The Year Mark, The High Points, The Struggles, and the Onward March.....

I was traveling from California to Arizona in a 15 passenger van with my sister, her four girls, my three boys and my mother-in-law.  It was a wonderful escape from the every day realities that are mine.  While we were in transit, my other sister sent pictures of the memorial tributes that were paid to Steve at his graveside.  There was such joy in remembering such a remarkable man.

Inside I had struggled more and more as the day loomed closer.  There was this fantastic build-up to the apex of emotion that I didn't have any idea what to do with it all. It seemed that all the nice, calm, level-headedness that comes with having to walk with grace through such a nightmare was about to tear free.  And then it did.  My ability to filter my thoughts and feelings fell away and I couldn't be trusted to be kind anymore.  It was as though the one year mark freed all the crazy that had been boiling inside for so long.

I wasn't focused on finding people to berate or be mean to, but my patience for the trivial issues in life was worn completely thin.  People venting over arguments their children had gotten into, ladies in the check-out line complaining at the length of their wait- all of the mundane, somewhat idiotic reasons to get bent out of shape over received an eye roll and a folding of my arms.  Didn't all of these people realize what a wonderful gift they had in being able to stand and complain?  They had been given the gift of one more day and this was how they were spending it.  I was appalled and completely over it all.

So I did what any widow would do- I shut down.  I'm still in the process of sliding.  I feel as though I've become such a burden on those closest to me.  I can't reciprocate in the way I would like to,  It's hard to go through your days feeling like you're either a service project or an exhibit in the freak-show.  Neither of which are good for your soul.

Would you like the know the secret that I learned on the year anniversary?

It came and it went; all by itself.  Say What?! Time didn't stop on this day any more than it did the day a year prior.  People still smiled, and cars still moved and the axis continued to rotate without my say-so.

So up by my bootstraps I've come.  I'm choosing to laugh more, complain less and am searching for purpose beyond myself.  Focusing outward instead of inward.

The year mark can be scary- but not half as scary of living a life less-extraordinary.  For choosing to live like that is no life at all. And the monster we create in our mind, based upon dates and the survival mentality, are just as easily slayed in our minds as well.