September 30, 2009 Reflections

One bright morning this summer, I find myself utterly engaged in my peaceful walking commute to work: giant pine trees shrugging off dew, dozens of birds performing overhead, shadows protecting my shoulders from the warm sun, sweet kitty cats stretching in driveways. In this simple sidewalk moment comes the unexpected revelation, "Hot damn, my good mood is back!"

In fact, I feel more like myself these days than since before I knew any better. Since before the old self-confidence took an unplanned, extended vacation. Since back when Annika was just my little sister, the taller one who also snorts when she laughs. Since back when she was always around. When Annika was just my little sister...not my sick sister, not my dying sister, not my dead sister.

Hindsight being 20/20 and all, I'm a pretty lucky lady. Not very many of us make it to age 31 before experiencing a broken heart. That's right, I got to spend three whole decades living in relative ignorance (and you know what that means).

Of course, there's a flip side to living in bliss for so long. When the turning point eventually arrives, the change in outlook is drastic. All of a sudden, certain aspects of life come into an appalling focus -- like the realization there's nothing and nobody that's going to be able to save her -- and you finally start to get just how much you've been missing, how much you haven't understood. And you aren't sure it's been for the better. I wanted to go back immediately to before life got so horribly out of control and every little thing didn't feel so dreadfully heavy.

Early on in my grief process, it occurred to me for the first time how downright rotten and wretched the world really is. It dawned on me that this life we've been handed might just be a big steaming pile of it-ain't-worth-the-unending-suffering. All the joy was suddenly zapped out of all my favorite things. I mean everything; I couldn't wear mascara for a year.

For the longest time, I was under this faulty impression that grief is finite with a clear ending point. By next week, I'll have this figured out. After six months, I'll be all better. After a year, it won't hurt any more. I mean, that's what all the literature says, "Just give yourself a year." Well, the year came and went and nothing felt lighter. The only thing that seemed to have changed was my eye makeup.

It took a while to realize that the ability to wear mascara again was, indeed, a sign of healing. It took longer still to understand that my grief isn't ever going to end, but that it will change.

It has changed.

At the start of this year, I set two simple intentions: 1. walk to/from work every day (I've stuck with it, too; you're impressed, I can tell), and 2. to lighten UP already and stop being so depressed about things I cannot control. Truth be told, lightening up is an intention I've set many-a-time since Annika died, always to no avail. While there are likely a multitude of factors contributing to this year's actual success, the passage of time is the primary suspect.

On September 30th, it will be four years. Four years of missing her everyday. Four years of accepting her unacceptable absence. Four years of applying and re-applying patches to a broken heart.

Without really noticing the transition, lately I find myself interacting with her from a place of happiness, pleasure even. All of her stuff that is now my stuff has been sorted, distributed, incorporated. I'm remembering her tenacity, her gangly goofiness, her great fashion sense, her extraordinarily deep love of family; remembering without automatically connecting the memories with her death. Other things are easier now, too. Spending time with family and casually wondering aloud what she'd have to say about what we're up to. Walking down the street and hiding laughter, not tears, behind my sunglasses.

That pledge to a walking commute in January leads to participation on a relay team for a marathon in December. The subsequent decision to go ahead and devote time in my day to cooking at home results in a magnificently fulfilling obsession with kitchen creativity. The self-confidence has at long last returned from hiatus and, thankfully, had the sense to bring my good mood back with it.