2012

2010...The year it all happened to me.

2011...The year 'I' happened to me.

2012...The year 'I' happen to IT ALL.

I've just spent the last hour sitting in the empty third bedroom of my house sobbing uncontrollably over an empty dog crate screaming, "GIVE HER BACK TO ME!" to...I don't know...God? Myself? That dark empty space in time where things don't always go the way we wish they did? In the end it doesn't really matter...she isn't coming back.

Instead, I'm left with memories and the faint smell of her soft fur on a tiny stuffed bunny.

2010:  I accepted there was nothing left to do to save my marriage, loaded up my car, and drove halfway across the country to live with my mother. Weeks after arriving I learned I had to have major abdominal surgery, which took me three months to recover from. During the recovery period, I was told I most likely had breast cancer. Many procedures later, a mass was removed from my left breast and I was informed I was cancer free. Days later, my niece passed two weeks before her due date. I was there for her delivery, and spent the next month grieving with my sister before giving the eulogy at the baby's memorial. The entire time, I was fighting back and forth with my husband, begging for a quick and easy divorce.

2011: I got my divorce. I lost everything financially in the process, but I got my divorce. I rented a house, broke up with the piece of shit man I dated during my recovery and began the process of healing.

About the time I took my first breath in over a year...my best friend, my dog, died unexpectedly from a brain tumor at 5 years old.

Yes, it's a dog. I get it. But in my eyes- she was the child I never got to have, she was the friends I had left behind with every move, she was my closest family, and the one who had comforted me through my darkest days. Nearly four months later, as I finally begin moving her things from their original spots, as I take down the mountains of framed pictures and little shrines I set up around the house...I realize it isn't just my best friend I am grieving...I am grieving all of the things that didn't go the way I wanted them to.

And I have to admit...it feels good. Really good. As a strong, independent woman it's often difficult for me to really grieve. I'd rather move on to the next thing and bury my feelings (lest anyone judge me or think me weak). I am not weak. I am human. And it's ok to mourn the loss of a dog as I would the loss of a family member.

If you break a leg, and I break a finger...should my finger hurt less because it's a smaller bone? No. Pain is pain. Period.

However, I do not see 2011 as a year of pain. It has been a year of recovery. Physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. It's been a year of discovery. Who am I when I stand alone? What do I really want now that I have an open road in front of me and can walk in any direction I choose? What makes me happy? What do I want to do today, tomorrow, ten years from now?

How very exciting, how very frightening, how very challenging to discover these answers and a thousand more.

Today I am sitting in a beautiful three bedroom home I decorated on my own with furniture I bought with my own money. I am paying my own bills and making my own choices. Yes, I'm stumbling from time to time, some days I make everything more difficult, some days I get it right. But what matters is that I'm finally doing life...my way.

My therapist asked me to create a metaphor for the last 2 years of my life: "It's as if I was tied to a train track and the world's longest freight train was rolling over me. Every time I tried to sit up, I was knocked back down." "Then what?" She asked. "Then...one day the caboose rolled over me, and there were no more cars. The ropes fell away and I stood up." "What did you learn?" "I learned that I am so much stronger than I could have ever imagined."

2012: Some say our time will end. I don't believe this. For me, my time is just beginning. It's a new era, a new way to exist, a new me. I'm finally accepting the things I can not change. I can not bring my dog back. I can not blink my eyes and be a happily married mother. I can not create the perfect partner or a storybook life. I can not give my sister her baby back, I can not take away her pain. 

What I can do is make each day as meaningful as possible. I can grieve, cry, let go, and move on. I can dance alone in my living room for hours, or play guitar badly and loudly without judgement. I can capture the world in pictures, and express myself through my art. I can find ways to do the things I love and share my gifts with others. I can relax, enrich my mind, body, and soul...and become a better person. A person I would want to spend the rest of my life with. I can tell my family I love them.

Every day I can find one hour in which to do one thing that makes me...me. I know my truth lies somewhere between the tragedy and the comedy of the last few years. It lives in that small space inside of me that is grateful for every railcar that drove over me, for every mistake, for every judgement, for every hurt that brought me to the place where I can scream and cry as the sounds of a piano rise from the speakers below, and know I'm ok.

This is ok.

2010...the year I am grateful for.

2011...the year I am even more grateful for.

2012...the year I can't wait for.