Today is three months.  Actually twelve weeks.  It depends on how you count.  I remember wondering early on how long it would be before I quit marking time in days and weeks.  Today I felt ready to think in terms of months.  Progress of a sort. 

I was moving mulch (still) and thought for a moment that it might be close to six, looking at my phone it was 6:04.  Such intuitive timing! I sat down and went still for ten minutes or so.  Just feeling, remembering, honoring.  Somehow three months felt like it deserved that.  I could feel his presence all around me, gentle and humorous and it made me smile and cry at the same time.  I have been hurt and angry and sad thinking that I was not able to feel him with me.  So many folks talk about those kinds of experiences.  Then today I realized that his presence is always there, it's just so subtle I hadn't been paying attention.  I feel better. 

Marking this time, I recognize how much things have changed.  Thinking of David, feeling his presence, brings me quiet pleasure now, not searing pain.  I can cry quietly, not with out of control sobbing.  I am comforted by the house, not running from it.  A wise friend told me that when her partner was fighting cancer she marked her calendar six weeks in the future to remind herself that things would change.  And then when she got there she could honor where she had been and where she was now.  In one of my darkest days I marked six weeks out.  I'm not there yet, I think it's three more weeks, but marking this three month anniversary offers the same opportunity.  Life moves forward, I move forward, and David is with me even when he isn't here or felt.  We are never alone, we really are all one...always a part of each other, connected throughout time and space.  This I know is true.

Ah exhaustion....my old friend.  More coffee?

Another thing that keeps me up at night:  I feel as if I have disappointed so many people since David died.  I keep talking about him having been a buffer between me and the world. That's not exactly the right word, but I haven't worked around to the right one yet. 

People saw me through him.  Well, not everyone, but a lot of folks.  And I think they liked me better then.  He gentled me, smoothed off my rough edges, somehow made me a little less edgy.  I keep trying to explain that to folks who express dismay at having to deal with DiannewithoutDavid.  It also doesn't help that grief seems to make me more, well just.... more. 

There are lots of folks who knew me before David and seemed to love me just fine.  And I am grateful for them, they have kept me slightly less off center.  But oh I am struggling with this trying to find myself again and being okay with folks who are struggling with that. 

There are a lot of things no one tells you.  This is one of them.  There will be people who see you through a certain lense and they will often be less than okay when that lense is no longer there.  You will be struggling to figure out this new hybrid you while these folks are unhappy.  It's not easy.  It's weird.  It's uncomfortable. It's life changing.  And, oh, make sure you have folks in your life who see you through other lenses besides the "couple" one, they will be important.  They will help you remember.  They are the people whose presence you can rest in.  And you will need rest. 

I hate nights like this.  I am so tired, I go to bed and then lay there for an hour tossing and turning and thinking and remembering.  I just want to knock myself out. 

I am turning this idea of me before, me during and now what?  over and over and over.  I go over every detail of who I used to be and the miracle that David and I ever found each other.  And then I start on the time we had together and how that was so very very different from the time before David.  And then I try to fashion new futures out of that kaleidoscope of experience.  It doesn't matter that I cannot possibly hit on the "right" one....My mind careens around and around trying out new designs. 

Night has never been my favorite time, it's always been hard for me.  My brain simply doesn't turn off and even when I manage to fall asleep, I sleep as if I am awake and watching.  I love those drugs that make you fall asleep and then you wake up , boom, eight hours later.  Rest.  Really, is this how everyone else does it?  But those things can't possibly be good for you. 

So, David was no one I should've ever fallen in love with.  He was in the air force, I kept my income low enough so that I didn't pay taxes because I didn't like the way the government spent my money.  I especially didn't like how they spent most of it on the war machine.  He worked for a big corporation, corporations being things I tried to stay far away from.  He wore a Rolex, lived in a million dollar home, and drove a big fancy truck, a gas hog. Other things I tried to stay away from.  And he was almost twenty years older than I was.  None of these things mattered.  I knew him first as an amazingly kind, thoughtful, caring person.  It was only after it was too late that I found out all the reasons why I should never have even considered having him in my life. 

And I, I was not someone he would have ever considered in his life either.  For most of the above reasons.  Somehow we managed to see beyond our externals to the light that was within us. 

I was laying in bed, not sleeping, and thinking about all of this.  Thinking about those last days in the house and the peace we had together, before he became so confused and lost.  How much we loved what we had created here.  Not just the space, but the life and love.  We just wanted a little more time. 

And now what do I do?  What do I believe?  Who am I?  Where do I go next?  I don't know much.  But I believe in the light that lives in us all.  I believe in kindness and love.  I believe we have to do all we can to live in that love and light.  And we have to fight the darkness, shining our light into it any way we can.  I don't know how you build a life with that, or even how you change the world with that, but it's all I've got right now. 

A woman I knew a long time ago wrote these words in a song:  "you are light, you are love, you are blessings from above and I am blessed to know you...."  I guess that's really all we've ever got. 

