and her boyfriend with my sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew. The weather was not ideal, but in the presence of my family, the sun shone brightly and warmly.

I suppose I have been experiencing anxiety from the time I awoke, this morning. I had trouble waking up, and I struggled with waves of grogginess and headaches throughout the day. I thought nothing of it until the drive home, when I began to feel nauseous and physically uncomfortable, achy, tense and just plain skin-crawly. I figured the heat in the car was too much for me to endure. Even so, I remained excited about coming home to take a nice run. I did just that.

It’s tough to run in the snow. Last night, I ran 4 miles, through slush, ice and puddles. I ran to the gym with thoughts of participating in a 30-minute cardio-class, but I was the only person interested in taking the class, and so it did not take place. I didn’t care. At my gym, there’s there’s always a risk of any particular class not running during its scheduled time, which is really no big deal. I simply always have a “plan B” prepared in case, so I had already accepted the existence of the possibility that I might end up running to the gym and then reversing my direction and running right back home. Either way, I got a nice workout, even though my feet were completely soaking wet and freezing by the time I returned home. I was exhausted. My snow-mound climbing and puddle-jumping nearly doubled my running time.

Tonight’s run was also difficult. I guess I thought the warmer temperature would magically melt every bit of snow and leave the sun shining well past dusk, and cause flowers to bloom throughout the city in a fresh burst of springtime. I now understand the error of my way. I ran 5.5 miles, mostly following Mass Ave. which is a pretty safe run, very well lit and usually teaming with people. But tonight is Christmas Eve, and everything closed early. I had originally planned to run 6.25 miles, straight over the Harvard Bridge and back, but the cold, wet darkness and barren streets caused me to fear for my safety, so I reversed direction early and ran back through the strangely deserted Central and Harvard Squares, yearning for my warm, dry living room.

Running often stirs up my emotions, loosening my denial and purging my anxiety. I no sooner locked the door behind me when I sat, immediately, on the floor in the hallway, against the wall and sobbed uncontrollably.

Four years ago tonight, I could hear Chris’ pain and I could do nothing to help him. That night, I slept on the couch, trying to drown out the sounds and praying that Chris would fall asleep.

Tomorrow will mark the four-year anniversary of the last time I would drive Chris to the hospital, and even though I had a wonderful day today, my body remembered the trauma, and I knew I had to stay home tonight and allow myself to feel and to react to my memories. It’s not so bad. I feel nervous and sad,. but I’m in control, and I’m looking forward to more holiday fun at my father’s house tomorrow.

And I’m looking forward to Jonathan’s return from Pennsylvania, next week. I can see what’s on offer for me this year, and I’m ready to begin shedding the past, if I can. Jonathan’s arms are a sweet safe-haven and I am relishing the safety I feel within them and within him.

All in all, I’m feeling pretty lucky. I’m still very much hurting about what happened to Chris. I'm aware that I am exiting the widow express and beginning a new chapter of life, with Jonathan, whom I am so happy to have met.

Winterscape

2008-12-21T11:10:00.006-05:00

Friday, before the snowstorm hit, I visted the supermarket and bought all of the ingredients to make a delicious rotini pasta and homemade meat sauce dinner, complete with garlic bread and all the makin’s for hot fudge sundaes for Jonathan and me. I hadn’t cooked for him, yet, in fact I regularly claimed that I didn’t know how to cook. I was scared.

One of the most difficult things to resume after Chris’ demise was cooking. We cooked for and with each other all the time, and the first time I made my meat sauce with Chris no longer here, I trembled the entire time, fighting to catch my breath and keep from submitting to the dizzying grief and anxiety that threatened to take me down. My cooking was for Chris and nobody else, so my snap decision to cook for Jonathan took me completely by pleasant surprise.

We’re growing together. Our relationship is happening. The growth is real, and the ever-strengthening, all-enveloping fibers are nice, comforting and welcome in my life.

I spent 24 hours with him this weekend, enjoying doing pretty much absolutely nothing together, a very pleasant way to share our time.

This morning, Boston is getting hit with another snowstorm, which is a beautiful and magical sight out my Charles Dickens, criss-cross window panes, and even though I’m painfully aware I will need to venture out later on and exhume my car from the snowy rubble, my “right now” is quite intoxicating. Heck, I have not yet let go of the possibility of taking a run around the winterscaped Charles River later this afternoon, however impractical. I’m nothing if I’m not completely insane. Well, perhaps “eccentric” is a kinder word, if I am even worthy of a term of such honor. I’m claiming it as my own. I’ll take eccentric over practical, any day.

My snowy weekend is not without thoughts of my Chris, feelings of sadness for his pain, and gratitude for the end of that pain and for having known and loved each other as deeply as we had.

Jonathan is going away to visit his family for the holiday, and even though I will miss him and I will wait, anxiously for his return, I’m feeling good about having the space to process missing my Chris, while simultaneously buildling a kind, caring, loving, sweet, healthy relationship with the next love of my life.

Shneed

Not How. That.

2008-11-30T19:49:00.003-05:00

My relationship with Jonathan continues to grow in many wonderful ways. I enjoy being in his arms and talking with him, holding him and just knowing he’s there.

Anxiety has not been absent from my mind and body, however, and I find myself needing to step back -- just a few paces -- now and again, in order to process my new love relationship. All in all, things are going very well. We have wonderful times together. I need to process, and I hope he doesn’t leave because I sometimes need to be with my own thoughts. I haven’t explained any of this to him, because there really is no need to open this door in his life. Grief is a part of my life, not his.

I spent the day with Bonnie, Beth and the girls today (Chris’ mom, sister and 10-year-old nieces, Emily and Hannah) and now I just need to be by myself. Jonathan said he understands, and I believe him, but I still feel a bit guilty about my choice. We’ll see each other next, Friday evening.

Meanwhile, I try to breathe in Jonathan and breathe out Chris, figuratively speaking. I’m no longer in love wth a dead man. I am now falling in love with a wonderful man who is very much alive. I want my life to consist of a partnership between Jonathan and me, and even though I have snagged my sock on a big old clump of grief-induced anxiety, I know I will overcome, and very soon. Two steps forward, one step back and so on.

After our trip to the Museum of Science, I took Bonnie, Beth and the girls to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. Hannah began to cry. When we asked her what was wrong, she could barely choke out the words, “I’m going to miss Grammie.” She was exhausted, and she became upset that if she fell asleep, nobody would wake her up to say goodbye to Bonnie (Grammie). In my mind, I formlated an idea that perhaps she was expressing her sadness for losing Chris, Howard and Edna and possibly her fear of losing Bonnie. I told the story to Jonathan. Now, here in my room with my own thoughts -- one Ativan to the wind -- I realize that I was really trying to convey my own fear of loss to Jonathan. All this time I thought I was afraid of letting go of Chris, but now I see that I have already let go of my dear husband and that my real fear lies in letting go of myself, again.

I don’t quite know how I’m going to do that. I only know that I’m going to do it.

Happy Birthday, Creej.

2008-11-23T07:36:00.003-05:00

Today is Chris’ birthday and I’m pretty certain that he wouldn’t want me to cry all day, so I’m going to have to somehow find a way to stop. I feel like throwing up. I wish I could throw up.

After Chris died, I had my and his wedding bands and my engagement ring soldered together, moved the diamond from my thin band to his thicker band, and added six sapphire chips to symbolize the six years we were together. I’m wearing my ring, today, as a gesture of remembrance. Today, Chris would have been 38 years old.

Lately I have been feeling like I want to wear my ring, again, now that I’m not dating. I took it off in a fit of rage, last Christmas Eve. I also took it off because I was dating and I didn’t want men to see it and think I was married. The ring is beautiful, though, and I would love to keep in on my right hand. I just need to find a tactful way to find out how Jonathan would feel. Maybe he wouldn’t mind at all. I may ask him.

Last night, we shared with each other that we’re in love. :) I have been dying to sign my e-mails, “Love, Robin” but I hadn’t been able to muster up the courage, for fear of scaring him away. I think he just may be unscarable.

I’m heading to Western Massachusetts, today, to spend Chris’ birthday with Bonnie, Beth and my girls (the twins). It’s the only place I want to be, today and they’re the only people I want to be with. For all the horrible events that have occurred, I managed to glean a beautiful, loving family who are so dear to my heart, that it hurts (in a good way).

Happy Birthday, Creej.
I love you.
I always will.

Love, Shneed

A Quiet Calm

2008-11-18T07:46:00.001-05:00

I have missed being held and hugged and wanted for so long, and now I am all of those things. Jonathan makes me very happy. I hope he stays. :)

Shneed

Gentle Guidance

2008-11-07T13:53:00.002-05:00

My favorite show, which I have been getting through Netflix, is, not surprisingly, Ghost Whisperer. The show is about a woman who can see and talk to the dead. Her quest to help cross earthborn spirits cross over into the light fuels my fantasy and hopes that people who have died exist around us, in spirit, helping us navigate through our lives.

Last night I fell apart a little, as I periodically do, after one of the episodes. The experience of crying is usually a cathartic one for me, helping me let go of the rain clouds that build up within my spirit. I began talking to Chris, asking him to help me let go and to help me continue to embrace forward movement.

He was in my dream, last night. As usual, he was wearing his brown courdoroy jacket and thick black glasses. The dream had no dialogue – just Chris’ image standing before me. I felt enchanted.

