What Does Grief Look Like Now?

Hi, hello. How are you, friends?

Things are adequately satisfactory in the Coleman household. We’ve made it through another Buffalo winter (almost, right?!?)

Ingrid is sporting a new ‘do with self-styled bangs (yes, I finally hid all of the scissors), and I’ve discovered the simple pleasure of ordering cheap trinkets from Wish.com (coping at its finest).

As far as my health, I'm feeling mostly good, physically. Also:

• Had a clear MRI in December.
• I see my oncologist every other month.
• Get a monthly Zoladex injection. In. ma. belly! 
• Doing the Tamoxifen thang. 

It’s taken some tweaking, but I think I’ve finally arrived at a healthy combination of meds, counseling, and a go-with-the-flow attitude that has led me to where I am now: mostly peaceful/groovy/happy, with periodic smackdowns with grief (who is a muscly and mean jerk, and I am neither of those things, so you can guess who usually wins).

So, 10 Months Out. What Does Grief Look Like Now?

Grief looks like going days at a time without so much as a single tear. And then one day: all the tears.

Grief looks like guilt. Guilt for accepting a boy’s number at a bar. Guilt for not being sad all the time. Guilt for cooking all the foods Paul hated and watching all the girly shows he couldn’t stomach, and being super happy about it.

Grief looks like spending Valentine’s Day eating questionable amounts of cheese while weepily watching Little Women (Why Beth, why???)

Grief looks like family fun days at Bounce Magic or the Science Museum. It looks like everyday family stuff: forgetting to pay bills, complaining about winter, discovering new nail polish “art” on the wall.

Grief looks like exhaustion. Mixed with joy. Mixed with hope. Tastefully seasoned with a spoonful of "frig the world, I do what I want." 

Grief looks like inventing new family holiday traditions. Inventing a whole new life, actually. One that makes sense for Ingrid and me.

Grief looks like a lot of coffee. And a fair amount of gin.

When I'm not trying to wrestle grief to the ground, I find pleasure in watching Ingrid write her name in squiggly handwriting or answering her profound life questions (“Mom, when they bury you, do you get dirt up your nostrils?”)

She talks about death possibly more than most 4-year-olds. Good or bad thing? I don’t know.

I watch her grow and my heart is exploding and sometimes I feel so badly that Paul didn’t get to see this. He was taken too soon, and sometimes this makes my grief look like anger. Or more like...this overwhelming heartache, a sort of sickly-sour-guilty-feeling that I’m here, watching the sun set over the ocean, and he isn’t.

And, no. I don’t live by the ocean. Ingrid, my sister, and I took a trip to Florida in February, and it was DA BOMB.

Love, Liz

Grief, Kayaking, And A Happy Farewell To Summer

If we're going with the "grief hits in waves" analogy, then this past week was a tsunami. It's been a relentless onslaught of heaviness around here, hit after hit after hit. It's all part of the process, they say, so I'm trying to roll with it and let the emotions fill me up, do their thing, and go from there. 

One thing I've learned while navigating this boggy terrain, is that grief is not a straight path. It's not linear, it's not chronological. Things do NOT get easier as each day passes. They get harder. Then a little easier. Then back to hard. Then the world explodes and I'm heating up Campbell's soup for dinner and sobbing into Paul's hoodies.

Last weekend, Ingrid and I took a road trip out east to Waterford, NY for the 8th Annual Kayaking For Meso fundraiser. This event is particularly dear to my heart. Paul and I made the trip three years ago, when Ingrid had just turned one. We painted our canoe in the Meso Foundation's signature light blue color, and I held our not-yet-walking babe in my lap while Paul paddled us the seven or so miles down the Erie Canal. (Hard to imagine him with that kind of strength.)

Kayaking For Meso 2015

This year's kayakers paddled in memory of my sweet Paul and Sarah Simso-DeMaria, another young woman who passed away from mesothelioma last year. Sarah was just lovely, and we had the privilege of meeting her and her husband at a Meso Symposium in 2015.

Despite the cold temps this year, it was an incredible event. I can't think of a more fitting tribute to Paul's memory. Aside from his family, being on the water was one of his great loves.

Kayaking For Meso 2018

We were spoiled with a comfy ride on the pontoon boat this time around.

Ingrid and I ended the weekend on what should have been a high note: an afternoon at The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester. That place, for the record, is something else. Really special. The mini Wegmans area was a favorite.

And yet, I left feeling more deflated than ever. I couldn't even keep it together long enough to get past the highway tollbooths without tears. Why yes, I'm crying. But I'm FINEEEE. Totally 100% OK with life and everything. Just the ticket if you would, kind sir.

I'm guessing my sadness was triggered by an unfortunate blend of dreary weather, the onset of a nasty cold (thank you preschool germs!), and a restless sleep the night before. And maybe OK. Also because I'm totally not fineeeee or OK with life and everything. Not at all. And being in a museum swirling with dads helping their daughters build castles and pregnant moms and siblings and all that noise and then there's just me, alone, watching my daughter play, alone, and that's what I felt: so alone.

And before you're all: but Liz, you're not alone! You have friends and family and neighbors and all these people loving you and Ingrid and helping you out. And, guys, that's awesome. I appreciate every single one of you and every single thing people have done for us—big and small. Really, I do. I am so beyond blessed it's borderline ridiculous. 

But. I miss my husband. There is nothing, NOTHING, that can ever fill that hole.

I love watching Ingrid explore and discover and do all that great kid stuff. I love taking her on trips and reading to her and listening to her butcher the lyrics to The Greatest Showman. But I miss sharing that stuff with her dad. Yes, I can share those things with other people. And that is fine and dandy, but it is NOT the same.

