Thanksgiving Day

"What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love." -Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I am grateful. There are so many external factors for which I am grateful, most notably are the ones that I am sure we all feel, our families, our friends, a roof over head and warm food in our bellies. But this year, I am struck with gratitude for something that feels selfish, at first, but stay with me. I am grateful for my heart. My poor, torn, battered, and beaten heart that pumps life through my veins and renews itself over and over again. My heart has been pushed to the breaking point and has come back with such resilience and sincerity and an overwhelming capacity to give and receive love. It is because of this heart, which often feels as though it is hanging by threads, that I am able to feel the wealth of gratitude I have for the aforementioned external factors in my life which contribute so generously to my life's richness. It has been in my darkest moments when my brain tells me that I can’t go on, I can’t give love away again and open myself up to such pain, that my heart steps in and reminds me that to love and be loved is worth it, and that I can and will keep giving love and accepting it in return. It is for this that I am grateful; this torn up and beaten down heart that never gives up, never breaks down, and never grows cold. With this, I wish you the happiest day, and I leave you with an invitation to push your heart to the maximum of its capacity to love and be loved. If I can do it, you can do it. Happy Thanksgiving, dear ones. I love you.

longing

What's worse than longing? It seems like it is an integral part of so many feelings. Like, base level of grief, is longing. I long for KC to be here with me. I long for companionship. I long for children. I grieve a life I lost and a future I was cheated out of. It's all longing. Missing. Empty. I don't know where that will go. I don't even know that if I should be so lucky to find new love, to bear children, to cease the emptiness, should all that happen will this longing subside? Will there ever be a point where I am complete despite my loss? Three years. I am looking down the barrel of three years of living my life without KC in it and I still so long for him. I long for the feeling of pride that shown in his eyes when he looked at me. How can I go the rest of my life never knowing that feeling again?

New Year. New Shit. Let's do this.

Happy 2013, my friends! I have been waiting all year for this new year, so it better be good! I am coming to you live and in color from a brand new perspective. 2 years and then some have passed since I lost my beautiful, loving fiance in a tragic and unexpected accident. KC and I were only together for less than 3 years, and so this seems a little strange to me, that he has now been gone almost as long as we were together, as long as I knew the man.  I mourn him daily in quiet, private ways. It can be a thought, a chuckle, a memory, a frustration; but I still have him near and dear to me every single day. With this, I have begun (as previously blogged) to date another man. This man is similar and different to KC in a lot of ways....let me clarify that thought. He is similar to KC in the way that he treats people, he is kind and considerate and a happy, busy, hardworking man. He likes to fish and crab and be with family and friends. He is different in the way that he looks and a few other subtle qualities. I, however, and reverted back to the same insecure weird young lady I was before meeting KC and I am constantly questioning everything about this new guy until I am sufficiently frustrated or sad or sure that New Guy is over it and that I will die alone. *ssiiiigggghhh* Oh, brain, why you gotta play a sista this way?!
 Yet, my perspective is changing, like I said. I was told once, at Camp Widow, that I should never look to fill the whole that KC left in my heart with another man. Though I never thought I would intend to do so, it was still important for me to hear. I should be cultivating a happy, rich, and fulfilled life on my own so that when the opportunity for male companionship presents itself, I will be ready to complement my already fabulous life with this little bit of icing. So, that is my new perspective! So simple, but takes a bit of work to really get there. I like my life! I haven't been able to really accept that since KC has been gone, but where I am right now, I am happy, again. I have an amazing new niece and nephew that bring me immense joy. I have a job that leaves me feeling accomplished and appreciated. I am doing very well in school and will have a Bachelors in Psychology by the end of Spring. I have fabulous friends who entertain me and enrich my life every day. And now, I even have this New Guy icing peppered into my life approximately once a week.  I am not going to over analyze things and wonder what I should say or how I should say it or read into text messages, that is all a bunch of bull shit. I live my life honestly and I trust the people in my life to pay me the same respect. New Guy has not given me a reason to not trust him, so I will trust him. It's only fair.
 The cool thing about this new perspective is that it is very freeing. I feel like I don't have to be a part of a game, or hide my feelings about KC, or worry about things which before were troubling me (like: negative thinking, self-doubt, contingent feelings about self based on inferences of others feelings about me) I just don't have to do that anymore. I am living my life the way that I want to live it; still cultivating my rich and happy life while allowing others to be a part of that if they want to, and if they don't, I'm ok with that too. I have survived far worse than rejection (from men, jobs, etc) and I feel strong in my convictions that I am a god person who deserves to be happy. So why not just let myself be happy?
 So that is my goal for the new year, keep it simple, get happy, live my life with love as my co-pilot. I think I am going to stick to this resolution! It just feels too good not to!
Happy Motherfuckin New Year, Ya'll!!