(Woo! More navel-gazing! Awesome! And to head off the comments before they start, no I DON'T knit anymore. I navel-gaze.)
Nine months ago today, Rick died. In the time it takes to grow a new human, I grew...myself. This post will be full of cliches and crap like that, and will include uncomfortable admissions. Prolly no rants, though Cookie and Joan and Nora have a lock on those this week.
Nine months ago today, my life ended. The life I knew was gone without so much as a gasp. It left me and my young sons and we were bereft. It was a Friday. There are whole hours missing from that day, but the images in my head of Rick, both before and after he was gone, will be with me forever. He was a strong, vital man who withered away before my very eyes, and the universe saw fit to take him away completely, for whatever reasons it felt like. Assuming there were any reasons at all.
Nine months ago today, this life I have now began. It started out with a great deal of pain and anguish, but also lots of love. Friends and family made sure I was taken care of, that beer magically appeared in my house, that the boys were fed and watered and exercised and taken to school, that the laundry was done. Having given birth once with no drugs (thank you very much stupid nurse who didn't talk to my midwife before countermanding the order YES I'M STILL BITTER) I can say that giving birth to my new life was more painful and took so much more labor. (See? bad clichés, I has dem.) Railing against it didn't help. Accepting it didn't make the pain stop. Avoiding it was only temporary. My friends, it sucked.
And then one day, it didn't. Not the whole day, anyway. I got a new job. I got some new friends at the new job, ones who weren't associated with any pain because they were part of the new life. (Not to say that I'm not blessed by my old friends, but avoidance is so much easier when no one around you knows you're avoiding, yanno?) I bought some new clothes, I took the boys to fun places, and I started to live this new life. Friends continued to make me feel loved and to let me know they were around for me. I had a few dates. I had a one night stand with a crazy Jesus freak. I remembered why dating sucks. I met someone wonderful and fell in love. I started going out and experiencing things I hadn't done before. I started running (yes, Nora, you read that right) and got new goals in my life. I took my babies and my husband's ashes and together we let him go. I came home to find my new love waiting for me at the airport, and realized with great relief that having love in my new life was fitting and right.
It's hard to admit this due to the implications of what I'm not saying, but here it is: it has been nine months, and in that nine months I have grown into a whole new person. I still have the occasional pangs, because this birth was different than others. But as Lynn said when I was wondering to her about how great I felt, "It's called grace, and when it shows up, you welcome it." My new life makes me happy. Not the same - never the same - but amazing, nonetheless.