So yesterday as I was shoveling yet another wheelbarrow load of mulch this thought flickered through my mind:  "this is not my dream."  After three days of moving mulch, weeding the garden and fixing the chicken coop, "this is not my dream."  While I love it and actually often feel happy in the midst of it, it was  not my dream.  My dream was to live below the radar, to own as little as possible and to live on a little sailboat.  Maybe join the peacecorp for awhile.  I went to the website last night and I still have a pending application there. 

David was never going to buy into that dream, so we created a new one.  I know I never regretted the giving up of the old for the new.  I don't think he did either.  But this little farm and the shop and house that we created was our dream. 

I find myself living in a very concrete example of what I have been existentially feeling.  I know who I was before David, I know who I was with him, I have no idea who I am going into the future.  I have been toying with the idea of going back to the old dream.  One of the things that frightens and overwhelms me is all this "stuff" I now own and am responsible for.  What if I just sold it all, gave it all away, and joined the Peacecorp?  Used a little of the money and bought that sailboat?  I simply don't know.  I got used to sharing a dream, working together, creating something together.  I'm not sure I could go back to living a life alone.  Just me and the ocean, just me and a whole new culture.  It's tempting...very tempting right now. 

But I also know that time is my friend in this.  I need to listen to the wisdom of those who have gone before me...wait a year, let the dust settle, see how way opens before you.  The future will bring something new, something bigger, something different that comes from all the Me's I have been before, the me I am now.  Waiting is the hard part.  I just want to DO SOMETHING.....anything, to be through this.  And, I don't want to rush through, unseeing, unfeeling.  I dont' want to waste this Holy time.  We live in the center of paradox and it is extraordinary work to hold the tension and still feel peace.  But, oh that little sailboat!!! 

Been a while.  I've been unloading a never ending trailer of mulch.  And missing David, we usually did it together and it was not only easier, it was more fun.  I'm exhausted and still have more to go, on top of the normal range of never ending chores. I did not appreciate nearly enough all that David did.   But once more today I realized I felt happy and alive again.  I've cried my fair share too...but mostly out of frustration rather than sadness. 

David was a buffer between my intense reactions and the world.  He smoothed the way with people, something I have never been good at.  And oh, I could use that now.  So many folks I interact with right now only knew me through the David lens.  We are struggling to navigate new terrain.  It is not easy and sometimes I'm not sure I care.  It's a whole new way of finding myself in the world again.  I knew who I was as me alone, I knew who I was with David, now I am in the world that was so often filtered through him and I dont' know how to be in it and I'm pretty sure it doesn't know how to be with me either.  I look up and curse the heavens sometimes.  Not only is he not here to filter/buffer, he's not here to talk to about it later.  I want someone to process everything with. I am lost and tired.

It's a weird thing, suddenly you wake up one day and the world looks the same but it's not the same.  And the people around you either continue to act as if it was the same or they start acting in these odd ways.  It's shifting sand and hard to keep my balance.  But once again there is no way out but through. Over and over again, my mantra.

I felt happy today.  It surprised me, stopped me in my tracks.  Whoa, what is that feeling?  And then almost immediately, "when will I crash again?"  Okay, take a deep breath.

The week has been a bittersweet one but slowly improving.  Yesterday I talked about that whole being in the present thing and remembering the past without falling on the floor sobbing.  Okay, good insight right?  Then I went to yoga class....

The teacher started with a talk about Ganesha, the elephant god, the remover of obstacles and the one who makes way for new paths.  Yay...great, here we go again.  But I went with it, even though I get a lot of not so subtle messages around this theme.  I worked my butt off and thought about obstacles being removed and finding some new path forward.  At the end of class I was in tears, quiet tears, but tears just the same.  During the final meditation I had this image of me exhausted, dirty, angry, sad...having worked my way up a cold, wet, muddy, rock strewn mountain...coming through the clouds into sun and able to see off into the distance.  It felt hopeful, peaceful, not finished but a turning point. This took me by surprise, heavy handed as it was, and since then I have been feeling something new.

Last night at dinner with my son, I felt it but did not yet recognize it.  This morning walking Lulu I felt it and recognized it.  Me.  I was me again.  Just me.  An I, not a We anymore.  I had crossed some invisible line from being a part of a We, and then a half of a We, to being me. I remember when I became a mother and suddenly was not just Me anymore.  I remember when I was getting to know David and being very aware of the process of becoming a We.  But then it became the water I swam in and I forgot anything else.  So much of the pain has been feeling as if I had been thrown out into oxygen again and had forgotten how to breath. Suddenly I took a deep breath.  And remembered. 

And you know what?  It's not so bad.  Just different.  I might make it after all.

If I can stay in the present moment life is beautiful.  All my pain comes from remembering the past or fearing the future.  Simple concept, hard to implement.  We hear it all the time right?  But it's true.  It's really and truly True. 

I sat on the deck this morning with tears and coffee.  A common enough occurrence.  This morning I enjoyed the morning and was grateful for it.  I kept remembering our trip to Thailand and then the week before and day of David's death.  Tears.  Silent gentle tears not ripping sobs, which is a movement forward.  When I felt myself heading into the future I just stopped.  All that does is immobilize me.  Then determined, I got up and took the dog for a walk, practicing being present in the moment.  Sometimes it works.