New beginnings Phase I
Life is surprising and ever evolving. It can be scary, it
can be stressful, it can be sad, it can be happy, it can be a multitude of
things you never in your wildest imagination ever dreamed of happening but
does.
Look at me and all the surprises life threw my way. I caught
them all and doing the best I knew how, tackled each and every hurdle, every
surprise. Hopefully with aplomb and grace.
Backtracking – when I was a young 20-year-old, I met the guy
I am with now, Tim. I met him before I met my husband. He was 26 years old and ran
sound for a band whose bass player lived in the city I was working in,
Prattville, AL. They had come into the restaurant I worked in and when I first
laid eyes on Tim, I felt like I had been hit by lightning.
We had a short little “thing” that lasted a brief time but
left a huge impression on me and every guy I ever had feelings for afterwards.
Life happened and we lost touch. I never forgot him, though.
I met the guy who became my husband, and we started out as best
friends first for years, then dated a while after which we married and had an
awesome 23+ years as husband/wife. Then, life decided to play a cruel trick on
us.
I will never forget that day, that call; I was not quite 49
and I looked in the mirror as I was putting my hair in a ponytail and cramming
a baseball hat over my head and said out loud, ‘your life is about to change’.
My instincts screamed at me that the outcome was not to be pleasant.
Fast forward from the day of that call in May of 2021 to
June of 2022 where I lost my best friend in the early hours of the morning on Monday, June 6 to a horrible cruel disease,
cancer. It literally ate him alive, having spread from the primary tumor in his esophagus to his
entire skeleton; broken ribs, broken spine, broken collar bone, etc., then started eroding away at his soft organs namely his lungs, then his brain.
All of this happened during covid, so for almost all of the journey,
we were on our own. Family lived 2.5 hours away and they had their own shit they
were dealing with at the same time we were dealing with our own.
Life can get lonely when your support group is unable to
help. But, after that day in June of 2022, I resolved to keep my chin up, keep
plodding along and find trivial things to in which to relish life and living. Hence,
all my goofy posts with memes or photos; sunsets, birds, plants, flowers,
trees, pictures I’d taken of me and my silly face at an attempt to show
happiness even when I felt so fucking empty and alone that sometimes I lost my
shit so badly I would have to sit and wait for it to pass if/when it hit me
when I was out driving.
I did not forget my husband, I figured out ways to live
without him.
See Phase II coming shortly.
That second-to-last paragraph had me catching my breath. It says so much.
ReplyDeleteSince I don't do FB, I never saw those 'goofy posts with memes or photos; sunsets, birds, plants, flowers, trees, pictures I’d taken of me and my silly face...' . But I wish I had've seem them. I'm sorry I wasn't there to support you there. I hope/am sure others saw the pain in them.
I could say a lot more, but really, all you need to hear is that you did what you resolved to do through the hardest time of your life.
I was going to say be proud of that, but it's much more than that. Give yourself a big walloping pat on the back also!
I'm so glad you have found happiness again. You deserve it, and then some.
And I'm sure Brandon is nodding his head in agreement. He will always be a part of you, even as you start this new chapter of your life.
Life goes on, and it's up to us to enjoy it while we can.
So go ahead young lady, and enjoy the hell out of it!!
It's been bugging me since I posted the above, so please replace '...even as you start this new chapter...' with '...especially as you start this new chapter...'
DeleteOne word can make a big difference! :)
Jackie! My beautiful friend! No worries on anything you wrote. You've been on this journey with me from the get go, known you for a LONG time, now. I hope you, Grant and the fuzzy/feathered friends are all well and warm in your nook of Canada.
Delete