Upside Down

Grief has turned my whole belief system upside down. I don’t mean my belief in God. My faith has grown much stronger during this time of adversity. It’s more my life philosophy that has been flipped on its head.

Before my husband died, we both believed with every fiber of our being that life was meant to be enjoyed as thoroughly as possible.

Sure, we were responsible adults. We worked hard, paid our bills, lived within our means, and saved for the future. But honestly, we didn’t believe in suffering. We both came from families that had a couple of people who sat around and complained most of their lives, but weren’t proactive at all about doing things that made them happy. My husband and I took a completely different approach to life.

We believed in celebrating EVERYTHING. We had weekly dates, and sprinkled in lots of romantic weekends away throughout the year. We celebrated birthday month. We believed in regularly having FUN. We believed that hard work and a positive attitude could get you through just about anything. If something bad happened, then a can-do and upbeat attitude would always fix things faster than complaining about it.

One of my favorite sayings has always been, “You are not a tree, move!” Meaning that if you’re not happy with something in your life, do something about it. You don’t like where you live? Move. You don’t like your job? Change jobs. You’re never stuck. You always have the option to make a change. Do something about your situation. Don’t just do nothing and complain.

But we never accounted for being blind-sided by tragedy. That wasn’t on our radar screen. And in hindsight, I guess the hard truth is that maybe we were so busy and focused on building our happy little life together, that we didn’t pay much attention to the very real sufferings of life. It pains me to say that, as I’ve always considered myself to be an extremely empathetic and kind, compassionate person. Especially towards people who are truly hurting through no fault of their own. I’ve always been what I like to call a kindness warrior. I believe you get back what you put out there, so I’m always sure to be friendly, have a smile on my face, and be kind to everyone I interact with. I always listen wholeheartedly to anyone who wants to talk, and I’m always the first to initiate a consoling hug. But I had no idea how true suffering actually felt.

We had a few people in our family that suffered with various things, but they always came across as so off-the-charts negative and miserable, that we felt like they must be bringing part of their misery on themselves. And after awhile, we steered clear because they had a problem for every solution.

Fast forward to now, having lost my husband suddenly and unexpectedly, having been gut-punched by grief, shock and trauma, and now life can seem pointless to me a lot of the time. That’s just the raw truth of it. I don’t smile or laugh easily like I used to. I don’t have fun right now. I don’t enjoy life right now. Although, I’m good at hiding my pain from the world, so I don’t walk around like a sad sack. If you didn’t know my situation, you’d believe that the smile on my face that I hide behind is actually real happiness. But it’s not, and I can understand now where some of these people were coming from. It puts it in perspective.

I’m ashamed to say that I fight back thoughts of ‘What’s the point’, and why even try, if you’re just gonna die anyway‘, and ‘why even care about anything or love anyone if they’re just gonna die and leave you shattered?‘ My motivation to do anything has totally tanked.

Additionally, before my husband died, one of my biggest joys and passions in life was healthy cooking and coming up with my own recipes. I’m a true believer in the Hippocrates quote, “Let thy food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” I truly believed, by doing all my cooking from scratch, we would live to be a hundred, with a fun and adventurous quality of life. And we truly looked forward to growing old together. We used to talk about retirement all the time, and how much fun it would be, fully assuming that we’d be strong, healthy and happy, and that we’d have all the time in the world to have a ton of fun together in our golden years.

That dream died along with my husband.

So I’m left with a shattered heart and soul, shattered dreams, and a shattered life philosophy. And I’m sorry to say I don’t have the answers today. I’m just clinging to my faith. I’m reminded of that song by Emerson Day, “God Ain’t Finished Yet”. It says that I woke up and I’m breathing again, so God ain’t finished yet. So I’m choosing to hold on to see what God has planned for me.

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