3 things

Yesterday was not so bad. Wait. That's not true. Driving out there, being so near to the river, looking down that road, then coming back, past the fire station parking lot with those familiar ambulances - that all hurt. And seeing me, seeing myself there, the road where I was found, being back there again. And all the places we have been, all the familiar roads, trips, all the places we have been. All of that. Was horrible and hard. I came home and slept for hours. And that part was good. And I felt better. In small ways, slowly. What came to me, and remains today, is being willing to feel comfort. Being willing to be comforted. That came from wondering about these hearts I find, the earache medicines, the dog tags and birthday songs, and what I am supposed to do with them, or know from them. There is no "do," really. But today, and yesterday, what I hear, for me, in tenderness and kindness for myself, is to be willing to feel comfort. Not fixing, not replacing, not promising anything at all, but willing to feel comfort. I can take that one, today.

And there is this too, from Gillian this morning:

Because I think (in my limited experience) that grief will learn to hide itself over the years only to reveal its presence when it wants to. That although the grief we feel now might soften, might eventually evolve into an accepted and familiar part of our being, I suspect that later we will have times when it will wound us afresh all over again and possibly in a completely different way. And I think it might be important to set aside specific moments in life if only to feel our grief once more. To acknowledge that although we continue to live and breath and love, something important has been painfully altered, and it remains altered.

Something important has been painfully altered, and it remains altered. It is a beautiful day here today, our dog is at my feet, I ran this morning, and I have tea. Again and again I tell myself: be willing to feel comfort.


This is a mish-mash post - I also wanted to say something about camp widow. I didn't write anything for the contest thing. Aside from being not much into, I don't know - contest things, I also couldn't afford the airfare and hotel should I win the conference costs. Well. Let me rephrase that. Airfare and lodging would wipe out my savings account, and that's not terribly practical. East coast to West coast airfare in itself is craziness. And, I don't love conferences. Workshops and such - meh. But as the weekend comes up, as the windows for even reasonably/astronomically priced airfares begin to close, I am bummed out. It's not the workshops I care about.

I want to physically be with these people I love. I want to know people in actual real life, to have shared real life experiences, to have and continue friendships that have an actual basis in physical reality. I want to have tangible things to refer to when we are not in the same room or same state or same continent. I want to have shared things that are not only internet shared. I may be a writer by trade, but I am not good in print. As I've said before, just being together silently doesn't really go over so well on-line. You can't really order breakfast together on-line, or point out a cool bird, or hand somebody a tissue. Typing is not a substitute for spending actual time together. I want actual, tangible friendships. Not, you know, lots of them, but enough. And to be super honest, I want to be one of the cool kids. There are friendships happening, or deepening friendships, that I am not "in on," and that bums me out. I feel left out of something good.



And lastly - to validate and acknowledge the comment leaving difficulties - blogger is still being cranky, especially (as I've found) if you are using Explorer rather than Firefox. And, if you keep getting redirected to log-in, so far, I've found you can log in with your name and url, rather than that pesky annoying google account thing. Or, send me a message. Hi ferree!


++++++++++++++++ PS - I have to go back out there today, too, to pick up what I had dropped off for repair.