When I woke up this morning, my first thought was, “I want Jonathan.” :)

Progress, at last.

Shneed.

Flicker

2008-10-23T22:27:00.003-04:00

He’s nice
and I flicker.

He flickers.

Boy to man
Man to boy
and back.

Girlfriend to wife
Wife back to girlfriend
and I stay.

It’s him
and it isn’t him,
and I’m me
but I’m not.

Where will I go?
Where will we go?

Onward. :)

Still Falling

2008-10-19T11:39:00.001-04:00

I'm experiencing so many wonderful emotions that I can't even formulate a sentence to express how I feel. :)

His Eye is on the Sparrow, And I know He watches me.

2008-10-06T12:31:00.002-04:00

Perhaps the fact that I haven’t written about him is indication enough that I’m beginning to feel something I haven’t felt in a very long time, something I have been waiting to feel again, and hoping to feel again.

Until last week, I had forbidden my friends from speaking to me about him. That way, I could enjoy the feelings that surfaced every time I was with him and still retreat back into denial in order to cope with old feelings of guilt, feelings I have always known I would eventually have to face. There are no shortcuts in grief. Every emotion felt must be faced in order to gain entry into a future pregnant with fortitude, happiness, forgiveness and health.

Four years is a very long time. Some say it’s too long, but what is time when a loss of such magnitude, the loss of a spouse, completely consumes a person’s world? Time stands still. A four-year time span is difficult for people who haven’t had the experience to wrap their minds around. Instead, talk of the “one-year mark” circulates because the sooner the ones left behind feel better, the sooner the people in their lives can stop feeling so sad for them. A common thought is that all of the “firsts” are over with after one year. Not true. There are firsts I didn’t even know existed. There was the first time I went back to school, the first time I moved, the first time I made the dean’s list, the first time I got a new job, the first time I’m going to apply for my Ph.D. in Psychology and the first time I met a man I felt I could really be with. That’s four years and counting.

It’s not a matter of dwelling. It’s a matter of knowing. Knowing a person who once walked the earth is no longer here. Where do dead people go? I carry with me a sense of wonder, and I believe I am surrounded by souls who, no longer bound by flesh and bone, have the power to touch our lives in very beautiful ways.

While sitting on a bench on the edge of Spy Pond, yesterday, Jonathan and I witnessed a most beautiful occurrence. A small sparrow flew down from wherever he had been perched and landed on the ground, 6-inches from Jonathan’s foot. I said, “That’s strange. Sparrows never get that close.” I know, because I love sparrows and I periodically try to feed them whenever I sit outside drinking coffee and snacking on some decadent piece of flaky pastry. Typically, sparrows will perch on the chair across the table from me and wait for me to throw crumbs their way, but every attempt I have made to lure one closer has failed.

Yesterday, the little sparrow jumped up onto the bench where we sat and walked behind Jonathan. I stood and moved to his other side, waiting for the precious bird to appear. When he did, I extended my hand, placing it on the bench in front of him and my new little friend placed one of his little bird-feet on my pinky finger, hopped up onto my hand and proceeded to walk the entire length of my arm to my shoulder where he sat for at least 20 seconds. My heart filled, and a flood of emotion surged throughout my body. I wanted to cry and I wanted to laugh.

I moved very slowly, so as not to frighten him, and when he was ready, he flew from my shoulder, landed on the ground and continued on his way, leaving behind two very affected people, still frozen in disbelief.

My brother has always told me that when a sparrow lands near you, God is watching. My sparrow was a sign from Chris that everything is right and that he approves of my new friend, a man I feel I may be falling in……..to be continued.

Losing Loss

2008-09-15T08:26:00.006-04:00

I just woke up, got ready for work, read this article (the Boston Boxing and Fitness part) -- http://www.newenglandsportsmag.com/features/gonna-make-you-sweat.html -- and began to cry. I think my anxiety about letting go of Chris, and the time I have spent grieving, bubbled to the top of my consiousness and I had to let it out.

The boxing gym, at first, was a place I could go to expend some anger, punch the bags, work out to the point of complete exhaustion -- in order to kill my grief -- and feel as though I was out somehwere, instead of holed up in my apartment. The gym has always offered me a sense of community and a feeling that I ‘m working, along with everyone there, toward a common goal.

When I first joined, the one-on-one attention I received from the trainers was something I needed, something I craved, a knock-off replacement for the attention Chris provided me on a daily basis. I just needed to feel like somebody cared about me.

Reading the article reminded me about how the drill-sergeant training style made me laugh everytime I was there. The style was bizarrre to me and felt like jovial overkill, to the point where I didn’t realize, or mind, that i was being pushed far beyond any prior beliefs about where my limits lied. I loved that. I still do.

I’m moving forward. The boxing gym is old hat, now. The way I felt when I joined is fading and that fact makes me cry. What’s happening? I must be healing. Healing is painful because it denotes a parting of the familiar, a parting of helplessness, the reclaiming of a life shattered by death.

I’m finding myself simultaneously panicked and hopeful about the loss of my feelings of loss. My loss is all I have had over these past four years and, as strange as this may sound, I don’t know how to live without my loss. Loss has become love.

I guess I’ll have to replace that habit with a habit of happiness and love.

For now, I guess it’s okay for me to cry.

Fortunate

2008-09-08T08:07:00.002-04:00

The inner-workings of the brain (I suppose ALL of the workings of the brain are “inner’) never cease to amaze me. My own nut truly is a puzzle.

I have been dating a man for the past six weeks, or so, and for the first time in a long time, I’m beginning to believe in the possibility that I could find love, again, whether with this man, or another. Love feels attainable. I really like this man, though, and he seems to really like me, too.

So, what happened? I fell asleep the other night and dreamed that the two of us were on the bus talking and laughing. Little by little, he began to change, until he got up, moved to the other side of the bus and laid down with his head in another man’s lap. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that his face was perspiring and that his face began to morph into my Chris’ face. His eyes went blank, the way Chris’ did when he died.

Neither Chris nor this man had blue eyes, but the eyes of the man in my dream were bright blue, much brighter than anything else in my dream. My analysis is that the eyes were unfamiliar and unrecognizable.

I remember being in my kitchen with Chris, near the end, and realizing that through his morphine haze (yes, he was up and walking, even then) that day would probably be the last day he would look at me and recognize me, the way he always used to.

Even though I feel very happy about this man I have just met, my brain is acutely aware of my fear of losing anybody else who enters the part of my life where love is concerned.

My fear is valid...at least 50% valid. Unless a couple dies together, one of them will definitely know the pain of losing the other, eventually.

That’s just the cycle of life.

I feel very fortunate that I am willing to go there, again. The alternative is a life spent alone.

Shneed

Z

2008-08-25T07:35:00.001-04:00

I don’t know why I fought going back onto an antidepressant. There’s a part of me that feels stigmatized, even though I would never stigmatize another for enlisting the aid of a mood elevator. Zoloft has returned me to a state of peace, or piece (of mind).

With the exception of an occasional outburst, my crying attacks have gone into remission and I now feel content during the time I spend by myself. All things considered, I probably should have made this decision much sooner than I did.

I have been dating, meeting many nice men, having nice times, feeling like a deisreable woman, again. Still, I find the fact that I don’t get to know my future competely annoying, but that’s the design. I didn’t write the rules.

In other news, I'm producing and preparing my solo cabaret act, which I hope to perform sometime in early 2009. I'm studying for the GRE, since I have decided to apply for a Ph.D. program in psychology and I am running and boxing and weight training, as per usual. Life is busy, just the way I like it.

Overall, I am just so happy to come home and produce completed homework assignments, polished songs and friendly support, instead of just producing tears.

Z. It does a body good.

Shneed

The Key

2008-07-30T22:39:00.001-04:00

July is almost over and even though I’m not sure what I will write about today, I feel the need to write for therapeutic purposes.

I saw my therapist today. We have only used hypnosis once, so far, and it helped quite a bit. I’m no fool. I don’t fancy hypnosis to be a magical reshaping of my mind. Instead, I see the treatment as a placebo that works simply because I believe it works.

A friend of mine was surprised to find out that I remembered everything that happened during the time I was “under.” I explained that a hypnotic state is one in which I retreat to completely and utterly willingly. I make a choice to go with and visualize exactly as the hypnotist (my therapist, in this case) instructs. I go places and entertain thoughts of my own accord, really. I want to go.

I liken hypnosis to systematic desensitization. Both treatments involve deep breathing (relaxing, for those, like me, who don’t typcially engage in the act) while visualizing and experiencing, in one’s own mind, issues, thoughts and situations that are otherwise frightening, anxitety-inducing or just plain ugly. Mixing those thoughts with relaxation, defuses their harmful effects and before long (hopefully) the hypnotee is able to either abolish such thoughts, ore lessen their mal-effects.

Today was not a hypnosis day, though. Today I talked about my own frightening, anxitety-inducing, just plain ugly issues, thoughts and situations. I never knew the meaning of the word “ugly” until I experienced the horror of cancer.

For now, I have all but come to a decision to begin a regime of anti-depressant/anti-anxiety medication while moving forward with hypnosis and talk-therapy. I want to be free.

