Soul-Oh: A journey of discovery

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time soul-oh since my spouse passed away in January. I do not mean solo or so-low, although I have done my share of these as well. As an introvert, I often spend time alone recharging my social batteries. Since my spouse passed, it has taken on a new aspect. I am discovering me, the me-after-him.

I have always told anyone who is just getting out of a relationship to make sure to take time alone, figure out who they are before getting into a new relationship. Any relationship, whether good or bad, changes us, teaches us. It may add a new layer of personality or peel another away. Perhaps, we discovered something that we do or do not like while with that other person and can apply it to another relationship. Take the time to adapt to that new aspect of you even if it is something small.

I spent eleven wonderful years with the man I love, seven of them very happily married. I am not the same woman I was when I met him. I am not the same woman I was when I was with him.

Before I met James, I had pretty much given up on finding love. All the men I came in contact with were interested in my friends. I was the side-kick and wing-man (wing-person?). I had finally accepted the fact that it just wasn’t meant to be for me. My prince charming wasn’t coming.  He was stuck in a tree. James changed that in a huge way. The night we met, he made a beeline across the dance floor and walked right up to me and asked me to dance. I’m not sure he even saw my friend. That was it. Simple as that. We danced the rest of the night. Even after the lights came up and the music stopped, we kept dancing. It happens in real life folks. I can attest to that. Lightning bolt.

James seemed oblivious to other women flirting with him. It just didn’t occur to him that they would. He only had eyes for me. And, believe me, the feeling was mutual. Mind you, we are not perfect physical specimens by any means. I’m overweight and have an old injury from a broken leg that didn’t quite heal right. He had bad teeth until a dentist fixed them up for him and one eye that sat a little lower than the other. I was ten years older than him. No, we weren’t perfect. We were perfect for each other.

I was told by the boys I dated (and I will say “boys,” not “men,” here) and society – through magazines, TV ads, and movies – that someone my size could never get the guy. I could aim for being the goofy, funny friend of the girl who gets the guy. Over the years that we had together – as I lost and gained weight, changed my hairstyle and hair colour, experienced loss of and starting new jobs – James never wavered from the way he saw me. The look in his eyes assured me he was not going anywhere. He stood firm and taught me that I am worthy of love. No one had been able to teach me that before. I’m not sure it had occurred to anyone to try.

So, now, he is gone but the love remains, the lessons remain. And I must take all that he taught me, all he changed in my heart, to move forward and build on who I am.

When I say that I went to a movie, took a drive, went on a hike or spent the weekend alone at home, do not feel sorry for the widow. I am on a journey of self-discovery. I am going to unearth the parts of my soul that were buried after others threw dirt on them because it offended them or did not suit their purpose. Each treasure I excavate will bring an exclamation of “Oh!”

If you happen to see me on the street, feel free to wave and cheer me on. I’m not alone; I’m travelling soul-oh!

Blissful Ignorance

On August 1, 2016, my husband and I were at a family reunion on his grandfather’s side, the Cummings’ side. We stayed at the Inverary Resort in Baddeck. It was a lovely weekend in Cape Breton just getting to know new-to-us cousins, visiting the Alexander Graham Bell Museum and quiet moments to ourselves walking along the shore of the Bras d’Or Lakes at sunset. On the last day, before we headed back to the city and our work, we took a hike to a Uisge Bàn Falls.

The hike to the falls was an easy 1.5 km with our crew composed of various ages. The youngest of the group was three years old and the oldest cousin is in her early sixties. We took our time walking, chatting, discussing this tree formation or that flower. The brook beside the path babbled to itself, ignoring our chatter. It was a lazy hike on a hot summer’s day in the cool shade of the woods to an even cooler canyon at the bottom of the falls.

This was the last good day before James’ headaches started to hint at what was to come. It was a great weekend! I’m sharing pictures from that weekend in remembrance of the joy, the fun, the peace, and the love.

 

 

 

 

James had always wanted a pocket watch. This weekend I found the perfect one. I had meant to get it engraved but didn’t get a chance until after he passed away. “Through all time”

The beauty of old things (or What the driftwood taught me)

I was walking along a rocky beach with a friend on her 49th birthday. We were enjoying a girls’ weekend at a cottage with BBQ, wine and hiking. We had celebrated my 49th the month before. As we picked our way over shifting stones, trying not to roll an ankle or stumble headlong into the line of driftwood at the high-tide mark, we discussed how we would be turning 50 the next year.

