5/23 (almost) One More Month.

It has been said that there’s one word that will free us from the weight and pain of life… and that word is love… it doesn’t mean that it hasn’t been hard or that it wont be, it just means that I found a stillness and a bravery in myself with you… you made me brave… and I will love you until the end of time.."

AWP Love

*The Ladies w/ the RV*

CPT Michael J. Medders

I was so happy. For 3 whole days, I was so happy. I didn't worry about what jewlery I had on, or what I said, or how I said it, or who was comfortable, or who was uncomfortable. I just was, and I laughed a lot, and it was happiness. There were moments when my stomach would drop and I would remember that I couldn't call Mike and tell him about the beautiful people I was meeting and how they were helping me. I couldn't tell him the funny joke the man told on the way up in the airplane (Did you hear the one about the seal? So a seal walked into a bar... haha). I jumped out of an airplane- and I can't tell him, and I can't show him pictures. When we were up in the sky and all I could see were clouds my body was shaky but my heart was not. Push me to the edge- I've been there in every other way. Now I got to jump without any repurcussion. I kissed my hand and put it up to the window. This is the closest I'll be without anything around me- I love you baby.

It was amazing. Jumping 13,500 feet flying at 120mph for 60 seconds before my bud Roy opened the parachute...wow. I really really cannot describe the jump in words and I'm not even going to try, but I can describe what I feel. After getting out of all the gear I had to get out of the little building because I was shaking with energy. I walked around outside, called a few friends and left a few messages, called mom, talked to dad, and sat down. No one around while everyone was around. I just sat and wondered if he knew. If he was proud. How many people did I need to tell to equal the feeling that telling him would give me? I don't know, I couldn't find it. It's moments like this that remind me that as much as I can do, I wish I could do it with him. Reguardless, I do feel a little more bad ass. Now I may be suffering from some widdow withdrawl.

The get away was very fullfilling. I had a great time and shared a million laughs, if not more. Made some new friends, celebrated birthdays, upcoming weddings, and the lives of those who are more than heros to us. Many thanks to the women of the AWP and all those who had a part in the golf outing fundraiser and skydive!

From "A Grief Observed" by C.S. Lewis

I have read through this book twice in about a week. It is very short, just a collection of essays about his feelings after losing his wife. I seem to be writing a lot a lately but not necessarily things I want to "publish" in this format. So here you go...

Something quite unexpected has happened. It came this morning early. For
various reasons, not in themselves at all mysterious, my heart was lighter than
it had been for many weeks. For one thing, I suppose I am recovering physically
from a good deal of mere exhaustion. And I'd had a very tiring but very healthy
twelve hours the day before, and a sounder night's sleep; and after ten days of
low-hung grey skies and motionless warm dampness, the sun was shining and there
was a light breeze. And suddenly at the very moment when, so far, I mourned H.
least, I remembered her best. Indeed it was something (almost) better than
memory; an instantaneous, unanswerable impression. To say it was like a meeting
would be going too far. Yet there was that in it which tempts one to use those
words. It was as if the lifting of the sorrow removed a barrier.

Why has no one told me these things? How easily I might have misjudged another man in the same situation. I might have said, ‘He's got over it. He's forgotten his wife', when
the truth was, ‘He remembers her better because he has partly got over it.'

...Looking back, I see that only a very little time ago I was greatly concerned
about my memory of H. and how false it might become. For some reason - the
merciful good sense of God is the only one I can think of - I have stopped
bothering about that. And the remarkable thing is that since I stopped bothering
about it, she seems to meet me everywhere. Meet is far too strong a word. I
don't mean anything remotely like an apparition or a voice. I don't mean even
any strikingly emotional experience at any particular moment. Rather, a sort of
unobtrusive but massive sense that she is, just as much as ever, a fact to be
taken into account.
~C. S. Lewis

You know what? I didn't pick this.

Listen, I am stating for the record that I did not choose to follow this path. I did not choose to be this person. I did not choose for this to be the way my 25th year and 26th year played out. I didn't. Now, that seems obvious to me- but bears necessity of repeating. I picked none of this.

I picked Mike. I picked him by the end of the weekend I first met him. I picked spending forever in his eyes. I picked supporting him in the things that he loved, in this military part of his life. I picked his crazy little smile and they way he dealt with my negativity. I picked his view on life to share with me. I picked us- and I will take full responsiblity for that. And I would pick it again, and again, and again even if I knew this was the outcome. I picked him. He picked me. We did not pick this.