Susan (therapist) and I have agreed that in my next hynotic state, I will try to place all of my sad memories into a box to which only I hold they key. I can close and put the box away, knowing that if I ever want or need to, I can pull the contents off the shelf and visit my past.

My goal is to not feel that need, at least not as often as I do now.

In Response to DM's Comment

2008-07-05T08:22:00.003-04:00

In repsonse to DM’s comment to my last post, I’d like to say that she is so right on every count. I have woven Chris into the very fabric of my being. I approach much of my life and respond to many situations using philosophies that were unknown to me before we met.

I suppose semantics could be at fault for the blurring of part of my writings. I repeatedly make reference to “letting go of my husband” and it wasn’t until I read DM’s comment that I realized what I really mean when I say that is “letting go of my sub-conscious, deep-seated and futile hopes that there’s a shred of a possibility of his physical return to me and to my life. Even though I know that sounds crazy, I’m talking about an overall emotion I have and not about any actual realistic hopes I have.

I believe that love never dies and I believe that when my time comes, I’ll be seeing Chris (in some form) again.

My grief has taken on a life of its own, which I know I have allowed to happen.

What I hope to do with hypnosis is allow myself to relax and admit (even though I know this, logically) that Chris is not going to return to my life and that things are never going to be the way they were. My subconscious belief to the contrary has become a very stubborn, harmful, life-sucking force, which I plan to erase very soon.

As always, DM, thank you very much for posting. I hope you had a wonderful holiday.

Shneed

My Cold, Dead Hands

2008-06-30T22:12:00.001-04:00

Last week, a friend of mine offered his complete honesty to me. There is little else in this world that I value as much as honesty within my friendships.

He has been reading my grief-rantings for the past few years and made mention of the few months in which I wrote very little, and those months in which I wrote nothing at all. In his mind, he guessed (and hoped) I was doing well, feeling better, and that that’s why I wrote less. Less time to stop and smell the grief. I confirmed his belief, stating that in true artist form, I write most often when I am feeling miserable. When my writing is sparse, happiness is abundant.

I also shared with him my own frustration with the state of my mind, part of which is still riddled with sadness, shock, denial and anger, even after three and half years. At times, I am maddened by the pesistence of grief in my life. I’m angry that my brain still dons the chains of loss. I am annoyed with myself for not “getting over it” faster, in the same way Chris was admittedly “annoyed” with his cancer.

My friend said grief can be self-indulgent, and I agree with him. I know, because I’m living within the confines of self-indulgent grief. I have been enduring a pattern of night-meltdowns, every night, sometimes immediately after walking through my door and sometimes immediately before I fall asleep.

When I grieve my loss, Chris is kept alive. The day I let go, will be a very sad day, for on that day Chris will die again. I know I have said before that grief has another side, a side that feels good, because grieving my loss feels right. Letting go of my husband feels wrong. Hence, my self-indulgence.

My new therapist is going to work with me, using hypnotherapy, in an attempt (hopefully a successful one) to help me let go of the white-knuckled grip I still have on my Chris, my hopes, my dreams, my plans, and a future that never was and never will be. I am unable to release the grip on my own. She believes she can help me, and I need to believe she can, too.

I no longer wish to live a life asserting that I will let go of my husband when he is pried out of my cold, dead hands.

I’d like to let go while I’m still alive.

Two Dreams

2008-06-16T07:56:00.002-04:00

A few nights ago I had a cute dream about Chris.

We were on the orange line coming home from Boston. When we got to Malden Station and the doors opened, Chris wrapped his arms around me from behind, pulled my newsboy cap down over my eyes and pulled me off of the train. Laughing, I said, “Hey, you can’t do that to me!”

We both laughed.

I felt that old familar warmth that was ever-present when we were being playful together.

Then last night I dreamed about us, again.

We were laying on metal chaise lounges, holding hands outside of a local Starbuck’s. I said to him, “I like closing my eyes and listening to all of the different conversations happening around me.” Chris said, “Oh, I don’t have that.”

I wondered what it was like on the other side.

As usual, in my dreams about Chris, I loved being with him and I woke up wishing it could be.

And Just Like That...

2008-05-22T19:17:00.003-04:00

I woke up feeling wonderful, yesterday, and the feeling stuck. Just as quickly as the ambush occurred, the enemy retreated and I am feeling happy, again.

I have decided to do a solo cabaret show for which I have begun to prepare. The decision is an indication to me that there is truth in the phrase “2 steps forward, one step back.” I have been wanting to perform my own show for a few years, since before Chris died. In fact, he used to get irritated with me for talking about the song list for years and never doing anything to turn the dream into a reality. Since his death, I have pondered the idea a few times but have not been able to commit to the task. Plus, I had been holding onto a concept which included telling the story of what happened to Chris and singing a song or two to support the idea. At this particular moment, it appears as though I may not mention Chris at all. That’s progress. I’m better at comedy that I ever was at tragedy, anyway.

I’m excited. The only time I ever feel absolute absence of all things sad is when I am singing a song, telling a melodic story, disappearing into the subtext and giving everything I have inside of me to an audience who I bring with me, along for the fantastical ride. I’m targeting September for a date. I just have to find a venue, hire some musicians and put my nose to the grindstone.

I’m going to put down my laptop and enjoy the feeling of my body, finally in as much of a relaxed state as its muscles ever get, which is still moderately aroused. Oh well. I’ll take what I can get, just as long as this respite from grief lasts.

Cheers.

Shneed

"Dont make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

2008-05-20T13:15:00.003-04:00

Last night, I dreamed Chris proposed to me again, and that we were going to be married. I think I may have had that dream once before since he died. As usual, I felt my entire chest cavity fill to capacity with love, goodness and emotion for which there are no words, just as it did during the time we shared.

I awoke feeling calm, like everything is okay, but even so, I also had to swallow my tears on the bus to Harvard Square.

Lately, I have been prone to grief-meltdowns during the time I spend alone, which is most often at night. I’m still not certain what causes the constant ebb and flow of despair at such a late stage in the game. I only know that my grief is never really gone. The sadness and anger go on hiatus, and consistent cheer and happiness stay for extended visits, but I don’t believe grief ever leaves for good.

While trying to understand what grief feels like for me, one of my friends likened my state to that of a multiple personality disorder or possibly to a “Jekyll and Hyde” story. I corrected her, stating that what little I know about schizophrenia seems more accurate, even though I don’t suffer from the disorder. I, myself, feel like the portrayed character of John Nash in the movie, "A Beautiful Mind." Grief lives alongside me, like the people in his dillusions that he, ultimately chose to ignore. Most of the time, I'm able to ignore my grief and the flashes of images from my experience that try to haunt me. I'm not always effectively able to, though, so I end up collapsing under their weight, like an accused witch being pressed to death.

"You're sad! Admit it!"
"No! I'm not! I'm fine!"
"Admit that you're grief-stricken!"
"No!"
"Admit to your sins!"
"Okay! I'm sad! I'm still sad!"

But I get nothing for having admitted to my sadness, except a crushing meltdown that either leaves me shaking on the sofa or passed out from sheer exhaustion.

The character, David Banner, from the 70's show, "The Incredible Hulk" (“Don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”) is another good analogy. He, like I, spent his days searching for the scientific answers and the antidote that will end his transformations into the beast he becomes and allow him to return to a normal life.

I don’t feel like two different people. Instead, I feel like a person who is constantly sitting, standing and/or walking next to a black storm-cloud filled with what happened. The cloud, pregnant with images, memories, despair and un-granted wishes floats next to me. My course of action has been to try to ignore its presence and keep on moving.

Anyone who has experienced soreness in a muscle or an extremity and kept touching or moving the injured body part to see if the pain was still there, can understand how I can end up, repeatedly, floating into the cloud and into the pain.

This latest onset of repeat-grief is particularly menacing. As I have mentioned before, I may have ended my therapy in haste. I don’t want to return to Clay. His job is one well done.

I may begin to try to work with a woman psychologist I have found who specializes in loss, cognition and behavior, and hypnosis. I have never talked with a professional whose specialty has been grief. Every time I found those credentials in someone, I was told I was too far out in my grief process or not far out enough. I was even told by a grief-counselor I met with (she also lost her husband many years earlier – seemed a perfect match for my plight) that I could expect to receive some literature from her in the mail and that she would call me to set up another appointment. She did neither. I’m not sure of the reason(s), but she never contacted me.

Still, every ounce of help I have received has made a difference for the better. I don’t pretend that my situation is an easy one to help. I give kudos to any therapist who attempts to lend an ear.

So, I suppose I’ll make the phone call and begin, once again, to tell my story. I need to tell my story, repeatedly. There is healing in the telling.

And if healing is my goal, then I suppose I ought to begin retelling.

The Lynching

2008-05-08T07:58:00.001-04:00

I know the dangers of studying psychology - a student’s tendency to diagnose herself with a new disorder with each passing chapter. Still, I suffered from anxeity long before I began studying anxiety disorder. So which came first? My anxiety, or my psychology text book?

I have to admit, reading about post-traumatic stress disorder, last week, caused me to lose traction in my treck upward. Even though nobody seems to think I suffer from PTSD, I could have been reading about myself in my text for all of the similarities between the pages in my book and the pages in my own personal story.