Fifty. That number, that age, is weighted with tears and laughter, music and silence, pauses and experiences. Some scars and wrinkles we bear with shame, some with pride.

As I stop to get my bearing, I balance on two semi-solid, salt-grey stones. I notice a long, slim piece of driftwood a little ahead of me and to my right. I step carefully, making my way over to pick it up. I examine it as I lean on it for balance. I am 5’8″ and it reaches my armpit. A slight notch at the top fits my hand comfortably.

It is warm from the mid-morning sun and beautifully marked as if some master craftsman had delicately and lovingly attended each part to make it so. I test its strength and it is sturdy and unbending, slightly bowed as if honouring the wind that once tickled its leaves. It is capable enough to bear my ample weight as I try to balance on the wobbly rocks. It’s solid enough to steady me even when my leg betrays me, the one that had been broken and fixed with a plate and screws 16 years before. It’s strong in spite of all that it must have been through on its journey to meet me on this beach on this day as I contemplate my own age and weathered frame.

The face of the wood is partly smoothed by sea, sand and stone, while artfully etched and aesthetically scraped in random spots. It was once young and supple supporting leaves, perhaps fruit, and woodland creatures. It gave and received life until, felled by an axe or storm, it landed in the sea and was tossed about on the waves. It had been bleached by burning salt and sun, ignored by the sea that beat it about. The sea’s strange creatures were oblivious to the existence of this forlorn stick. It wandered adrift and alone without the anchoring roots that once nourished and provided support. It had made its way up a rocky shore to be battered, reshaped and cast down. The cold, churning water left it there, foaming and roaming off to find another body to break, unaware of the mess it leaves in its wake. I don’t know how long the stick had remained here. I found it this day among the flotsam and jetsam. With the other driftwood and castoffs of humankind, it waited. As it wept the loss of its roots and leaves and woodland friends, it lingered.

We meet on that shore, the steadying driftwood and I. Subconsciously, I recognize a weary soul in need of purpose, lost and still adrift on solid land. The rest of the walk is stepped with more confidence. When my friend and I arrive back at the cottage and start packing the car for the trip home, I cannot leave this driftwood behind. I feel a need of it, even though my walk on the beach is done. So home it came with me, to stand in the corner of the room where I get ready for work each day.

Maybe it knew something I did not at the time in the way that loss and sorrow can attune one to the cosmic way of things. It may be, somehow, it was aware that in one month’s time my husband would start to get headaches, that the cancer he fought two years before had returned. Perhaps it knew that, even as I walked on that lovely beach, laughing with my friend, the metastatic melanoma was growing inside my love’s right frontal lobe.

That beautiful piece of driftwood had been one of the first things I saw as I prepared myself for each day of the next seven months until my husband was gone. He has been gone six months and it has stood silently in support as I continue to grieve.

I am weathering the storm of sickness and loss with the help of a silly stick. It reminds me each morning that, in spite of age, of storms, of drifting without touching ground, through waves of pain and love and sorrow, the seasickness of hope and despair, that this old body and heart can offer strength and balance to another, to myself. I still have a beauty and a purpose, though I will always mourn the loss of my nourishing roots and my wind-tickled leaves.

And flecks of gold and brown

About a six weeks or so after James and I met, we were sitting in my car. I was telling him how my ex-boyfriend would sing Brown Eyed Girl to me. It irked me to no end because, while my eyes may be green most of the time, sometimes blue, they have never been brown.

That ex had refused to stop singing that song over the time we were together. Either he didn’t care what colour my eyes are or he didn’t care that it irked me. Knowing him, it may have been because it bothered me. He’s an ex for a reason.

When I finished telling James the story, he said that my ex was a fool. I jokingly closed my eyes, turned my head away with a giggle and said, “What colour are they?” James paused.

He did not say they were blue or green. He described the variations of blues and greens, how the shades change with my mood or what I’m wearing or how bright the sun is shining at the moment. Then he said what floored me. “And flecks of gold and brown.” Huh?

