About Me

My wonderful husband died when I was 44 years old. Being widowed this young happens to less than 3% of married people. Writing through this loss one word at time helps me understand what I've lost and helps me continue to grow. It is how I have gradually recovered from such a severe loss. Research shows that you can benefit from taking just 15 minutes a day to write out your deepest feelings as a way of healing. On the right side of this blog, you'll see a tag for Exercises to Try. If you need some help knowing how to use writing to help heal yourself, I suggest you start there.

Monday, February 07, 2011

Less.

I expect less now. Less of just about everything. I can live in a smaller house, work in a smaller job, have less love, understand that my body will fail me eventually, realize that I cannot control the fate of my children.

I can be happy and at peace with less, especially when there is an absence of crisis. I am almost to the place where I think it's shameful to complain about anything at all when you're simply -- healthy.

Acquiescing to loss feels like a fist tightening inside me squeezing anger inward, releasing spasms of contentment and discontentment simultaneously. I nod my head. I am happy with less. I shake my head, no.

The closer and closer and closer I creep to feeling acclimatized, OK, feeling better, feeling contentment, despite your eternal goneness, there is an accompanying relapse of disbelief. Can this be true? I am happy and without you?

It feels good and wrong to be satisfied this way. It's satisfaction skating on shattered ice. If I fall right through, I won't be surprised.

I wish it was spring, these mountains of snow melted overnight. Just one green shoot is all I need.


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What does LESS mean to you? Anyone who's suffered a major loss lives with less. What's it like? Spend 5 minutes writing about LESS.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I completely relate to this. I expect less now, too... and that's both a good thing and a bad thing. I don't WANT to be satisfied with an unsatisfactory life. I don't want to settle for never being touched, never being loved again. But the longer I live without him, the harder it is to imagine that this will ever happen for me again. It's easier to just settle for less. But it sucks.

Jill Schacter said...

I think it's a great sign that you don't want to be dissatisfied or settle. That kind of drive and determination will lead you to fulfillment again...it's just going to require patience and slogging through the pain, and yes, it sucks. But here's my wager, if you want to be touched again and loved again you will be.