For example, in talking with my brother on the phone last night, after a very slight (by comparison to clinically-diagnosed folk) panic attack that began at the mall (even though I’m usually ashamed to admit that I even set foot into a mall -- but Macy’s, man, y’know?) I popped the cork on some pent up angst I had been experiencing for the better part of a week.

I have spent the past three weeks preparing for and then working, day and night, at a conference, attending marathon rehearsals for the show I’m doing (which is opening this Satruday evening), studying for and taking two psychology exams and then scrambling to continue my reading so as to not fall behind for the next two upcoming exams, plus managing to get in three workouts a week, all while working full-time.

I’m never one to admit that I have taken on too much. Usually my friends think I have, even though my capacity to handle many activities at once is unbreakable. I have been practicing and thriving on such a schedule for many, many years. However, since Chris died, I find that when I don’t leave myself time to think about him, grief begins vying for the spotlight, pushing its ugly head up, up, up, competing for its place on the stage.

Yesterday, as panic set in, I began to feel completely exposed, fat, sloppy and unattractive. I needed to get out of the mall and get home as fast as possible. Because I identified the anxiety, I wasn’t freaked out by the symptoms. I began breathing and walking to the train station, telling myself everything is okay.

What happened then is what makes me think I have some semblance of PTSD-like symptoms. In the middle of telling myself, “Everything is okay,” my chest completely bottomed-out and I lost my breath. My very next thought was, “Except that Chris is still dead.” In one-second’s time, my brain unscrambled the message,”If everything is okay...and Chris is still dead...then what I’m essentially saying is that it’s okay that Chris is dead.” and my thoughts formed a cord that wrapped around my neck and instantly strangled me.

What happened? A flashback? A typical grief-reaction? Exhaustion? I’m not really sure. I’m not a person who is controlled by anxiety, but I was yesterday.

I don’t know what my next course of action will be. Maybe I was hasty in ending my therapy. I may benefit from talking with somebody new and trying to change some of my cognitions about life and death and about how much I deserve to be “okay” without “okay” meaning I have forgotten about Chris.

41.

2008-05-02T09:33:00.001-04:00

41 today. Chris has been gone for three and a half years. He would have been 37, but according to God’s plan, Chris is forever 34.

What’s different this year, from last year? First of all, I’m the one who designed the celebration and invited my friends to dinner, this year. As far as my birthday goes, grief is nonexistent.

I have a wish. Six, or so, of the courses I have taken at school have been taught by the same professor. I like his classes because his life experience in his work is extremely fascinating. The man works at Dana Farber Cancer Institute, which he announces at the beginning of each class, as was the case the first time I ever took one of his classes.

The second he announced his employment, I experienced a fusion in my mind. He was there, working, at the same time I was getting the news that my husband was dying.

I’m not sure what that means. Something psychological happened and I’d like to understand what that something is. Transference? I don’t know. I’m not opposed to asking him, as long as I can do so sans emotion. A simple e-mail would take care of that end of things. His job, in my world, is professor, not therapist. The trouble is that because he is a therapist outside of his teaching job, I keep feeling a pull toward him. I suppose there are worse things in life than recruiting my professor to lend a little bit of his day-life expertise to me. He offered his help in the past when I asked about missing class to attend a grief-support group.

That’s my very simple wish, easily granted if I choose to request.

Beyond that, my grief is manageable. The guilt I feel about my grief being manageable causes me 2nd-tier grief...or should I say 2nd “tear” grief.

Happy Birthday Me

My Wish

2008-04-12T21:23:00.001-04:00

Wow. A month has gone by since my last post.

I’m running 6.5 miles these days, and doing another show. School is in full swing and I am within 9 classes of my degree in Psychology.

My life is good. I’m lonely, but my life is good. I have been dating, and dating still makes me sad because it reminds me of my Chris and all that happened.

I do wonder if I will ever be free of my sadness -- sadness that comes and goes, but sadness that comes, nonetheless.

Dating is hard. The age of online dating has brought with it a breed of people who decide, in advance, every minute detail they want in place before they will even consider each other as partners. What difference does it make whether a person has brown hair or is no taller than 5’3” and no heavier than 130 pounds? What ever happened to personality and charm? In the age of online dating, they’re less important than physicality.

What I would like most in the world is to meet a kind, patient man who will empathize with what I have been through and treat me with patience and understanding, and love me, despite how sad I can get at times. I mean, everybody gets sad at times, right? It’s not that bad an affliction.

I feel as though I have had the daylights scared out of me, forever. The fear that comes along with a loved one’s cancer diagnosis, battle and death are insurmountable.

I’m not going to give up. There’s another man out there for me and I know that if I keep dating, we'll find each other.

I don't want to be alone, anymore.

Tripped-up, again, but otherwise wonderful,
Shneed

Return to Me

2008-03-12T21:24:00.001-04:00

I am in a nice, relaxed mood and I am feeling quite happy, sitting in my living room, enjoying some downtime and daydreaming about sleeping. As James Brown so melodically screamed, “I feel good.”

My life, over the past few weeks, has...it has...illuminated. I don’t know how else to explain the difference in lighting. My world looks different, again, just like it looked different after Chris’ death.

After his death, my perception of the world was one that painted a picture of a model city, a model world. Grey, ominous structures towered over me, and rows and rows of contiguous constructions kept me trapped in the middle on a course I didn’t want to take. I could feel myself from the inside out, but not from the outside. My skin felt numb and inpetetrable. My emotions were first frozen and then broken. My brain sent signals to my body to feel, but the signals never reached my senses.

Today, about a month after ending my 2.5-year grief-therapy with Clay, I am surprised that I have cried less than a handful of times, since. Mostly, I’m happy. The world looks beautiful to me, which is, in part, due to the fact that my world begins in Cambridge each day. I am partial to the city. My skin absorbs the warmth of the sun, now, and I feel more healed now than I have ever before. I want to be out because I love socializing. I want to be in because I feel reflective and protective of my fledgling spirit. I no longer want to be in because I am hiding and I no longer want to be out because I am running, running, running from my reality. My reality is changed.

Saturday, I ran 4.5 miles, in the freezing rain, with a headcold and when I returned home, every symptom was gone. Not surprisingly, on Sunday every symptom had returned. I ran another 4.5 miles, this time in the freezing sun, alongside the Chalres River, and when I returned home, I felt tired and completely fulfilled. Monday, again not surprisingly I was too sick to go to work, and Tuesday I walked 3 miles at lunchtime and then after work, I set off on foot from the Longfellow Bridge almost to Fresh Pond, a 5.5 mile stretch. Almost, because one of my friends scooped me up just outside Longfellow’s mansion on Brattle Street, since my hands were in the grips of the sundown freeze. I received and accepted an i nvitation to a ride for the last half-mile of my journey. Today, I had planned to head over to the boxing gym after my manicure, but alas, my knee flipped me the byrd and refused to carry me one step further than my apartment. Touche.

Perhaps the changing season is playing a role in my most recent emergence from the hole. I know what I hope, but my hope is still fragile, so I’m not asking any questions or making any decisions. Instead, I am enjoying every moment of goodness, serenity and peace that floats my way. I deserve this most recent respite, a return to the me I was before I ever met Chris, a resurrected me who I thought was dead forever.

The Corners Report or I Turned One

2008-02-20T13:32:00.002-05:00

After mourning the loss of my still-living former therapist for a day and a half, I was surprised to find that I had begun to experience a rebirth, of sorts.

Saying good-bye to Clay was a horribly sad event for me, resembling a much smaller-scale death than the death of Chris. I left his office that evening, went home, fell apart and remained in pieces on my bedroom floor for a day and a half.

Then something remarkable happened.

I began to feel better -- not just better than I felt since bidding him farewell – better than I have felt in three years. My mood lifted. The sun came out in my overcast sub-cortex. Letting go of Clay was like the “big” letting go, in training. I knew I would still miss seeing and talking with him, but I felt as though I was going to be okay.

Then I found out my insurance still covers his services, and although I called him under the pretense of wanting to gain retro-coverage for that last session for which I am being charged his full, uninsured fee, the truth (as much as I hate to admit it) is that my call served as a means of letting him know that the possibility of my returning for therapy exists, or at least it did when I made the call.

I didn’t know that a simple return phone call from Clay was going to have such a profound effect on my grieving progress. He called and we talked a bit about my returning to him and agreed that he should call me when he returns from vacation.

That was the start of a whole new world for me.

Saying goodbye to Chris was devastating. Saying goodbye to Clay was small-scale devastating, but devastating, no less. Hearing Clay on the other end of the phone, after I had let him go, filled me with joy, celebration, euphoria and nearly brought me to tears. It was so nice to hear his voice and know that he was still around.

I experienced a very powerful epiphany, realizing that for the past three years, the term “good-bye” has meant “death” and “finality” in my life, which is why “breaking up” with Clay was so painful. What I also realized is that most good-byes are not final. Hearing Clay’s voice and walking away with the knowledge that he is still here and I can still talk to him if I need him has armed me with a still greater euphoria than that which I felt after hanging up the phone, last week. I haven’t cried since the occurrence of that phone call. He’s here. He’s not gone, and at the moment, I’m not feeling an urgency to grab hold of him and pull him back into my world.

Death is final. Good bye is a whole other thing.

