Making Changes 1% At A Time

 

I floated through the last of March and the first part of April as though I were lost in a fog and I was.  I realized in mid-April I needed to stop and just 'be' so to speak, whatever form 'being' took at the time.  Tears, making relational decisions, attempting social occasions and church solo, dealing with paperwork and appointments, and finally determining what I wanted beyond John's NOT being gone, which is not an option I can choose.

I realized I could re-establish some routines in my life and ground myself somewhat better.  I started with the Friday and Monday house blessings, those two days of the week when my house is most prone to be untidy and need real attention.  I like going into the weekend with it clean and neat and I like coming out of the weekend well rested and ready to set things to rights for the week ahead.  

I went back to a Kitchen workday each week which came about quite organically as I began to meal plan once more, a normal activity, whether John was home or out.  I still have to clean, do laundry, make meals and keep a home that is somewhat presentable, even if there is only one in the home.  Such simple things, tidying and prepping food, but it helps more than I can tell you.  It makes me feel better mentally and emotionally to have those routines going once more. 

I've been trying to get out at least one day each week.  I attend to necessary things, and while I'm relaxed during that day with time frames, I don't tend to do 'fun' things.  Getting out routinely has helped me fill my days.    I'm so glad that John encouraged me to start doing grocery shopping on my own once more and to explore the things I enjoy doing alone. It really did help make this transition to doing all things on my own much easier.  Empty days are necessary for me, too.  I tend to get moody and weepy if I'm too busy.  I need time to rest, to think about what I've done, what I still need to do, what I'd like to do.

I talked to Katie briefly last week, just before I turned the calendar to May, and I spoke of various plans I'd made for changes in the house.  I'd mentioned to John a week or two before he died that I'd been thinking of moving the living room furniture around.  

I've pretty much had my living room set up in the same exact way for about 27 years. I have tried to rearrange the living room in the past but with no good result.  I usually ended up cleaning the room really well then putting it all back where it came from.  But I'd thought perhaps I'd like to go back to one of the very first arrangements we'd set up in this house. 

It was a bit of a nostalgic memory that started the idea.  I'd been remembering how it looked when we first put things in place in the living room when we moved here.  Each time he'd walk in, John would sit down on the sofa and say, "This is home!"  It felt so lovely and right.  And that is what prompted me to ask him what he thought about more or less putting it back the same way. 

I don't want things to stay exactly as they always have been.  Kate asked if I wanted to make the home mine.   I told her truthfully that I didn't want to erase John from the house, but I wanted it to be our home in a different way, just as my life is different now.   

I'd planned this year to be the year we made a few changes anyway.  A new rug, and a bench for the dining room; a console or dresser or something for the TV; bookcases, nicer curtains for the living and dining area; a set of bedroom furniture for us because John had always wanted a matched set. 

And of course, I wanted to make a work room for myself... I'd planned to make a work room for myself in the guest/playroom and was working towards that.  It wasn't ideal but I was going to make it work.  

Then Katie suggested I consider taking the music room and making it my own space.  I really like that idea. John spent so much time practicing and creating in that room, I think it could be very conducive to my own work since the atmosphere of that room is pretty much saturated with a creative spirit.  And it would be a cozier space, too, since it's a smaller room than my current workroom/guest room.

I can see it more of a combined space.  Not all of John's things will leave the room, but the clutter will be culled and tamed and sorted.  I'd like to keep some of his instruments in the room and move in the stereo and the music cabinet to that room.  I'd like to have bookcases and a cozy chair.  How lovely to sit in that room that was so intimately his and listen to his music once more and at the same time to have a dedicated space where I can do my own creative work that feels intimately mine as well.

I might add here that it's not just John's 'stuff' I want to sort and clean up.  I want to tame a good bit of my own stuff.  I have cleared drawers, a trunk and a cabinet that might have been used for storage over the past month.    Why use up that space to hold something I'm never planning to use in any way?  

