finding my people

Sometimes I sit down to write and I don’t know how I’ll ever possibly get everything going on in my head out on the page. 

I could type and type and type for 600… 1200… 300000 words and still, I’d be fervently just trying to keep up.

And then I feel so obligated to make sure to first write down everything that’s changed since the last time I’ve written, to give a clear picture of how things are going at this exact moment in time, but by the time I get just that out I’m too spent to continue. And everything I really want to talk about is buried about seventeen thousand layers below all that. 

I have had some amazing conversations lately, with two women in particular. Both of them have held space for me and my grief and allowed me to feel like I am okay as I am; that I might not have to live this double life of Widowed Me vs. The Rest Of Me. It has felt so good to start making- dare I say, FRIENDS (!!!) for the first time in so, so long. I am realizing that all the relationships I’ve had for the last decade, I’ve been keeping my distance. I didn’t know I had so many walls up. I didn’t know how truly uncomfortable I felt being myself, how much I’ve been hiding. It feels like I’ve been holding my breath all this time, afraid that being ME would mean that no one could ever possibly like me or want to deal with me, believing that I couldn’t possibly be interesting enough for anyone to ever want to be my friend… and I’ve finally exhaled. I exhaled and the world didn’t fall apart. 

I was so lonely in my Old Life. Truly. I loved Pete and my introversion loved having the sort of life where all I did was hang out at home with my husband and kids. I thought that was all I needed. I thought I was happy. And now I’m back where I belong and I am letting people SEE me and I’m not depressed or self-deprecating or doing a codependent tap dance to entertain. I’m just… a person. Who had some bad shit happen and has a lot to say about it. And it turns out, the right people are also dying to talk about these sorts of things. As it turns out, there are people who can know my husband died but still ask questions about him and my Old Life without getting uncomfortable. As it turns out, the right people never even knew him but aren’t afraid to say his name. And as it turns out, these experiences are helping me be a better person, listener, and friend. 

I keep meeting people I like and desperately wanting to be their friend. That is such a foreign feeling to me. I felt I had everything I needed with my little family in Massachusetts. And now here in Vermont, I can’t stop wanting to branch out and meet more people and keep building out my circle. I still have so much love to give and I’m learning there are so many different outlets for that besides just pouring it into my kids. There is more. 

I want more laughter, I want more connection. Sisterhood. I was never secure enough in myself or healed enough to have those things. And I think I might be ready now. I think it might finally be time for me to try making these lasting friendships, to let people see me and know me and to do the same for others. 

I’ve always felt like my brain was painting things in a palette that only I could see. But I’m starting to find my way to people who are working with those same colors, people who can see them just as vividly as I can. I’m not a lone freak weirdo; there are people everywhere trying to live life to it’s fullest and connect and make a difference. We all get here via different paths but once you’re here, once you’ve been Changed, once you’ve had to rebuild from the ground up and burn down everything you ever knew… you can’t go back. I feel so blessed to be continuing to cross paths with other women figuring this out, too.