What is "lost"?

The dictionary definition of lost is, "unable to find one's way; not knowing one's whereabouts."  

When I use the term lost, my meaning is "the inability to find one's way due to the inability to recognize one's true self."  

I have looked at myself and my life as a giant puzzle.  All of the pieces were there, I just didn't quite know how to put them all together.  Which is absurd, right?  Puzzle pieces are designed to fit.  You just have to take the time to align them.  I didn't view my puzzle pieces as fitting though.  That's where the confusion set in.  What belonged?  What didn't?  Why didn't they fit?  And just when I felt like I had figured it all out, because I had felt complete and peaceful at different times in my life, something new entered my life and I felt like I had to take the puzzle apart and start over, instead of building upon what was already there.

You know what that is?  A weak foundation.  

(I actually do know now that I have a strong foundation.  It is a very strong foundation that has weathered many storms.  However, when you don't have a strong sense of self, you lack the ability to recognize what is sitting right in front of you, just like I lacked the ability to put the puzzle pieces together.  They were all there.  They have always been there.  Perception is key.  Identity is power.  Authenticity is bravery.

Not having a strong sense of self is not an attractive quality.  I am not going to beat myself up here, I am aware that I do possess many attractive qualities, but that just isn't wasn't one of them.  I can also imagine how frustrating it could be to be with and love someone who is unsure of themselves. I am positive that played a significantly negative role in my relationships.  Being wishy-washy with my identity made it easier to be a people pleaser because it is a breeding ground for a lack of boundaries.  I can now also see the type of people who are attracted to people like me like I used to be.)

Props that I do need to give to myself is that despite feeling "lost" for so much of my life, part of the reason I felt lost was because I was searching.  You don't feel lost if you don't go anywhere.  I have always been moving, learning, and growing.  But you don't know what you don't know.  There was so much that I didn't know about myself and who I was am and why I was am the way that I am.  It does make sense now.  The puzzle pieces fit and it is such a satisfying and empowering place to finally be.  But what a wild ride to get there!

Let's Back Up a Bit

After rereading my last post, I wanted to go back and clarify my position on feeling "lost."  Truth be told, I had felt "lost" for quite a long time, it wasn't just after my mom passed that it emerged.  This blog was essentially birthed from my desire to find myself after the death of my first husband. 

 In the first two years of this blog, I posted over 260 times and during that time I was also seeing a therapist.  I was working on myself.  I was spilling my thoughts.  I was trying to make sense of things.  I was trying to figure out who I was at that time.  In the summer of 2013, I stopped seeing my therapist.  I felt that I was in a position where I outgrew her.  Perhaps I should have continued therapy with a new therapist, but I was feeling good.  Stronger.  More secure.  I put so much to rest and felt so much more at peace and while I was not completely healed (is that even possible?) I believed that I was in a good enough place to move on, and I still believe that.  I met John in November of that year and I moved on.

However, it didn't take long for that "lost" feeling to reemerge.  In January of 2016, I said goodbye to this blog and began a new one.  Looking back at those posts from that new blog,  it was about living and loving life.  I was positive.  I was engaged and planning a wedding.  I was happy.  

It was just after the wedding, in October of 2016, that it was confirmed what my siblings and I thought about my mom, early onset Alzheimer's.  She was only 62 and had just retired that summer.  It was an excruciating diagnosis.  That same fall, my son began to have problems in school.  He was having a tough go with his emotions.  He had been sent to the guidance counselor a few times, one time I had to pick him up early because he had scratched his own face so badly (yep... he was turning his emotions inward and I cannot even begin to tell you how terrifying that was).  He started to see an outside therapist. Oh, and my best friend was diagnosed with cancer.  

It was not an easy time. I actually found meditation in the spring of 2017.  I took an 8-week weekly (in-person) workshop.  (This will become more significant as I catch up more with more up-to-date posts.)  I was recently married to my amazing (as I had so often referred to the person that I would eventually end up with here on this blog) and felt that I was OKAY, just everyone around me seemed to be falling apart (hadn't that happened before?).

In December of 2018 (weeks after turning 40, which was difficult for me) I started yet another blog.  This one was titled, "Discovering Your WAY" where WAY stood for "Who Are You."  YEP... I was lost.  I had lost myself again.  I knew that I had, yet I didn't really know that I had.  

That blog focused on running, traveling, maintaining friendships, living in NYC, yoga, meditation, healthy living... all of the things that were important to me then (they still are today) but I think what I was searching for was a way to combine all of these things that I loved, that were important to me and make some sort of sense of them.  They all seemed so random and disconnected.  I think now that it was just me.   I just felt disconnected... from myself, from others, from everything.    

(So to say that I felt "lost" began in 2021 is not completely accurate.  It was knocking at my door in 2018.  It just busted the door in 2021.