I want to make some changes outdoors.  Something  that will deter all the delivery drivers who insist on driving up the middle of the yard to come right up to the front porch.  One day someone is going to get stuck doing that.  I'd like to have crush run put up the driveways, both the one leading into the property and the one leading up to the house as well as under the carport.

I'd like to landscape about the house.  I love the two beds along the back of the house that I'd done years ago.  They usually need only tidying up each year, a fresh bit of mulch every few years or so.  I'd like to improve upon them by adding proper landscaping blocks to border them. 

I've always longed to landscape all the way around my home, not just along the two sides I've done thus far.   I'd like to expand the patio which is too narrow to do much of anything with.  A table and chairs will not fit there comfortably, nor a glider.  It's too narrow and long and frankly useless for anything but keeping some of the water at bay in the rainy season.    

And the mismatch of containers I've used for planting has done no favors to the patio either. I need to replace them with nicer pots.  All of this will be a lot of work, but I think it is doable and for a reasonable amount of money.  I just want my home to look nice, inside and out.  Not perfect but just better.

I am inspired by an Instagrammer I've been watching.  She vowed to make her home 1% better every day.  Surely, I could do something like that, a little at a time, and make some of the changes on my own until I'm ready to hire in real help to do the bigger things.  I can pull weeds, replace wonky stonework, spread fresh mulch, prune, hang new curtains, push furniture about, etc.  

I know that psychologically speaking it is a desire to make and control changes rather than being forced into change.  It's reminding myself that I have a say about some of the changes in my life.  That I am responsible for some of the things I dislike about my current mode of life.  I can't change missing John, but I can change the clutter, the untidiness, the things that keep me from feeling I am living my best life.

I've greeted life changes before with a passionate refreshing of my home.  I see my home as a reflection of my life and my circumstances and I'm not by any means ready to toss in a towel and give up on life.  

I am grateful John was such a good teacher both by example and actual instruction in teaching me how to handle decisions, repairs, wants and needs on my own.  He set a wonderful example for me and equipped me to handle life on my own.  He provided well for me in life, and I feel confident and optimistic coming into this new season of life.  

But I'm also realistic.  I can only do so much.  And all of my life does not need to be hyper-focused on work, work, work.  I've got to figure out how to create more life balance without someone here to remind me I need that balance.  So far, I'm running myself down to empty and then taking days to start back up again because what I've done so far is unsustainable.  

Again, 1% better.  Not attempting to make everything 100% different.  That's the reminder I give myself as I figure life out alone.  That means I need to take real time out to rest.  That I need to plan projects well so that I'm not wasting time and energy.  I've already found myself going back to redo some of the things I had done earlier.  I don't have to get everything just right, but I can save myself a bit of trouble by planning what each stage of a bigger project will look like. 

Sorrow upon Sorrow

 

The thing I've found about grief is that it has a way of dredging up all the past griefs, ones I'd thought were long dealt with and forgotten.  

The need of a girl for her mother...

The desire to be an aunt...

Today, as I was leaving church, a young woman came and stopped directly in front of me.   I stood looking at her, sure I knew her, sure she was family, but not quite recognizing her.  I said "Hi..." a little hesitantly.  Something about her face kept nagging at me that she was someone I knew well.  It was my niece.  We hugged long and deep.  She is 30 years old.   I have had only the briefest moments of contact with her.

Promises for May

 

1.  Life is too short to eat food that isn't good.   I don't mean spoiled food, but food that is lacking in taste or texture, or a recipe that didn't turn out and feels like punishment when I force myself to eat it. or the leftovers of it which haven't improved.  I did that too often in April and I've made up my mind that if I'm going to consume 'x' number of calories each day, then the food I eat shall (a) taste good (b) be something I genuinely enjoy (c) and look forward to eating.  

I've had ill luck of late with things I crammed into the freezer before John died.  WHY did I save those things thinking they'd taste better later?  

