Out of the Valley: Self-kindness

Friday, December 18, 2015

Masquerade

Sometimes I feel like a total fake. People tell me I'm doing so well...having fun, thriving. What they don't see is how I fall apart every night. I miss Jim so much and my heart just aches when the world around me stops and I have time to just be. Now I understand why Aunt Gladys told me to keep busy, because her generation doesn't really want to deal with feelings. And that's what happens at the end of the day, when things are quiet. Or in the shower every morning, where the water masks my tears, and I am literally bare to my emotions. Hidden or not, I have to face my feelings.

It's funny...not haha funny but strange... I know all the right words, 'you don't get over it, you just go through it' and 'it doesn't get easier, you just get stronger' And I know they are true. But knowing and feeling are two different things.

I expected after a year had passed that "helpful" folks would encourage me to 'get busy living'. What I did not anticipate was that I would have those same expectations for myself. I thought that I would be more joyful, more energetic and more ready to get on with my life. But that's not always the case. I still sometimes just want to stay in bed and cry missing Jim, loving Jim. I find myself getting impatient with me. While I expected, no, demanded, patience, understanding and compassion from my family and friends, for some strange reason I wasn't able to give the same to myself. Why is it easier for us to love others than love ourselves? To be patient and kind with others than it is to be with ourselves?

About this blog

On May 3, 2013, a bronchoscopy confirmed my husband, Jim McConnell, who would turn 53 two days later, had stage IV cancer. He fought valiantly, never ever giving up hope, always with a sense of humor. We had shirts made for all of us that read: Cancer Sucks: Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for I am the toughest SOB in the valley. An incredibly short journey of nine months later, I had the joy and sadness of saying good morning to my husband Jim for the very last time. After going through initial stages we all go through, the shock, the numbness, the disconnect I realized I was on a new journey. It was no longer our journey, it was mine alone. I traveled with him into the valley of the shadow of death, but he had to go on alone Where he had to step, it is not yet my time. In the beginning of my solo journey, I pictured myself at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, a beautiful spot, and indeed, my life with Jim, despite his cancer, had been a beautiful life. We were blessed in so many ways. Yet in those long months after his death, I felt I was at the bottom of a very deep, dark, primeval place, my own Phantom Ranch, and I needed all my strength to climb out. I am getting stronger, and now, it’s my turn to take a step on my own, to somehow figure out how to climb out of the valley.