Y'all. We did it. We made it through the holidays.
This time of year hits differently after loss. Things that used to be happy feel hollow. The darkness feels oppressive. I am so proud of us for making it through another round, turning over another calendar page to a new year.
My husband Derek died January 2nd, 2017. I start every year with this anniversary and this reminder of loss. I've always joked that it is the shittiest way to start the new year. While I still hold to that, it has changed quite a bit in the past nine years. I anticipate it will continue to change as I continue to change.
I met it differently this year. In the past, I leaned into escapism and numbing. I avoided it as much as possible. I'd take the day off, I'd observe it, but I'd do so in heaviness and sadness and full of bourbon. I didn't do that this year. This year, I went to therapy and I attended a group meeting for a mentorship program. I realized, I don't have to live in sadness anymore. I can meet these milestones, these anniversaries, with joy and love. Yeah, I'll probably always be a little sad on these days. I loved my husband, and I miss him. It will never not be sad. But I can choose not to dwell in that sadness. I can choose to remember him and our life together with joy.
I share all this to say: growth and healing take time. I could not have imagined the life I am living now nine years ago. If you had told me when I left the hospital that morning that I would not only learn to live again but that I would grow and discover joy through my grief, I probably would have punched you in the mouth. I was not in a place to hear it. Of course I wasn't, I had just lost my soulmate. Hope felt like betrayal. Joy felt like betrayal.
I know that I would not experience joy the way I do today without the pain and suffering of that day nine years ago. I can't and will never know if I could have become who I am today with Derek. I do know that losing him destroyed me. Losing him gave me the chance to really look at myself and decide who I wanted to be. There was no more hiding. No more avoiding. No more numbing my way out of it. No more pretending I wasn't carrying grief and trauma into every interaction and every relationship. Losing him broke me. It also set me free.
So here's to nine years of grieving. Of falling down and picking myself back up. Of starting over. Of breaking open and building up. Of discovery. Of healing. Of nervous system regulation. Of learning how to face the world directly. Of connecting to real, true, hard-earned joy.
Here's to nine years of widowhood, and everything that comes with it.