75. Peace and Tranquility

"You will lose someone you can't live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you will never completely get over the loss of your beloved.  But this is also the good news.  They live forever in your broken heart that doesn't seal back up.  And you come through.  It's like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly - that still hurts when the weather gets cold - but you learn to dance with the limp."
~Anne Lamott

I haven't written too much recently.  Part of me wonders why.  The other part knows it's because the well of emotions sometimes runs dry - it's exhausting to feel so much all the time.

At this time last year, the brokenness of my heart and the effect of that brokenness of my future were all I could think about.  Now, a certain degree of numbness has taken the place of that tangled web of untouched emotions.  Or maybe it's just that the rawness of the wound is slightly less acute.  Perhaps - gasp! - I've even learned to live with it.  A year ago, I had so much to say...because it hadn't been said.  I had so much to feel...because I had not allowed myself to feel it.  When I finally recognized the need for both of these things, the weight of Jon's loss seemed unbearable, and I prayed that God would put an end to the intensity of my grief.  This has got to be it for me, I thought.  He wouldn't make me live with this forever.  Alternatively, I prayed for some peace and tranquility.

Apparently, the powers that be have decided on the latter option.  After helplessly floundering at rock bottom for a while, a sense of inner calm has started to replace the defenses I constructed around my heart.  Until recently, these defenses caused me to flee from all hints of intimacy and hold the people I love at arms length.  Instead of facing the magnitude of my grief, I threw myself into relationships that I wasn't ready for...or that were bound to fail.  I lived without really living, rebelled against everything I knew, and, quite literally, resigned myself to drowning in the sorrow of my husband's absence.  I figured I'd had the best I could possibly have and would simply have to find a way to pass the time until it was my time too.

Ironically, this new and unfamiliar calmness leaves me feeling slightly wary.  Is it because I made it through yet another happy holiday season relatively unscathed?  Is it because I perpetually have too little time and too much to do?  Is it because I have managed to find ways to laugh in spite of the pain?  Because I understand that no amount of sadness or tears will bring my husband back?  Because I stopped caring so much about what other people think and, instead, embrace my story and his legacy?  I find myself thinking that this might just be another bubble that will burst.  I instinctively assume this is the crest of a wave that I'll continue to ride until it's over and I hit another low.  But maybe it's more than that.  Maybe I've finally managed to put more than a band-aid on a wound that has become somewhat more tolerable - it's there, I know it's there, I've stopped pretending it's not there, and I know it's there to stay.  Maybe Jon is trying to tell me that I've proved, by succumbing to the full extent of the heartache, how much I love him and always will.  Maybe he's somehow giving me permission to feel a little more of the good in life after all of the bad.  I've been afraid - terrified, even - of the good for a long time now. But maybe there's hope for me yet.

How long will this last?  I don't know.  This time around, my expectations are lower and my assumptions are less erratic.  This wave feels less like an emotional tsunami and more like the ebb and flow of a gentle tide.  I think I'd like to ride it out or a while and see where it takes me.  Peace.  Tranquility.  I cherish both...and pray for more.