Ironically, the last post before this most recent resurrection was dated May 16, 2018.  I reread it and the significant events of 2017-2018 are what I just posted in this post and then some.  I have documentation that I was in a tough place and ultimately by the end of the year, when I started that new blog, I felt lost.)   

What's Wrong with Me?

 It was almost exactly three years ago when something began to feel not right.  I wasn't sure what it meant or even where it came from but it was a feeling that emerged from deep within and became impossible to ignore.  

It was in April of that same year, only months prior, that my mother passed away.  By June, I couldn't help but think, "This is it.  This is my life?"  I had no idea where this was coming from.  I had never thought or even felt that way before my mother's passing. So in the beginning I tried to push those feelings back down telling myself it was some sort of mid-life crisis awakening due to the reality of losing a parent.  

I didn't tell my husband these feelings that I was having.  I couldn't explain them.  I didn't know where they were coming from and I knew even then that I couldn't just say those words to him.  He would have taken them very personally and I didn't want to hurt him.  At that time, I didn't think it had anything to do with my marriage. 

Other than the heartache of losing my mom, life was good.  Very good.  My husband was my best friend.  We got along.  We laughed.  We went out on dates.  We took awesome vacations as a family and just as a couple.  My relationship with my family was good.  We became even closer during the sickness that overtook my mom.  I had friends.  My son... he was healthy and doing well.  I didn't have much to complain about.  

When those feelings would not stay buried, I turned them against myself.  "What is wrong with me?"  I have always been on a quest for self-growth through self-help books, quotes, and practices (this blog) but this seemed different.  It became more of an obsession.  I was too old to feel so "lost" and unsure of myself and my inability to identify what was bothering me so much and why.  

This was the beginning of my truest and most authentic journey to self-discovery... and it was also the beginning to the end of my marriage.  

(This is a prime example of me being a people pleaser.  I put his feelings above my own.  I have no doubt that he would not have reacted in a supportive way, but what I have also learned is that I controlled the situation by not expressing myself.  I didn't give him a chance to react either way.  Essentially I manipulated the situation.  That is such a hard truth to swallow.  It never occurred to me that what I was doing was wrong.  It was a natural reaction for me to keep the peace and it was never done with bad intention.  I didn't realize that my intention didn't necessarily matter, the impact that it made was not positive and it took me 45 years of life to learn that.)

Hello Blog, My Old Friend

 Logging back into this site to add to my story was so odd.  Since my last post, I've visited many times in the past 6 years, to read and reflect upon my journey.  This post, however, will be the first of many as I  reflect upon the past 10 years of my life.  I am in the paper-signing phase of a divorce and while the end is near, I cannot help but look back with the eyes of WTF.  

I have had the most incredible support during the past few years as I tried to make sense of what was happening in my marriage.  I do not want to alienate my family and friends as I go back now and reflect to construct my own narrative.  They have already heard it all.  

I want to let go.   I want to move on.  I need to move on.  However, I need this too.  I need to put all of the pieces together and tell my story.  

This is how I heal.  

7 Years

It was an unexpected find when I came to this blog, my safe haven, to reminisce on the past 7 years, only to find my unpublished post from last year.  I am happy I did stumble upon it because there have been differences, changes in me, changes in my life that made me forget about where I was just a year ago. 

*       *       *       *       *

Seven years.  Seven years, wow.  Seven years is a long time.  It's so long that there are so many new people in my life that don't even know what happened seven years ago.  They don't know that I was widowed.  They don't know how I chose to stay in New York City alone.  They don't know how I raised my son alone for four years.  They don't know that my husband took his own life.  And to be honest, sometimes, I forget too.

This past year has been extremely difficult and stressful.  My son was having behavioral issues that worried me tremendously last year at this time.  My best friend had just found out the she had cancer.  Later on in the year, we found out that my grandfather had cancer.  He passed away just last month, just days after my cousin died from pancreatitis.  My cousin was only 22 years old and had spent a month in the hospital before my aunt had to make the excruciating decision to let him go after the doctors told her there was nothing more they could do for him.  My mind was occupied with worry.  It still is.  Although my son is back to his old self and my best friend is in remission, there is one condition that I didn't yet share, and that is my mother.  She has early on-set dementia.  It's been about 2 years since we suspected and the testing began.  She is still with us mentally.  She has not forgotten our names and major events.  But her short term memory has been shaken.  And it is noticeable.  And it is heartbreaking.  Daily thoughts of my mother and her condition have seemed to replace my daily thoughts of Dale.

I was happy to be reminded from the post I wrote last year of how much I still thought of him.  It was nice to read that those thoughts were all mainly positive ones.  Unfortunately now, just a year later, I can't say that I think of him daily.  I still think of him often.  But not as much and not deeply.  

