Embracing heartache

 When I was having dinner with Firstborn a while back, he mentioned he needed a wall calendar to stay better organized.  I find that amusing as I know I've given him plenty of those in the past and thought he wasn't really using them!  But I took advantage of a sale and create a photo calendar for all of my peeps as a gift for Christmas.  My idea was to use printed photos from our family photo albums - the funny and cute ones that they probably don't remember ever seeing.  I probably have enough photos to make calendars for years to come!  On the cover is this gem from 1990:

Which cracks me up every time.

I've felt mad for various reasons these past four years.  I think my brain was trying to protect my heart by allowing me to live in the anger.  It was easier (although not pleasant) to be mad than heartbroken.  Anger gives you energy to purge your garage and get shit done whereas heartbreak gives you tears and wasted days spent on the couch.

I want so much to move through this time in my life and emerge in a good place.  And I thought I was making good progress (sloooowly) until I was told I probably have complicated grief. So, there's more work to be done, for sure.  But I am determined.

All it took was going through the photo albums to see, really see, all of the losses - parents, in-laws, spouse.  Kids growing up and moving out.  The loss of me, too - the progression of sweet young thing to overworked and frustrated mom and wife to widow.  Its a lot to process.

I don't look through them all that often but every time I think "I wish Mark were here to talk to about this", which is ironic, no?

So my goal for these photos is to embrace the heartache and look through them with an open mind. Pull the photos out to look at them, but put the anger back into the box, and open up the possibility of more happy.  Because, there was a lot of happy back then and there can be more ahead, too.