It is Time to Live Forward
The one year mark of Mike’s death has passed.
Everyone's grief timeline and process is their own. My words may not sound like words that fit other grieving folks. However I honor that these words fit me.
One driving force for reflection is that my life force is becoming VERY loud. Colors have returned to their brightness. The sun on my hair feels so good. My body is alive and I hunger for all the things that humans hunger for. I am acutely aware of the broken world, the miracle of this day and the vulnerability of how ravenous I am to carpe the diem. All true. And what a gift to be alive!
The kids are my priority and always will be. The truth is, Mike does not need me anymore. This was a major a-ha. Through this first year after losing him, I have given myself grace to metabolize it all. A laboring woman cannot argue with labor, I breathed through grief in public and private, through tears and in sunshine, lifting heavy weights and writing, while working and sleeping. Sometimes looping grief patterns became observable, and I started adding different ingredients to see how it would change. More about this later - but suffice it to say I observed repeated thought patterns could influence through different choices. Interesting.
My sadness duration and intensity will never bring him back. My grief does not prove my love for him. I am so deeply tired of carrying the weight of ALS, and the years of sustained sadness and FEAR. At this one year mark, I can actually feel the sensation of the sticky, looping grief stealing my life away from me.
Me claiming my life, focusing on the kids and making the most of every day is precisely what Mike would have fervently urged me to do. I am not 'moving on' - actually I loathe that phrase. “Moving on” feels like some kind of deletion of my past, and can land as being dismissive from others.
I am not 'moving on'. I am Living Forward. I can not unravel Mike and our life together - we are forever woven together.
Two days before his death date, I scheduled a professionally guided psyillocybin journey. I want to take the power out of the day of his death - I have grieved deeply, and it has broken me open. I figured I might as well shine light on broken open, deeply feeling me to see what needs to be released, and what I can learn.
The journey was a powerful grounding, and will progressively reveal itself as time goes on. Like bread rising, it will happen in its own time. I am in no rush.
On the death date, I could be there for the kids, and it made my gaze expansive - forgetting nothing, and also feeling momentum to grab my life by the scruff of the neck and ask myself what I really want.
I get to ask myself what I want now. And part of what I want is to fully inhabit myself as a human being with a Vital Spark.