Seven years ago, my world was silenced.  You know how you feel after going to an extremely loud concert?  When your ears are still pounding, yet you have a deafening daze about you?  That's how it felt when I got the call seven years ago.  I felt like I was in a daze.  I could hear and see the world around me, but it was as if there was a layer of fog between us.  Over time that fog lifted, but it always returned in May.  That first day, it can back immediately.  The countdown began May 1 and it was a painful 17 days until it came.  

I am always very well aware of the date, but this year, it didn't hit me until tonight, a few hours ago.  Once the night wound down and my son went to bed, the memories became to surface.  It's different though.  It's not a countdown of events.  It's not the wonder of what he was thinking or doing the days before or even the hours and minutes before.  It's now just a day, a day that I still wish I could erase from the calendar, but a day that still brings that foggy daze of silence.  

My son, who is now 8, has been asking about the anniversary date.  He has a memory like his father and its now locked in.  He has requested that we look at pictures, watch videos, and go through a chest of his belongings tomorrow, before we go out to dinner to one Dale's favorite restaurants.  I am happy that Ewan wants to do things to celebrate his father.  I am happy that he initiated it too.  

So that's all I have for tonight.  My writing seems dull, I know.  But despite that, I will still press publish, so that next year I can look back and see how life has changed.  

6 years

**Note:  I found this as a draft as I came here to post for the 7 year anniversary.  I don't think that I have visited this blog since last year, on the same day, at the same time.  Even though I didn't complete my thoughts, I decided to post it anyways.

May 16, 2017
For better or for worse, the lives that we are currently living can forever be changed in an instant.  The life that I once knew and cherished began to crack long before it's destruction.  It became weak and vulnerable.  However, it didn't shatter until I got that phone call 6 years ago today.  The words "he's gone" is all that needed to be said to let the bottom out.

Six years is a long time.  It's the majority of my 7 year old's life.  It's enough time to be immersed in living a new one.  And that is where I am today...

I still think of him, of Dale, every day.  But I don't let my thoughts linger or wander.  I have exhausted all routes to further my understanding of all that had happened.  There is nothing more to think about, it just is. 

I still do dream of him.  Sometimes I am conflicted in my dreams because both he and John are in the picture and Dale is never the person that I am meant to be with.  Sometimes my dreams are so pleasant that I wake with a heartache because he's no longer in the conscious world.

I have found that while I do think of him less, I think of him more softly which causes me to miss him more now than before.  We spent so much time together and so much time alone, that there will always be that "black hole" of memories that only come and pass through me, but never are able to be revived again.  That saddens me and makes me feel that Dale's death took a extra piece of me with him.  

I have been hardened.  I am not as empathetic as you may assume someone in my situation might be.  My vision of what is truly sympathetic has been reserved for just that... truly sympathetic.  I do not get caught up in trivial details nor in details in which people have control over, but do nothing about them.  Sometimes this makes me feel that I am a bitch.  Sometimes I am grateful that I appreciate that I haven't lost appreciation for the little things because I still don't get caught up in the big.  

Moment of the Week

I currently have 3 blogs, lol.  Amazing for someone who has had both writer's block and limited time to write over the past year or so.  There's this one, obviously.  The second, A Moment's Glory, I started about two years ago as a spin-off to this one.  I even said goodbye to Glimmering Through Aspen.   My third is one, Fresh and Fabulous:  Capturing Your Inner and Outer Radiance, is what I use along side my "business" or better stated my hobby as a Lemongrass Spa consultant.

I go through an ebb and flow on each of them.  Right now I find myself with a mild flow on each.  I have even added a new feature on A Moment's Glory, called the "Moment of the Week" to help keep the flow going.  "Moment of the Week" is just a way for me to think about and appreciate something that has happened to me during the week no matter how minuscule it may seem.  It's also a good way to focus a day of writing and to help prevent writer's block, ;).

After yesterday's post here, I felt that my moment of the week from two weeks ago fit in perfectly to show exactly where I am at this point.

MOMENT OF THE WEEK

January 30, 2017

I had just dropped my son off at school on Wednesday morning and continued along my own daily path to work when Fields of Gold  by Sting came on the radio.  That song always brought warm and loving imagery to mind when Dale, my late husband, was alive.  It was unofficially our song.  After he passed away, I was so laden with a multitude of emotions that the song lost its innocence.  I just couldn’t listen to it the same as I once did.  Until Wednesday, and as I made my beeline commute to work on Brooklyn side streets, you could say that I got swept away.

Long after the shock and confusion surrounding his death subsided, it was the bad memories and guilt that hung around.  Guilt being the more powerful of those two forces.  It’s taken almost every bit of the nearly 6 years since his death for me to finally feel those tight grips loosen up.  Wednesday morning, they let go and I managed to listen to the whole song without a bad memory or an ounce of guilt (my nemeses) interrupting.  It was warm and it was sweet and I cherished every moment of that 3+ minute song.