Closed Doors

 

John has been gone a month at the time I'm writing this.  One month ago today, I kissed his forehead and walked out of the room leaving his physical body, my dearest friend and great love, behind.  I realize now that I was in a state of shock.  Operating normally enough on the surface but reeling with sorrow underneath.  Holding myself together for the sake of my children, but bereft.  Probably not hiding it very well though I supposed at the time that I was.

But two things happened that I have not shared.  Two other griefs, which are wrapped up in losing my beloved.  The Sunday morning of his last day, when I'd been told he'd passed away, before I went in to see him and he miraculously regained consciousness, one of the first people I called was my brother.   I told him John had died. "Well Terri, it's going to happen to all of us at some point.  I'm sorry."    I asked him to please let Mama know.  

Coffee Chat: How I'm Really Doing

 

Dear Friends, 

I'm going to change the pattern of posting on you all for a little bit.  I feel the need to not be a writer but to be open and honest about how I feel just now.

No great revelation to any of you, I'm sure, that I'm grieving.  

Grief for me might look different than it looks for someone else.  I am not wailing and gnashing my teeth.  I do cry at times.  Little things, little tears.  And one stormy evening of wrestling with the real pain of grief and loss and longing to turn back time.  Those 34 years of John were far too short!  They went too quickly.  I wanted more.  I thought we'd have more.

Architect of My Soul

 

This evening on the way home from a day of appointment, errands, and a family visit, I finally put in the CD of John's music that he'd recorded and put in our safety deposit box.  I found myself singing along, smiling, raising a hand in worship at times, and thinking deeply about what a journey a life can be.  What we are truly building as we go is a Soul, that mysterious inner being that is so connected to heart and mind.  With the building of our Soul, we become our own three-in-one self.    

Hard Things

Fact of Life:  When you lose your husband, the world expects you to step up and adult even if you don't want to, don't feel like it, are anxious about it, or dread it because it's dang hard stuff you must do.

And it sucks.

But you get up each day, and you do it anyway, because no one else can do it for you.  Oh, they can...But how selfish to expect anyone else to stop their lives to do it for me simply because I feel lazy or low, or fearful, or whatever else emotion I might cough up.   I mean, they all have things they must deal with and attend to and face their own loss at the same time...surely, I can do just as much. 

Reflections on Loss

 

Does Loss count as a big emotion?  By definition it is not. The emotional response to loss is grief.  You grieve over a lost mate, a lost pet, a lost job, a major change in life, losing anything that you valued or held dear.  Grief is the big emotion.  But purportedly loss is what has happened to you, not what you feel.  So.

I cannot determine if I am numb, or if this past year, all the conversations John and I had, all the things we did to secure our future, my future, so prepared me for what lay ahead that I've accepted that easily that I am now alone.  I have discovered what it is to experience loss of someone who was so much a part of my life that I truly felt he breathed out and I breathed in.  

I've tried to contemplate what it means to remove John's things from this house, the home that we shared.  I find that I cannot bear the thought of moving John's things at the moment.  Oh certainly, I can tidy and put away what normally would be put away.  But picking up a book he kept beside his chair...I put it back down.  Clearing the top of his chest of drawers?  Nothing moved except clothing which I put into his dresser drawer.  Remove something of his from the music room?  I can't bear it.  I can't.  It's as though I am erasing him.

And that's when I know I am not numb.  Because the thought of my home without anything of him in it is too painful to even contemplate much less do.  It is the home we put time and effort into, a home which was very much his because he had a vision too and tastes of his own and he insisted that he be part of the process.  He also had a motley collection of things in the music room that consists of obituaries and pictures, posters, signed Cd's from artist he'd met or followed, and tools and music stuff.  I can imagine that room as a guest room, but a decidedly John sort of room, not a Terri sort of room.  But not yet.  Not now.  So, his things stay.  Even though some have asked for something of his, something to remember him by, I can't part with anything. I will.  I know I will come to the time of letting go of the remnants of his physical life, but right now...  No.