My eyes flew open, my head whipped around and I stared at his confident, lopsided grin and twinkling blue eyes. I flicked on the dome light in the car and looked into my own eyes. Eyes I had been looking at for 38 years! “Well, what you know?!”

As I gazed deeply into my own eyes, I suppose for the first time ever, they began to well up with tears. This was the moment I started to realize that James loves me. This man, that I had only met about six weeks before, saw me. He really saw…me. The eyes are the windows to the soul.

He didn’t see the grey in my hair or the parts of me that had extra padding. He didn’t see the wrinkles around my eyes or that my leg was slightly crooked where I had broken it that time. He saw the Me that even I couldn’t see. The variations and shades of sky and field and sea with flecks of sunlight gold and earthy brown, the raging serenity and the soothing wildness. He saw and admired the beauty of it all shifting and swirling together. I felt so very vulnerable and splendidly safe in that moment.

The world tilted a few degrees to the left that afternoon giving everything a new perspective. I saw the world and myself with new eyes. And neither would ever be the same again.

Letting go of my expectations of others

I no longer have hopeful expectations of other people and I am content with that. Expectations have led me to my greatest sorrows and heartache. We grow up being taught to give without expecting to receive. When did that change?

I expected that, by this age (50!), I would be further along in my career, have more vacation days to enjoy my middle age, have been with the same company for many years. The economy and a few ladder-climbing co-workers took that expectation away. I moved on, as we all must, and have found a job that I quite enjoy. I no longer expect that, if I just work hard and stay late most nights. I won’t be downsized or restructured. It makes for less stress and more planning for the next time that it might happen.

I expected that those I thought of as close friends would be there for me as they insisted they would be. I have not seen them for months. I’m not sure why they went away and became somebody that I used to know. It just happens sometimes. I had assumed we were closer, more bonded. We look up from work, from love, from grief, and the others have wandered off. Perhaps they expected me to be a better friend. Maybe I’m the one who wandered off. It could be they expected me to reach out to them, that I would ask for help. I guess they didn’t know me that well after all.

I had an expectation that, when I fell in love, I would have that joy and happiness for the rest of my life. I expected him to live, that we would go on with our lives, put cancer behind us and laugh about it someday. “Remember the time you threw up on me after your chemo?” “Yeah! Hahaha! The look on your face was priceless!” After that, no unmet expectation could ever break me as much.

Of course, facts don’t change. I expect the sun to come up tomorrow, the moon will wax and wane. If I trip over something I expect that I will fall because gravity still works. I expect the storm clouds to gather and that the sun will come out tomorrow. I expect the tide will come in and go out and come in again as it removes our names in the sand no matter how many times I re-write them. I expect I will keep re-writing them anyway.

I expect that others have placed their expectations on me. That they assumed I would continue to be there for them. They believed that I would want to hang out, chat about shallow topics and drink Red Rose tea at their kitchen table or meet at a coffee shop for a latte and a blueberry scone while smooth jazz plays through a speaker. (Okay, that last one actually sounds pretty good.) They probably think that, because they haven’t seen me in a while, that I  just got on with things after I lost my best friend and the love of my life. I expect that they are very disappointed in me no matter what their expectations were.

I expect that whoever has been mowing my lawn when I’m not home will eventually stop. I will then have to get that scary, loud mower out of the garage and do it myself, all the while terrified I am going to cut myself because I’m a klutz. I expect that I will rediscover comfort and joy, but I do not expect it tomorrow or any day soon. I expect that something in the house will break and I will have to figure out how to fix it myself or pay someone to do it for me. I expect me to rise to that occasion. I will most likely disappoint myself on occasion.

I still expect that I will be surprised and delighted when I receive a kindness or a hand of friendship. I expect I will appreciate my own strength as I pick myself up and stand alone, however much I quiver. I expect to look back and notice that someone was there all along and I just didn’t understand what they were doing.

I expect that, inevitably, someone that I know will read this and think I am writing about them. But I’m not. Not specifically. They will assume I am angry. But I’m not. There is no anger. There is heartache and loss, but there is no ire.

I do not blame people for disappointing me, for tumbling or jumping off the pedestal that I put them on. I blame myself for expecting too much from them.

I expect that we are all human after all.