Warming Up to Goodbye

2008-02-08T19:39:00.000-05:00

My first session with the new therapist was this past Monday evening. I gave him a brief overview of my experiences and their aftermath. One thing I mentioned to him was how much I miss the me I used to be, before I met Chris and even during the initial stages of our relationship.

I told him I used to be able to stay home on a weekend night, pour myself a glass of wine, put on music and rehearse showtunes for the sheer joy of knowing I would be prepared, come the next audition. I loved those evenings, getting tipsy all alone, singing and just being nice to myself. I haven’t had one of those evenings for the past seven years, or so, since Chris and I moved to Los Angeles.

Tonight is one of those nights. I’m feeling light and happy. I had a glass of wine with my friend, Robby, after work (after much coercing on my part -- he was “too tired to come out”, but guess what...he did!) and then hopped back on the train, rode one stop to Porter Square, ordered the delicious super carnitas burrito from Anna’s Tacqueria that I had been craving since I woke up this morning, hopped back on the train to Harvard Square and rode home on a bus. I changed into jeans and a t-shirt, planted myself on my living room sofa and devoured my regale.

I began to become aware of my natural high on my walk from the bus stop to my apartment, when the thought occured to me that tonight is a celebration, a gala of sorts.

Saying goodbye to Clay, last night, devastated me...for a day and a half. A day and a half is a substsantial amount of time to grieve a loss when the person being grieved is alive and well.

The real deal is that, tonight, I stepped outside of my past, and Clay is one of the last shreds of that past. In letting him go, I released myself from the grip of last night’s anguish. I didn’t become aware of the positive aspects of my having mustered up the courage to release him until this evening.

I am sitting on my sofa digesting my burrito, which is nicely absorbing some of the wine from my system. I feel happy.

I don’t know whether this feeling will last, or not, but I know that I am not going to take the gift for granted. If there’s one thing I have learned in the past four years, it's that grief has a way of seeming linear at times, but that a grief-surge can ambush a person from behind when she’s least expecting the attack.

I never thought I could say goodbye to Clay. I never thought I, all by myself, could ask for a raise, be refused, and kick off a nine-month job search that would result in my getting a better job, where I fit in completely, love the work and can wear jeans anytime I choose. I never thought I could afford to live in Cambridge by myself. I never thought I could recapture the eurphoria of being home alone, enjoying myself, drinking wine and eating delectible food in the complete absense of anxiety...but tonight I am doing just that.

Just four hours ago, I was not able to think about Clay without becoming teary-eyed and choked-up, and now I feel quietly serene. Letting go of Clay was my launching pad, and I am overwhemled with thoughts of everything else I can accomplish.

I feel good, tonight. I feel free, happy and -- although I hesitate to speak so soon -- I feel peaceful.

Shneed

A Sad Parting of Minds

2008-02-08T09:02:00.000-05:00

I said goodbye to Clay, last night, after two and a half years of working with him to combat the after-effects of my tragedy. I brought him a small gift and we talked about my reasons for moving on and about my feelings toward him, in general. I told him I feel like I love him. I do feel like I love him, but I know those feelings aren’t true. Clay knows just about everything there is to know about me and I know next-to-nothing about him, which is the way of the psychotherapy world.

Clay sat in his chair and listened to everything I had to say, providing me with patience and understanding and a simulated friendship I have grown to love and which I already miss tremendously. Without him, I would be lost, navigating the lanes of Devastation Highway with no GPS to guide me along my way.

I cried and told him I didn’t want to leave, but that I have to if I’m going to prevail over the dragon that continues to breathe fire in my direction on a daily basis. I could continue to visit Clay and talk to him week after week, but the truth is that I wish we were friends. I like Clay. He’s a nice man (I think…again, I don’t really know him.). I miss him, already. I had an all-out Clay-meltdown when I arrived home, last night, crying, falling apart and curling up on the couch to cry some more. When I was finished, I felt as though I had completed a rite of passage from the world of asking for help into the world of helping myself.

So I began working with another man, and I think this partnership in mental health is going to be most beneficial to me. We will be working on relaxation techniques and thought and behavior modification, which is really what I need now. I have talked about what happened, ad nauseam, and my work with Clay has been extremely helpful, but now it’s time to begin changing the thoughts and eliminating the painful and intrusive image flashbacks I have been experiencing (PTSD?), and begin to try letting go of the guilt I feel each time I find myself feeling happy.

So my plan is in place. Whether I succeed, or not, is yet to be seen.

Clay said I can come back anytime I want to, and I suppose the notion brings me comfort, but this phase in my life is over and letting go of Clay, in some ways, is going to help me let go of many other things in my life. This year is about saying goodbye; goodbye to a company for which I hated working, goodbye to a city in which I hated living, goodbye to a therapist (and a friend) whom I feel as though I love.

Life is a series of goodbyes.

-Shneed

The Lift

2008-01-31T21:50:00.000-05:00

I love, love, love my new job. I love how technical the work is. I’m learning so much about...well, so much. I feel alive, alive alive!

Having said that, I will now say that I can’t believe I couldn’t see the stress I was under at my old job. I became very depressed and thought I was disinterested in most of the things that I love, but the truth is that the damn job was draining me of every ounce of energy I had.

Tonight I visited the boxing gym and had the most incredible, physically challenging, unstoppable, crazy workout I have had in a long time. I was there for two hours, all of which was spent working out.

I just feel awesome and it’s because I removed myself from a horrible situation.

This week I’m finally going to thank Clay for all of his support and stop my therapy with him. He has been wonderful for me these past couple of years and I’m going to miss him, greatly. Last time I saw him, I expressed that to him and he said he would miss me, too. It has been time for me to let go of Clay for at least a year and I’m going to do it, now, solely because he doesn’t take my new insurance, a blessing in disguise, really. I would stay if he took my new insurance. I guess money (or potential lack thereof) really is a great motivator. I don’t want to pay his full fee. I hate goodbye. Goodbye, to me, conjures up suppressed thoughts of death.

What I am going to do is begin to meditate, hopefully with a different therapist who also specializes in cognitive-behavioral therapy. I have become aware that I am completely reluctant to let go of my grief and I need someone to help move me through this final (hopefully) difficult stage.

This semester, I have been studying stress and it’s management, which includes meditation and guided imagery. Our text book includes examples, and our professor guided us through a meditation last night. What I have found is that when I completely relax my body, my mind relaxes, and my grief and any guilt I normally feel and my reluctance to let go are virtually nonexistent. But the mental block I am experiencing causes me to resist all of these wonderful methods of relaxation, and so I need somebody else to require and help me to push through, in much the same way a personal trainer requires a client to perform at his highest level of functioning.

I have changed my life drastically in the past year. I began seriously pushing myself physically, I moved to a city I have always wanted to live in, I fulfilled a promise to my husband and left the job I took to support us...the “cancer-job” as it were., at the “death-company. “ My home is different. My workplace is different, I am in the best physical shape of my life. It’s my brain’s turn, now. Choosing to continue to allow myself to experience the levels of sadness and grief I have been feeling is putting me at physical risk for heart disease, a heart attack, cancer and all those diseases that feed on stress.

So, there it is. I’m not quite sure how to proceed. Bravely, I guess.

In the meantime, I’m just going to enjoy the lift of these past few days, the absence of tears, my hope for a happy future that is void of guilt.

Two Halves of a Person

2008-01-22T06:33:00.000-05:00

Friday was my last day at work. I got a great new job that pays more and that matches my personality more closely than my former company. I’m beginning day one of this new job by gettng on an airplane and flying to Arizona for their annual sales meeting. To say that the days leading up to this trip have been stressfull is a gross understatement. I’m nervous as can be.

Beyond that, and because my blog is the only entity that doesn’t judge me for still feeling the hit from my husband’s death, this change has illicited yet another grief reaction. Just when I thought I had done absolutely evertying in my life at least once since Chris died, here I am standing at the gate of another first. When will it end?

Six years ago, when I left company #1 for the first time after being there for nine years, I swore to God and to Chris that I would never walk through it’s doors again. Since we can never know what curve balls life will hand us, I left on a good note in the event that I should ever need to return. I did need to return. I took back my old job when Chris got sick because I knew it paid enough to enable me to support the two of us so Chris could quit his job and focus on getting well. Company #1 took me back in a heartbeat.

Chris wasn’t happy about my return because he knew that job wasn’t the best fit for me and he made me promise to leave it as soon as he was healhty, again. He never got healthy again, and even though I thought I would leave immediately after his death, years would go by before I, myself, felt well enough to make a move. I made that move this past Friday.

Today, I’m boarding a flight to Arizona where I will meet all of my coworkers for the first time. How scary is that? I’m nervous, but happy.

I fulfilled another promise to my husband, which doesn’t bring me too much satisfaction, since he’s not here to share my joy and sense of accomplisment. Still, a promise is a promise.

These days I seem to be a walkiing, breathing (barely) grief-reaction and I don’t know how much longer I can remain in this state of sadness. Am I destined to be two halves of a person, forever? The happy half and the grief-stricken, panicked half?

The next few days will be wonderful. Getting to know people is a strength for me and I’m so very happy to not be returning to the stringent constraints of a workplace where textiles precede over intelect.

I’m off to the airport in jeans, a blouse and a sweater, and nobody at this new job is going to judge or chide me for that.

Chris would be very proud of me, today.

