Veteran of the Heart

Just so you know, I think this might actually be up to three different blog posts, but I can't seem to organize my thoughts into anything of a decent cohesive length.

I watched the Silver Linings Playbook yesterday because my friend (Kara T.) really wanted to see it. Plus it's generally a positive movie and, you know, nominated for like 6 or 7 Oscars.

I knew going into it that the main girl was a young widow. And so I went into it expecting to relate somehow. I fully expected to cry.

But I didn't. At all.

None of it felt real or true... I didn't buy the ending... In effect it just didn't line up for me.

And I couldn't help but wonder why.

Is it because each experience of grief is so different? Or am I abnormal? Jennifer Lawrence has a best actress nom, so I don't think it's just that she doesn't do a good job. Is it that no one in the Academy has had a "young grief" experience? That can't be it.

Or is it that I'm not really a widow, anymore.

I mean, of course, I *am* a widow-- I always will be.  I've earned the title. And I do think "earned" is the right word. Widow(er) is a signifier of experience-- gained just by making it through each day. It means something along the lines of  "veteran of the heart." But I feel like that's not the main distinguisher right now. It's kinda like getting a doctorate. There are some times when being called doctor is a big deal and you want that respect, but when you are with your family or on vacation that title isn't one that you use. Basically, "widow" is not how I define myself and I don't think it's how others define me and maybe that's an important distinction.

I was reading a book last night (Yes, I started at 2 AM.... Yes, I went to sleep at 6AM... Yes, I woke up at noon and proceeded to roll over and finish the book without even getting out of bed. Yes, I think you should consider that cute and not deranged.) But in the book the main character is speaking about his mother who passed away less than a year earlier and says of the cemetery  "I still can't think about her being there. It doesn't make sense. Why would you stick someone you love down in a lonely old hole in the dirt? Where it's cold, and dirty, and full of bugs? That can't be how it ends, after everything, after everything she was." - Beautiful Creatures

That I totally relate to. I really struggled just after Nathan died with him being "so far" away from me in Arkansas, but then Kara reminded me that he wasn't really there.

We are coming up on "hell week" for me. It starts on the 21st and culminates in the 29th. I've already caught myself getting a little manic in my quest for company. Last year we had a big to-do. I don't want that this year. I don't know exactly what I will do, but I know I it will be something smaller, quieter.... some sort of tradition I might actually be able to maintain.

I can't believe it will be two years. In some ways it feels so much longer and in other ways not nearly that long. I keep expecting my life to be vastly different, but it's not my life that really seems so changed. It's me.