Do not take this as me ducking my current life and saying that I haven't made decisions based on where I am now. I have, and I support them, 100%. I am responsible for that, but I do not fit any expectations. But I have to say that I am sick and tired of being told what to do. I am tired of being judged for how I deal with everything that is thrown my way. Hi, I'm Stacey and I'm still fucking living. Thanks. For a really long time, this was my goal. And all I heard was "take it day by day," and "God wouldn't give you anything you can't handle" and blah blah blah. But I did, I handled it and I'm working with it and I'm making it a life to be proud of and happy about. I know he is looking on proud as hell too.

Then all I heard was "you're so young." "you'll meet someone" "move on" .... move on, move on, move on. How is that supposed to comfort me?! It never did. There is no moving on. I will not move on from Mike, I will not move away from Mike, Mike is a part of me now. He is part of my life. He is part of who I am. To not acknowledge that, or to act like I'm doing something wrong to him is ridiculous. I will move forward, and I will carry him with me. There are moments I know I could not get through without his help, so he has to be with me. One of the things I trusted most about Mike was that if there was something he could do, he would. No doubt in my mind this characteristic still holds true to his soul. He helps me, he's with me. I will not move on from that. If you'd like to tell me anything at all that has to do with moving on, don't. I don't want to hear it.

I don't want anyone by Mike. As a wise friend told me, it was never a choice, it just was. I did not pick to lose him only (almost) 2 years into our life together. I also do not want to spend forever alone. I need people around me, but I need people who think about what I am feeling. How selfish of me, I know, but I can't do it. I can't hear these opinions, one way or the other, about what I am doing and what I should be doing. You have no idea. And if you have no idea, keep your opinion that may hurt my feelings to yourself.

3 Years

Happy Engagement Anniversary, Baby.

I miss you

The Need to Belong

I know, I'm all about the feelings lately, right?!

In the last few days I have been struggling with how to express in the best way possible that I am sick and tired of feeling like I don't belong anywhere. It's a bunch of things all mushed into this type of emotion. Part of it is my high school complex haunting me again- all the cool girls form this group and I'm on the outside wanting to be part of it. Really, it was only freshman year, but the mean girl thing scared me for life (ha). I hate this feeling a lot. I fight it and try to remember that I'm not 14, it doesn't matter if I 'belong' because I have people who love me regardless. But I forget, and that 14 year-old-self rears her head.

I don't belong in this world I run around in. Sometimes I can handle it and draw strength from it. Sometimes I just get tired and I want the normal, less wise-beyond-my-years, different-than-everyone-else perspective. There are groups of women I feel like I'm part of, and yet there are those moments when my insecurities get the best of me. I want to do this and I want to do that and it's in the hands of someone else. Maybe it's that control issue...

I am good with the way things are progressing. Considering the hand I've been dealt, I'm hanging in there :) I have to assume that along with losing the person you know you belong with, you float around looking for a place to fit. Once you start living again, that is. I'm just trying to fit, and honor my hero, and make everything he taught me everlasting. I'm angry when I feel that other people are honoring their hero better than I am. How bad is that?! I know, but the jealousy is there, and I'm willing to admit it. My adult self knows that it doesn't matter, that as long as I do the best I can the people in my life will be proud. Mike will be proud. I know that everything people do continues to change perspectives in this crazy world and I should be thankful for that. But my little girl won't stop kicking things up inside of me.

Still disconnected

I've been so uneasy lately. So off without a specific reason. I honestly have no words to describe where I'm at right now. I keep reading the things that make inspiration spring within me and thinking, and reading and thinking and it's just lost...

I'm unable to put my finger on the exact thing that I am feeling. Lost, still, even though I've been living and trying and waking up everyday with more than I felt a year ago at this time. Now I feel completely numb. I lack the ability to be completely moved right now. It's the emotions. I am used to feeling overwhelming emotions in one way or the other or all ways at once, so powerful they would knock me down, tears would pour from my eyes, or laughter would echo around the room as I genuinely felt giddy. Now I sit here, aching to feel that quiet desperation, or the familiar sadness, or something or anything at all. I'm looking around every corner to see where I can find those feelings.

I am equating feeling less with loving less and I don't like that at all. My inspiration cannot be fading. He cannot be fading. I try to write, to get it out, whatever this blockage is, and the words and ideas just fall away. I'm just not sure what this feeling is, and as off as it may sound, I feel completely crazy not feeling my comfortable, crazy emotions.