Shneed

Low Key, High Spirits

2008-01-11T07:54:00.000-05:00

The train boarded mid-November, as it does each year, and after Thursday, I will have reached my destination at Wedding Anniversary Depot, after which I will place Grief-Relapse 2008 (GR-08) into the archives along with GR-04 through GR-07.

Anybody who says grief gets easier with time has probably never lost a spouse.

My tears no longer remain round-the-clock, nor do they flow as often, but when they flow, they flow with the same intensity as when this crazy train-ride began, on November 19, 2003. The moment I sat with Chris in the examination room, fighting the stream of information coming from his doctor’s mouth, will forever be embedded in the crack within my fractured brain, spackled over with plaster-of-denial. Each year, I need to perform preventative maintenance to keep the sadness, horror and panic of that day and the year and a half that followed packed into the crack where it remains contained well enough to allow me to live my life without Chris.

I have been hailed by many since that day, honored with words such as “courageous”, “brave”, “strong”, “amazing” and the like. Those who hail me only see what I show. Those verbal medals of honor don’t stick when I close the door behind me upon my return from work each evening.

My very busy and enjoyable life keeps me acutely aware of the emotional benefits of a change in cognition. Since Chris died, I have sought, found and earned two new jobs, each more rewarding than the last. I have performed in four stage productions, began boxing, worked my jogging distance up to seven miles, moved to two apartments in two cities, again each nicer and more befitting to me than the last.

Forward movement has never been a problem for me, and for that I have my father to thank. That man never stops moving forward. Despite my adolescent misdiagnosed hatred toward him (It was really just anger. Who knew?), we share the same genetic makeup. Whenever I feel limited, in any way, I remember that my father returned to school and earned his masters degree at age 62, and then nailed a management position at 64. Who am I to deny that anything is possible?

So, even though I returned home from work last night and paced around my apartment, and ate more than I should have in an attempt to push my grief back down into the black depths, anguish enveloped me and dragged me down...but only for a few moments. I patted my tears dry, changed my shoes and headed out for another audition, where I got to stand on stage and sing in front of a panel of auditors (my favorite thing to do). Case in point: changed cognition changed the course of my evening, if only for a while. I rode the high for a few hours before the undercurrent returned and dragged me under for another hour. Sleep came to my rescue and I awoke to a new day and now the rain is outside my window instead of inside my mind and body.

God, the rain outside my Dickens-esque windows is far too beautiful for me to believe. This morning’s plan is to take a nice, long run around the Charles River in that rain, read for my psychology class, study some computer code for my new job and head out for a haircut.

Low key high spirits is today’s motto. I know enough about my emotional rubble by now to understand that “today” is as far in advance as I can plan.

That’s good enough for me, as long as I get to feel happy sometimes.

With Creej's Help

2007-12-31T00:55:00.000-05:00

I just came from the Ellis Paul concert. Ellis was a tradition for me and Chris, one that my friends have helped me to keep up even after Chris' death.

Something very special happened.

I was sitting listening to Ellis and feeling a surge of sadness and tears coming on. Then my thoughts suddenly weren't my own. It was like I was having a conversation with Chris, like, he visited my head and talked to me.

I thought to myself, "Don't cry, little Shneed." and then I thought "I'm trying not to Creej. Help me to not cry." At that very second, one of Ellis' strings snapped, mid-song, and I laughed out loud.

That's it. I felt like Chris and I had that conversation and like he helped me to not cry.

I would give everything I own just to hug him again, to feel him hugging me, and to feel special to somebody again. The weight of the world is a feather's when somebody thinks you're special.

One more anniversary for me after this one. The wedding one. Then I'm free for another year.

Christmas Day. Three years later.

2007-12-25T10:07:00.000-05:00

I have heard others in my position say that the anticipation is always worse than the arrival of an anniversary day. I agree with that philosophy.

I just woke up and I’m already tired. I also just got off the phone with my friend, Meira, who lost her mother a couple years ago and she said, “I’ll just be happy when today is over.” I am also in agreement with that sentiment. The day is never as bad as I anticipate, yet, nevertheless, I’ll be happy when it’s over.

I know I won’t be a curmudgeon once I get out into the world, today (not that my friend is one -- I always judge myself harder than others). I just mapped out a 3-mile run that I plan to begin sometime in the next hour, after which I will get ready to head over to my father’s house for the holiday. My brother is coming from out of town and I have invited Meira to join us in the spirit of suppression. Ah, what would I do without sweet suppression?

Last night I was plagued by parralell-thinking. I got caught in a destructive (or maybe it was constructive -- opinions vary.) cycle of play-by-play ‘what-was-happening-in-my-life-three-years-ago-this-very-moment?’ Pain was happening. Sadness was happening. Chaos was happening. This kind of thinking confirms for me that I need to launch a nationwide search (or citywide, at least) for a good cognitive behavioral therapist. I told Clay I would probably be leaving him, shortly. I told him the only reason I come to him, nowadays, is because I like him and I’d miss him if I didn’t come. I suppose that’s as good a reason as any to see a therapist, but it’s a better reason to see a friend, which Clay is not. I need somebody to hold me accountable for the sometimes counterproductive thought patterns I exhibit. Monitoring my own thoughts and invoking change are easier said, than done.

Today will be fun. Hanging out with my family usually is fun. Food is always fun. And I’m so looking forward to my run, now that the temperature seems to be hovering around 40 degrees. I am not going to let this small window of outdoorsie-opportunity escape me.

Merry Christmas.

Shneed

Grief has me by the throat.

2007-12-24T10:33:00.000-05:00

I stopped wearing my ring, yesterday. I just did it. Just as with all of the other milestones I have reached throughout these past three years, there was no warning, and all of the imagined plans leading up to the “big decision” were not present. I simply suddenly decided not to wear it, anymore. I have hidden it somewhere special, in a place that makes sense to me…and to Chris.

The absence of a ring on my hand conjures up feelings of anxiety, loss and nakedness – a feeling of the removal of training wheels. The ring is absent, and I’m walking by myself, upright, albeit wobbly.

I don’t want it on my hand, anymore. For all of the comfort it has brought me these past three years, it now invokes in me a feeling of loneliness and begs the question, “Why do I wear it?” I don’t have an answer to that question, anymore.

This past weekend was the first one in four months that I had nothing but free, unstructured time. My three classes ended last weekend and I am finally able to sit on my couch and relax without the weight of a homework assignment or final exam hanging over my head. I like it.

The thing about unstructured time and me, however, is that when I have it, I’m lost. I was very productive this weekend and bragged to my friends about all that I was able to accomplish. What I didn’t realize is that I accomplished as a means of suppressing an onslaught of grief, as per usual.

Once I stopped accomplishing, I was overcome with anger, anxiety, impatience and grief. I didn’t want to go to dinner with my two friends, last night, but it was our third annual Holiday dinner and we had planned it for weeks. I had a hard time laughing it up, last night, but I feel that I kept myself under a reasonable amount of control.

The moment I dropped them off, I exploded into meltdown that began in the car and ended an hour and a half later when I could no longer stay awake long enough to grieve.

Three years ago, today, my husband was writhing in pain, swallowing five Oxycodones at a time and, I’m sure, beginning to have an inkling that he was going to die. Three years ago tomorrow, I drove him to Brigham and Womens Hospital’s emergency room and watched, as the orderly took him away in a wheel chair, telling me not to worry and promising me that they would take good care of him. We spent the entire day in the emergency room that Christmas day.

Eight days later, Chris was dead.

Last night, those memories broke me and they’re threatening to break me again, today. They will, partially because they’re very sad memories and partially because I know no other to pay tribute to Chris than with my grief. For that, I apologized to him, last night.

What difference does it make? He wasn’t there to hear me, anyway.

Bang a Nail in the Wall, Hang it Up and Move On

2007-12-01T11:05:00.000-05:00

Last night, I dreamed about cancer.

Chris and I were very distant with each other. We both had cancer and I was trying to connect with him in some way. I came across his Woody Woodpecker pajamas (In life, he had Underdog pajamas.) and I wanted to give them to him, but couldn’t figure out if doing so would trigger anger and fear in him or bring him comfort.

As is usually the case in my dreams, he was mad at me.

As my morning progressed, I must have suppressed whatever emotions would have surfaced as a result of my cinematic slumber, so when I was hanging pictures up and came across our wedding picture, I completely fell apart.

I was married, once, to a man with whom I fit completely and wholly. I don’t get to be with him anymore.

I retreated to my bedroom, hammer still in hand, and dropped onto my bed, embracing the picture and crying.

As I lay there sobbing, I had a poetic (albeit macabre) vision as though from above my own body, of me lying on the bed with my arm around the picture, bleeding from my head of a self-induced beating with the hammer.

There’s so much rage buried within my psyche.

Sometimes I just want to go to sleep and find him, and never come back.

I don’t know where to hang our wedding picture. Somehow I feel as though it shouldn’t be the first thing I see every time I come home. I feel like it shouldn’t be in my bedroom. I also feel like it doesn’t belong in the bathroom or the office or the kitchen, or the hallway.

I’m stuck. At the moment, it’s on my lap getting rained on by my tears. But I can’t sit here forever, so I have to bang a nail in the wall, hang it up and move on.