The house is quiet, too quiet.  No tv running all day long, no music pouring forth from the music room, no constant conversation.  I've put on a few of the videos we watched together, those that we both enjoyed.  I think I might add some of my favorite vloggers to the line-up on YouTube...but I hesitate.  I feel my breath catch at the back of my throat.  If I do those things, then this means he's gone.

I know he is gone.  But I find myself skirting about the spaces that remind me too hard.    

I didn't feel lonely at first.  I felt...bored, I'd say.  I do the few chores required, I've made meals for myself but beyond the necessary living chores, everything seems pointless, silly.  How can I possibly enjoy the junk journal when John will never again be here to listen to me chatter about it?  How can I possibly sink my teeth into a book and escape when there's no noise to escape from?  How can I possibly sit and color or play a game or arrange furniture when there's no one to talk to, no one whose opinion matters on the subject of whatever it is I've done?

And then one night this past week, loneliness hit me.  An ache I can't describe.  Because no one else can fill that space that he's left behind.  

And honestly?  It feels as though he's been gone for weeks, months, years.  The distance between him and me unfathomable.  In my heart, I know he's just beyond the physical realm of this life/universe.  I know he's there in heaven, but at times, as the days drift by, I feel the separation more and more.

So, I talk to him.  I tell him I miss him and that I'm lonely.  I tell him how silly everything seems without him here to share it.  I tell him I love him.  Because I do and I always will.  And I tell him I know he loves me, because I've felt it at times.  I can't really describe it but it's there in the atmosphere around me.  

I talk to him about the day, about the children when I'm worried over one or the other, about how proud I was to do something that I'd dreaded doing, or how upset I am when fear has grabbed me by the throat, and I face uncertainty.  

There's a point in almost every day when I sink into this loss and just sit with it. Not depressed, not blue.  Just absorbing the reality of it.  Saddened by it.  Accepting of it.  

And then, rising to live. Not reluctantly, but willingly.  Pushing to move forward, to continue because John would want that.  I want that for myself.  

I go on.

This New Season

 

In March, as I worked through big emotions and sorrow, I wrote out the posts and pre-scheduled them to publish.  I finished them a week before John died.   Since then, I've been doing a lot of writing.  The two posts published on this blog and on Blue House Journal about John's passing, posts for April, in my journal.

Writing being the cathartic exercise that it always has been for me; I'm finding my way as I go into this new season of life alone mostly by writing, not by word or book.  I don't know what it is I feel.  I'm having to stop and exam it as I go.  

Promises for April

 

1.  I promise to start reaching OUT to people when they are reaching out to me.  John and I tended to be selfish with our time together.  There's no one there for me now.  I'm not slighting my children.  They are being so supportive and would happily fit me into their lives even more than they did in the past.  But they have their lives.   I owe it to John, I owe it to them, and most of all I owe it to me, to not give in to the easy thing.  I need a new support system; one I'll build for myself.  I need to be open to people and stop thinking everyone is highly suspect and likely to hurt me.

2.   I promise to choose carefully who I allow to enter into my life.  That may sound contrary to the first promise but it's really an extension to it.  I attract needy people.  People are attracted to my co-dependent nature.  I want HEALTHY personal relationships in my life, not someone who will reduce me, use me, trap me in their dependency.  

Big Emotions, Pt. 3: Sorrow

Sorrow sits at the bottom of the deep river of all unplumbed emotions.  Grief, despair, hopelessness, anger, shame, hurt...They are all mixed up in sorrow and get dredged up to cloud the water and alter the current's flow.  This river has a power of its own, moving at will along the path it carves.

Many times, when I lie down to sleep, when I just start to drift, I see a very real flood behind my eyelids, sweeping me along with it, sometimes confined within riverbanks, sometimes spreading rapidly across the landscape of life. I have no control whatsoever over my vessel, swept along without any way to stop it or slow it, completely vulnerable to the whims of the water beneath me. 

Sorrow, I know.