I missed the amused smiles we'd have shared when an incredulous Ingrid asked if an animatronic Giant was "real or fake." I missed ordering Paul a strawberry milkshake to go with our pair of chocolate ones. I missed his stream of ornery remarks about all the kids running wild. (Although more known for his laid-back vibe, I can assure you Paul's attitude often crossed into what I affectionately referred to as "Early-Onset-Grumpy-Old-Man-Syndrome".)

Most of all, I missed my husband when a couple of snooty girls refused to play with my daughter. There's no need to go into details, but basically, my bruised heart got all torn up watching two 5-year-olds tell my kid to "go away! We don't want to play with you!" Ingrid, cool kid that she is, walked away entirely unfazed by this snub. Her sensitive mama...not so much. Paul would have known exactly the right thing to say, though. He would have known just how to snap me out of my funk.

That's the thing about having a committed partner. They know you better than any other living soul, and it's sort of their job to take care of things when your sensitive self can't stop crying over mean little girls. And that's gone forever and I'm not OK with it, OK?

All in all, I'm glad for this summer to be over. As soon as September hits, every living soul is all: "can you believe how fast summer flew by?!?" And I'm over here like: Really, how was that for you? Because OHMYGAWD this summer went so slooooooooooow.

Not that it was all terrible or depressing. In fact, I don't think I've ever crammed so much activity into one season. This summer was not without its memorable moments. But fly by, it did not.

You hear that, Buffalo winter? Bring it. I'm ready for you. (Did I just say that? Must be the grief talking. I'm powerless here.)

xoxo

This Is What True Self-Care Looks Like

Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash

Things I didn't expect to make me sad:

• The opening musical sequence of Moana (the three of us LIVED for that movie last summer)
  
  
• Rick and Morty (in what universe does Rick and Morty make someone sad??? I know. Just...that show made Paul laugh harder than almost anything. And I reaaallly miss that.)
  
  
• Seeing Ingrid sit at Paul's usual spot at the kitchen table.
  
  
• Google notifications suggesting I share photos with Paul.
  
  
• And oh LAWD, this: remember Paul's "Ingrid Journal?" No? It's a notebook where Paul wrote letters to Ingrid over the last year. I've been keeping my distance from it. Simply a matter of self-preservation. (I know it's going to destroy me.) Until yesterday. Yesterday, I decided to move it into the closet and I thought, "I'll just read one. One won't hurt." And wouldn't you know, I opened to a page that started with: 

"Hey Liz. I'm putting this one in here for you as a surprise." 

I sat down to read it. Then I read it again. And again. It was so perfectly Paul. Sweet, but not syrupy. Peppered with his signature tongue-in-cheek humor.

It was painful to read. But so good to hear from him.

I also just re-read my last blog post, and it made me uneasy. Because I was all "Look at me coping so magnificently! I'm traveling and doing things and I'm totally kicking butt at being a widow." And I wonder—am I making grief look too easy?

Because, um, it's not. It's wretched. I'm not sad all day, every day. But I'm definitely sad every single day for at least part of the day. I cry every day. Sometimes for an hour. Sometimes for two minutes. But. Every. Dang. Day.

I find that one way I've been dealing with things is by not dealing with them. In an attempt to not feel my feelings, I've been throwing myself into a number of projects around the house. Translation: my home is beginning to resemble a DIY Pinterest board, and I need help.

When you're rearranging furniture in 90-degree weather and you can't distinguish your perspiration from the tears rolling down your cheeks—something's gotta give.

Which brings me to the subject of self-care.

If you're active on any social media platform, you've no doubt encountered this ubiquitous term encouraging you to eat designer cupcakes in a lavender-scented bubble bath while listening to Enya.

While self-care can mean different things to different people, I, for one, am not a fan of the popularized "treat yo'self" version. The version that tells us all our troubles will melt like lemon drops if we just put ourselves first and get a pedicure instead of, oh I don't know—actually dealing with things in a real and appropriate way.

Not that I don't love myself a wee shopping spree in the sales rack of Anthropologie. Or indulging in one of Wegman's Ultimate Chocolate Cakes just for kicks. 

I love shopping. I seriously love Wegman's Ultimate Chocolate Cake.

But I don't think it's wise to equate those things with "taking care of myself."

Self-care isn't a day at the spa

DEPRESSION: you can’t just drink tea and do a face mask and expect me to disappear

ME: *painting nails* haha what ?? cant hear you over all the Self Care

D: seek professional help

M: *puts lemon slice in my water* lmao bet

— ditch pony (@molly7anne) June 10, 2018

Self-care, like so many things, has been commodified into something we can conveniently buy at the mall. If you want to be healthy and whole you need to purchase this face mask or that bestselling novel or this detox tea.

Ultimately, though, those things just serve as distractions from our lives. And remind me: why do we want to be distracted from our lives? Wouldn't our time be better spent trying to fix our lives instead of taking periodic "breaks" from them?

Hashtaggable and pretty, this self-care craze usually aligns with the idea that to be healthy and whole, we need to be actively "doing" all the time. Reading on the beach. Going to the salon. Lighting candles.

Raise your hand if "doing more stuff" sounds like the opposite of how you want to achieve a peaceful state of mind? I can't be the only one.

True self-care doesn't have to be about "doing." It can be about not doing. It can be about lowering our expectations instead of always seeking perfection. It can be as simple as demanding less of ourselves.

We practice true self-care when we learn ways to enjoy the incongruous imperfections of our lives, instead of hiding from them nose-deep in bath suds.

True self-care isn't cutesy. It's not even easy, sometimes. It's about doing things you might not enjoy doing—like creating a budget, seeing a dentist, or cutting out dairy.

As for myself, it's making an appointment with a grief counselor.

Not an event I'll be Instagramming any time soon. But one that will do more for my mental health than splurging on overpriced skincare products.

Stay awesome,
Liz