I Guess

2007-11-22T18:48:00.000-05:00

I didn’t have much fun at my father’s house this Thanksgiving. The holiday was Chris’ favorite and it weighs heavy on me. His birthday is tomorrow.

Both of my step-sisters got married this year and they and their husbands were each at dinner, today. One of them married a man who reminds me of my Chris. The two of them remind me of how Chris and I were and I know that he and Chris would have liked each other. I get really sad that I’ll never get to see the relationship between them. Being in the same room with them caused my heart to sink a little bit. I want that interaction, again. Actually, I want Chris back.

I don’t believe that I’m going to be over my loss anytime soon, and if I share that with anybody, I could find myself emotionally out in the cold, because nobody is really going to understand that I still feel sad and that I still yearn and that there is still a part of me that is kicking myself for letting Chris slip through my fingers even though that isn’t what happened.

I want what I had with Chris with a new man. I want the intimacy. I want the partnership. I want to be a second half, again.

But now is not the time.

I guess.

The Present Moment

2007-11-15T14:50:00.000-05:00

I moved into my new apartment fifteen days ago and I haven’t stopped running, running, running since. Running is my way of suppressing and for the first thirteen days, I didn’t shed a tear. In fact, I felt euphoric and as though I was completely done grieving. However, I have enough experience with grief at this point to know that when I feel like that, I can pretty much thank the universe and know that the end of grief will never arrive. My crashes become fewer and farther between, but I am learning that sadness is just a part of my story – our story – and I need to learn to welcome my retreats into despair with and open mind and open arms.

The third anniversary of the death of my husband is almost upon me. November 19 is when we received his diagnosis, and try as I might to be unaffected by the past, I find myself regressing into fetal position on my living room chair wondering why this tragedy befell Chris and why his death befell his loved ones. I’m okay, though. I want to cry when I’m crying. There is no relief – only the cloak of sleep that claims me each night when I’m all cried out and void of any ability what-so-ever to bring myself back up.

By day, I’m quite cheerful, working alongside a group of people whose company I cherish. We’re a fun cluster of folk, working and passing the day with good humor and camaraderie. The gym continues to keep me uplifted, albeit in considerable pain.

I had a proud evening Monday. I left work knowing that I wasn’t going to go one step in the direction of the gym. I felt horrible. I had almost allowed myself to revel in my sad, angry, self-pitying state of mind. My anger had reached such levels that I felt like kicking in doors and smashing my possessions. The impulses became too much for me to bear, so I thought I would stop by City Sports on my way home and buy some new workout clothes, which is a very effective way for me to get myself through the gym doors. I found two lovely pieces for less than forty dollars and headed toward home to see if I could coax myself out my door and into the gym. Caught between not wanting to go to the gym and not wanting to stay home, I finally erupted into a pool of tears, which is really what I needed to do in order to let go of the pain and anxiety that had amassed. Once the wave passed, I picked myself up, got dressed and headed to the gym where I had a very tough, very challenging workout. My anger did not begin to dissipate until two hours in.

For a while, I have been telling myself either that I want a boyfriend or that I don’t want a boyfriend. There is a discrepancy with the black and white nature of that thought pattern. The truth is that I do want a man in my life. The truth is also that I am not ready for a relationship with another man. I’m beginning to believe the popular 5-year guideline perspective. For now, I am going to stop thinking and have some faith that I will someday be able to love another man. I have to believe that. The alternative suggests that my golden years will be spent sitting in front of my living room window, gazing out over the landscape, hurting, reflecting, and yearning for my lost love.

I don’t want to be that person and I have a feeling that I have more control over my life than I am willing to entertain at the present moment.

Way to Pull Me out of My Own Head

2007-10-29T15:12:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was a tough day for me.

I knew that, with my move, I would eventually need to venture into the storage closet and take out all of my Chris-mementos. I had managed to avoid the task for the past three weeks, but with time running out, I needed to face my demons.

Controlling my tears was not an option, for they flowed like flood waters out of my eyes and onto my carpet, as I laid eyes on possessions I hadn’t looked at since the anniversary of our 1st wedding anniversary.

I moved my hand toward one of the boxes, accidentally knocking its cover off and there, exposed, was the picture of Chris I hate most of all. He sits at the table with no shirt on, head down, writing in his calendar book, completely bald. I hate that depiction of him. That photo gets behind me and shoves me out of my denial with the force of the impact of an eighteen-wheeler striking me from behind. I lost my breath and then I lost my ability to maintain my composure.

I then came across tapes and tapes of documentaries that Chris made while he was in school. I entered a meltdown, crying and screaming, “I don’t want these anymore! I don’t want these!” I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want them and I didn’t want to discard them as though they held no meaning for me, when they always will. I felt trapped.

The two events winded me so that I could no longer see how I was going to take the drive to the Salvation Army with my donations. I only had forty-five minutes to get there and I couldn’t reign the grief back in. I decided to push.

I ran up and down my five flights of stairs five times, carrying arms full of worthy provisions for those who can benefit. I backed my car into the driveway and began loading, using strength derived from all of the anger I continue to suppress. Anger does come in handy. I managed to squeeze boxes, bags and an entire vanity, complete with mirror and bench into my tiny, yet magnificent Pontiac Sunfire. Go Arthur (That’s his name.)!

I continued to choke back tears all the way and when I got there, I pulled up to the front door, turned on my hazard lights and began to unload when a woman began yelling at me for parking there, saying that I was endangering lives. Sigh. I looked at her and very calmly said, “I’ll be out of here in a minute.” My resign softened the blow I would have delivered in her direction.

I began loading my stuff into the building, when a man in his 60s came over and said, “I was looking at your pictures. I hope you don’t mind," to which I replied, “Of course not! Would you like them?” His face beamed and after making certain I was okay with him taking them, he thanked me and went on his way.”

So I donated clothing, furniture and other household items and managed to save this man the price of having to buy my pictures, which sent him off with a smile on his face.

How could I not smile, myself?

When I returned home, I called Bonnie to chat for a while. I mentioned to her that I had been considering leaving Chris’ tapes “on the curb” and asked her if she wanted me to hold onto them, instead. She did. So I did. Sometimes, taking the feelings of others into consideration is the way out of my own feelings.

Now I can’t even remember why I didn’t want to take them with me.

Shneed

Playing Hostage

2007-10-22T22:17:00.000-04:00

I’m feeling sad tonight. Not sad enough to drive in front of the 101 bus as it made it’s way down Mystic Ave in Medford when I was turning off of Route 38, but sad, nonetheless.

I feel frustrated when people don’t understand, or don’t try to understand that I have been forever affected by Chris’ death, forever affected by losing my best friend, my love, my husband. Beyond my own loss, I witnessed some very disturbing events, such as the deterioration of my sweet husband’s body, his faith and his life. I looked into his eyes and knew he would never look at me with the same recognition and love with which he looked at me from our first date, on. I don’t hesitate to say that I have been disturbed ever since and I do believe I will be for the remainder of my life.

I miss him. I always will. I love him. I always will.

The good news is that I haven’t written in quite a while, and my writings are fewer and farther between than they once were. I tend to write when I’m sad, and my life has been feeling nice, lately. I feel happy. I still feel sad, but at the same time, I now feel happy.

I still have anger, though. It’s there. I can feel it, I just can’t get to it. Even at the gym, I can’t seem to get to my anger. What I can do, though, is exhaust myself with my workouts to the point that my anger retreats into remission for a while.

The small part of me that houses the anger, fear, anxiety and sadness is insulated from the rest of my world. I wish I could go there and wrap my arms around that part of me, fill the black hole with love and then wind up and bowl it right down the alley into my past.

I’m too scared, though, and playing hostage is easier for the time being.

Shneed

It was a nickname my late husband gave me.

2007-10-09T12:02:00.000-04:00

Yeah, I said it. “My late husband.” That’s the first time I’ve said that to anyone. Today I said it to my new landlord during a phone call. He mentioned that my e-mail was strange and asked me what it meant. Then I said it. And I feel strange and a bit woozy inside.

Taking this new apartment has caused my grief to resurface pretty intensely. I’m not sure why. It’s not like Chris and I ever lived in my current apartment together. He was eight-months-gone by the time I moved. I fear that every move I make, throughout the remainder of my life, is going to feel like I’m stepping on his memory, pushing off of it with my foot, and continuing on into my future. That’s not a very nice feeling.

Sunday night, I completely fell apart. I couldn’t stop crying for two hours. I finally popped an Ativan and sat myself on the sofa in front of my television until it coated my psyche. And I remembered why I like Ativan so much. Uh-oh.

Last night, I began pacing around my butcher block. I couldn’t relax and my stomach was swimming around and around. This time, I took only a half of an Ativan and began the long process of streamlining any possessions of mine I longer want to keep.

In addition to the move, this time of year wreaks havoc in my mind and memories. It’s the time of year we began to suspect that something was wrong. October through January is still quite a melancholy time for me.

I’m moving to the beautiful city of Cambridge, the city I have wanted to live in for most of my adulthood. This move is going to be great. I’m excited.

Shed Skin

2007-10-01T22:28:00.000-04:00

I don’t know why I have taken so long to realize that I think I am just no longer interested in acting in musicals. The admission makes me feel sad, but the fact is that that’s who I was before Chris died, before ugliness, horror and sadness entered my life. I’m just not interested, anymore.

