One Year in the Making

Today yoga class almost made me cry.

True, my muscles were burning, tingling, and shaking, but that is not why tears came springing to my eyes during the last 5 minutes of class.

During yoga, there is a lot of time for the participants to concentrate solely on their bodies, their breath, A time where your mind is at peace and able to focus on the class alone. And then at the end, everything slows down and your body is relaxed and your mind has room to wander. Usually I let myself take those few moments and simply relax, enjoy the release of all the tension built during the hour-long yoga practice. But today was different. Even before we’d released and come into that time of quiet, rest, and relaxation, my mind started to wander. I thought about when I first started coming to this class, only a few weeks earlier. I thought about a conversation I’d had with one of the instructors about my past, why I am where I am, and how losing John had been the beginning of an extremely challenging year where God has pulled me in closer to himself. And then I thought about how that year is about to draw to a close, and while there will be no fanfare, no stopping of time to signify what has passed, and virtually no one outside of John’s immediate family will even understand the transition that is taking place, it will mean a change in my life.

And suddenly I began to panic.

After August 28^th, my identity will be changing. You see, all the grief counselors and all the books by the most knowledgeable people in the world agree that the grieving process takes about one year. I wouldn’t say I’ve experienced grief by their standards or traveled all the “steps” involved.  And despite the way I still feel closely drawn in to that pain, the awareness of what I’ve lost, the way I deeply and completely miss my husband, I’ll be expected to no longer be “that woman who lost her husband.” This isn’t me railing against the expectations of society, because I don’t blame them for me feeling that pressure. I feel like time itself is putting pressure on me. My own understanding of the passage of time and the changes it brings puts pressure on me. My desire to be healed and whole again puts pressure on me. And nobody wants to be defined as a widow, right?

So why is this so hard? Why do I panic at the thought of no longer being the widow? Of just being a girl? Mom to Airalynn and Elenie. Girlfriend of Jeremy.

I miss John.

I miss being his wife, I miss seeing him every day, hearing his voice, holding his hand. I don’t want to move any further away from the day I lost him, because that was the last time I saw him. That was the last time I kissed him goodbye. That was the last time my family felt whole, perfect. That was the last time I saw my first love. And the more days pass between now and then, the more real it has to become that I’ll never see him again on this earth. That my old life that I loved so much will never be mine again.

I have to let go. I don’t want to let go.

The things that have characterized the last year of my life have been strength, passion, love, joy, maturity…I’ve spent this time pushing my own limits and letting people into my life when I wasn’t emotionally ready to handle so many people wanting my love and attention. Maybe it was rebellion in me against the expectations some have for a widow. Maybe it was God strengthening me and surrounding me with people who love me and want to help me by asking me to look beyond myself for a while. All I know is that now that year is over. The patience I received from people around me will diminish, not because they are insensitive, but because we all have internal clocks that urge us to act a certain way for a certain time, and at the end of that time, we are no longer required to act in that way. We expect other people to pick themselves up and become fully functioning members of society again.

What if I’m not fully functioning yet?

What if my head works perfectly, but my heart still hiccups and stutters? How do I ask Jeremy, my parents, John’s parents to be understanding? What do I say when suddenly I change my mind because fear and longing for the past replace my excitement for the future? How do I explain these mood swings that even I can’t anticipate?

Some people won’t expect me to. Some people will keep their distance out of caution because they can see that I am still not back to “normal”. Some people may try to pry my emotions out of me in an attempt to “help” me move on. The problem is that no one, not even me, knows what to expect, day in and day out. I feel so confused, dizzy from the way my heart swings back and forth. And the year mark that is creeping closer and closer and threatening to strangle me feels like the dip you anticipate after climbing for several minutes on a tall roller coaster.

So do I throw my hands up and wait for my stomach to flip?

Or do I scream “I want to get off!” and claw my way out of my restraints? Do I even get a choice?