The hard days seem to stare me in the face lately...this holiday season is testing me. Rocking me...down to the core. These days...they hurt. It's not excruciating most of the time--it's just this dull ache that never leaves. It is the constant that you can always count on...and you fight and fight just to make it through the day--one day--so you can wake up in the morning and do it all over again. At that point, exhaustion sets in and all you feel like doing is curling up in a ball and shutting out the world.
And all you can think about is starting over.
Who really wants to start over when everything you had was everything you wanted? Unfortunately, there are parts of life where there are no choices and the only thing you can do is start picking up the pieces. In the process you find how strong you are. Sometimes it surprises you...sometimes, you don't feel all that strong--most of the time, you don't feel strong at all. Truthfully, most days consist of just putting on a brave face and promising yourself that if you can get through today you can get through tomorrow.....and then, when you least expect it, you begin to feel the tears coming on....and before you know it you're crying....a cathartic, deep cry that physically hurts--your head wants to explode--and it takes your mind off your broken heart for a while and when it's over...you believe you're going to make it. You're not sure how-just that you will.
Even in all of that, I would never give this pain back. I would still marry Chris every single day knowing this is the outcome. Love is an amazing thing. When you love deeply, you regret nothing. Not one thing you did or said....you just know that you drowned yourself in this beautiful love that evelopes you when you are at your worst and embraces you when you are at your best. That very love changes you....and it sustains you because, when you least suspect it, there will come a time in your life when you will undoubtedly feel like things can't get much worse....and that love will fill you with hope until you can hold yourself up. In the mean time, though, there are those few days when it feels like all that is left of my heart is a hollow place where the joy and love used to be. It's a terribly lonely and scary feeling.
But most days, I can tell you that hollow space fills again. The dreams we had of a family and the direction our life was headed are not over--but the dreams change direction. They have to so that someday filling the space will be something you realize you did after the fact....so when you look back, you stare in amazement at the fact that you did it without even realizing it. I can still do all of those things-just in different ways. I think the hardest part sometimes, is beginning to accept that you need to adapt to the changes you never thought would happen in your life until much later on.
I have a long way to go...this journey will be ever changing and somehow that's okay. You see, when you've been through the worst, everything else seems doable.
There isn't a day that goes by when I don't feel Chris here...I still feel his love surround me like a warm blanket...and while I miss him every single day...I had him and, even on my worst days, that makes me smile the most.
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