I remember who I was back then. Singing was my absolute priority. I dreamed of becoming skilled enough to sing professionally and vowed to myself that I would take myself to a real Broadway cattle call at least once before I died. My passions were completely wrapped up in performance. That was before everything changed.

Now psychology makes me happy, intrigues me and keeps me very, very busy. The boxing gym makes up the difference.

I wish I still wanted to act. Sometimes I still go to auditions to try to get cast in a musical, but my heart isn’t in it the way it used to be, which is kind of a mixed blessing. I used to obsess about performing, about what to wear to an audition, how to sing and how to move. I ate, drank and slept musical theater. Most of my passion for the stage got lost in the tragedy.

I took this past Friday and Monday as vacation days. I feel sort of spacey, as per usual. Unstructured time still puts me in a strange place, another phenomenon that came with Chris’ death. Yesterday, I felt as though I was wearing a heavy cloak. Even though I went out and socialized and had fun doing so, the cloak remained throughout the day. Finally, last night, I began crying and couldn’t stop until I fell asleep.

Many people don’t understand the impact of losing a spouse, especially at a young age. I don’t know what to say to those people. I don’t write the rules, I just try to navigate through the caves and haunted forests. There’s a part of me that believes I will always be searching for my lost love. That part of me comes out when I’m spacey from too much time off.

I still don’t really feel like myself. At times, I don’t know who this psychology student and exercise enthusiast is. She didn’t exist before Chris died.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m afraid to act in musicals because they remind me of a time I shared with my husband. And sometimes I know that people sometimes shed their skin and grow a new one.

Old Faithful

2007-09-23T21:48:00.000-04:00

I erupted this morning, into a hysterical, grieving mess. Grief is like an old friend whom you wish would just leave you the fuck alone. It’s like the school bully, lurking in the shadows, an ever-present threat reminding you that you can’t ever be certain of your own safety.

If I had just paid attention the past few days I would have noticed the return of my pattern-behavior. I had begun going out, keeping way too busy, overlapping plans and staying up way too late, all behaviors that point to an impending meltdown. I fill up every moment of every day in an effort to crowd my brain with minutia so larger, more profound disturbances can’t fit in. I should know by now that they always find their way in. That’s just the way it is.

Curiously enough, once I melted back up, I felt very positive about love and the possibility that I might be able to enjoy it again. Grief is not entirely unlike the boxing match I witnessed as I jumped rope at the gym the other night.

”In the left corner, wearing the black shorts, black tank top, black sneakers and black gloves....Grief!”

And in the right corner, skittishly peaking around the corner in her suit of armor, wearing blue gloves with two rolls of quarters in each fist...”

That’s about how it goes. Maybe it’s time that I start doing the attacking and Grief begins retreating.

I’m happy tonight. I feel better. More positive.

And hungry.

Shneed

Here we go, again.

2007-09-22T23:11:00.001-04:00

I have begun to panic about this newest dating experience. I knew it would happen eventually, because how can I enter a new relationship without experiencing guilt, anger and sadness over Chris? I dropped half of an Ativan in the spirit of calming the fuck down. I’m going to stay with it...stay with him.

The problem is that I can’t decipher my own secret code. I can’t tell whether I’m panicked because I like him or panicked because I don’t want anybody but Chris in my life. If the latter is true, I could wind up living and dying alone.

Clay’s coming back this week, thank GAWD. I need his support.

I’m going through the motions, but I don’t feel anything more than the beginning of a new friendship. It feels forced. Hell, it is forced. That’s what happens with online dating. Maybe I’m pressuring myself unnecessarily. I don’t have to love him, yet. It’s way too early for love to have formed. If love doesn’t form for me, that’s okay, too. I need to relax, hence the Ativan.

This is difficult, but then, I always knew it would be. He puts his arm around me and all I think about is how Chris hated to walk with his arm around me. I used to take his arm and put it around me just to hear him say, “Hey, you can’t just put me.” When I’m out with him, I wish I was out with Chris. It’s possible that after almost three years, I’m still not ready to date. I don’t know how to get better. Maybe this is as good as I get. Maybe there is no “better”. Maybe there’s no romance and/or love intended in my future.

I hesitate to say that I’m a mess. I am, however, a bit panicked. What if he won’t put up with what losing my husband feels like for me?

Maybe I just need to sleep. Sometimes sleep is all it takes with me.

Roaming in Wyoming

2007-09-19T07:55:00.000-04:00

Wyoming is the most wonderful place, ever. The air is so clean and the mountains are so unbelievably beautiful that I didn’t want to come home. I could have sat in one place, feeling the mountain breeze and gazing at the horizon all day long. Of course, I didn’t. I went horseback riding, river rafting and hiking. This trip was a wonderful segue back into the world of travel, introduced to me by Chris.

The trip wasn’t without sticky grief-points. The moment I entered the airport, I felt a surge of panic and sadness because the last time I entered the airport was with Chris. Robby is so much like him that I kept “flickering” back and forth from knowing I was with him to feeling like I was with Chris. I didn’t tell him.

I only cried one night because I just wanted him to be there so badly. I wanted him to see the mountains and have the fun I was having. I wanted the quiet conversation we shared and I wanted to wrap my arms around him and hold him.

I thought about the guy I'm dating quite a bit while he and I were both gone on trips. He went to Yosemite and I was in Wyoming. I haven’t thought about a man that much, in his absence, since Chris. It’s still too early to know whether this will work out, or not, and I’m nervous again, but I remember that I thought about him a lot while I was gone, and that hasn’t happened for a while. I’m seeing him tomorrow night.

I have a feeling this is going to be a romantic autumn.

Shneed

Wyoming

2007-09-11T16:45:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow, I’m leaving for my first real trip since Chris was alive. I’m going to Wyoming with a friend to hike, ride a horse, climb, run, and take in the beautiful mountainous landscape.

I never really traveled before I met Chris and so far, I haven’t really traveled since he died. I feel good. I’m very excited about this trip. There is also a part of me that feels guilty for going without him. Wherever I go, over the remainder of my life, I can take comfort in knowing (or believing) that where Chris went is so much better than anywhere on Earth.

Oddly enough, I’m very excited to have found out that there’s a gym at the inn in which I’m staying. It’s got a weight room, treadmills, sauna, steam room and whirl pool. I’m going to work out in one way or another every day. That excites me. I’m bringing my medicine ball with me, too. I think that officially makes me a fitness geek.

I’m reasonably happy these days, at times euphoric…at other times, downright sad, a moody bitch, perhaps, but a kind-hearted, loving one, no less.

Well, I’m off to Wyoming to visit another far-off land, an activity for which I had absolutely no passion before Chris entered my life.

Testing the Acceptance Waters

2007-09-08T09:53:00.000-04:00

I dreamed I was back wth Chris, last night. He looked really good, although he was thinner than I remember him in life. I miss his dark, thick hair. I don’t remember too much about my dream, other than we hugged. I loved hugging him.

I have been a bit sad for the past couple of days. The guy I'm dating went away for 12 days, which, oddly enough, has sparked a small grief reaction in me. Clay went away for 3 weeks, too, which I suppose sparks off another small grief reaction.

Since he left, I made a deal with myself to allow myself to really think about Chris the entire time he’s gone. I need to. I want to. I keep remembering things that happened, things we said, times we shared, his smile, his hair, our interactions, our love...the list is endless.

I was talking with a friend last night about how strange grief is, in that there is always a belief buried way down deep in my psyche that loops the same tape over and over again...

He might come back. He could come back. I need to wait for that day

That will never happen, but the tape keeps on rolling. My guilt exists around that tape.

I’m a little heart-heavy, today. I’m giving myself a headache.

It’s coffee-time.

Shneed

My Date

2007-09-02T20:37:00.000-04:00

I had a wonderful time last night. I really like this man. He really likes me, too.

More after I talk with Clay, tomorrow.

Shneed

The Lesser of Two Evils

2007-08-30T11:44:00.000-04:00

My nervousness is dissipating a bit, but not as a result of much that I’m doing, myself. The man I'm dating has a schedule such that our dates have been spaced out at a comfortable pace for me. Basically, we have been taking 4 days in between dates, which gives me time to freak out, freak back in, and be ready in time for the next encounter. I like that. I find our timing to be quite comfortable, because I have ample time to breathe and regain my composure for the next meeting.

My dates and my workouts are similar. When I exercise, the fibers in my muscles are torn and then need time to rebuild. If I work out too many days in a row (which I did this week – ouch), the overall process isn’t very enjoyable, because I haven’t given my muscles enough time to recuperate. However, when I leave enough time in between workouts for the muscles to adapt before working out again, I end up being stronger than I was before. I am so spastic about dating and getting close to someone other than my Chris, that I need those four days to calm down, breathe and remember that there are things about this man that I like. If I don’t have that time, my fight or flight response get activated and, where dating is concerned, my tendency will almost always be to take flight.

So, our next date is Saturday evening. This will be date #3 and I actually want to go, even though I’m a bit nervous. Still, I have an overwhelming feeling that now is the time and that if I don’t make an effort to push myself over the grief-induced fear-hump today, I may end up setting myself back.

I just need to keep reminding myself that even though I am experiencing quite a bit of anxiety, that anxiety feels better than my loneliness of last week. I’m choosing the lesser of two evils.