Over the holiday break, I spent 40 hours in the car with my two dogs. Long distance driving like that is no stranger to me. The first trip Tim and I ever took together was a trek from Raleigh, NC to New Orleans, LA with several stops along the way. Tim was the first person I met in life that didn’t think anything of throwing an overnight bag in his truck and hitting the road to far off places. He would…
I am learning to live with the longing. Hours after Tim died, I sat on my back porch with a friend and the two county appointed crisis counselors. My friend rubbed my back and sat there, silently present until she needed to answer a question or wrangle my cell phone away from me. The crisis counselor sat in the chair across from me, leaning forward on her elbows with her hands clasped. I remember her voice was patient, and her…
I survived October! I’ve never been so happy to meet November before, with a lot of tough dates , memories and feelings behind me for a while. This month was tougher than most, but one of the things that has surprised me throughout this grieving process is the extreme up and down of it all. I’ve jokingly diagnosed myself with grief induced bipolar disorder. That’s not to make light of a serious mental disorder, but more of the best way to…
When moving forward in life alone, objects start to take on more significance than they’re supposed to. Often times these days, I feel like an anthropologist digging through the ruins of my own house. I was putting dishes away the other day, when I dropped a plate. It was a rogue saucer, a thick, mint green plate decorated with a brown bamboo pattern on it. Before I met him, Tim had picked up a set of four from the Asian market…
I survived the first anniversary without Tim. If they made widow merit badges, that would be a big one. Honestly, dreading the day was worse than the actual day. I knew it was going to be rough, so I scheduled a trip back to North Carolina to see family and friends. It was the first time I’d been back home since everything has happened, and I wasn’t sure how things would feel. When emotions can be rocky, I find food…
“These two things fight together in me as the snakes fight in the spring. The water comes out of my eyes; yet I laugh while it falls. Why?” – Rudyard Kipling I have always liked October. The air starts to cool down in Texas, and evenings flirt with the idea of sweater weather approaching. There’s a cleansing aspect to the air – a different kind of smell and feeling. Plus, it’s the start of all the holidays and my favorite…
Despite writing my essential guide to going out and having fun, by Friday afternoon at around 3pm I had run my well dry of good mood and good times. In my 4pm meeting at work, I told two of my co-workers that I hated them simply because they were giddy from a few cups of ridiculously strong coffee. They thought I was joking, but you know what they say about jokes… they’re always built of at least 75% truth. It wasn’t so…
The math indicated that they’d embrace in another world, if at all, like parallel lines. Or merely appear kindred and close, like stars. “John & Mary” by Stephen Dunn Leading up to the one month and the two month post, I felt like I knew what I wanted to say fairly clearly. Now time passes in ways I don’t always understand, and things are more jumbled. They’re not worse or even all that bad at times, but they are confusing. I’ve…