New Map, Same Destination?

I sat down to write today and realized that the prevalent feeling I have been experiencing has already been written down several months ago.  It continues to amaze me how these boomerang emotions keep circling back to me, or sometimes just hover overhead and never go away at all.  They are nearby, ready to lower on me at any given moment.  In my post, “It’s A Long Road”, I wrote, “Have I mentioned how hard this is?  I mean really hard.  Every minute of every day is hard.  Every breath I take is hard.  My breathing patterns have not been the same since Michael died.  It is always shallow, and at the same time I feel like there is something heavy weighing on my chest.  All day long, I tell myself, ‘Take a deep breath.’  Throughout the day, another reminder, ‘Just breathe.  Inhale deeply.  Now exhale.’”

This is hard…. all of it, and continues to be while I sort out everything, heal from the wound, and learn a new way of living, which requires things of me that I have never had to do before.  The first few months were hard because they were consumed with the excruciating pain of the sudden loss of Michael.  I missed him more than I ever could have imagined. But during those first few months, my life coasted for a while on autopilot.   (“My life”, meaning everything that it takes to run a household and to be a single parent.) It continues to be just as hard, but now it is more than just missing Michael. 

At first I was only dealing with a broken heart, and now I feel (if I must be honest with myself), somewhat scared of the future with every step I take, apprehensive, plus am carrying around my healing heart.  Now I am struggling every day with my “new normal” life. 

When you are young and you get married, or even stay single,  you establish a plan for your life. You begin your journey in the direction that you feel will take you to your destination.  You have a mental image of how you want your life to look in the future, and each day you walk out that plan, that dream, that vision, on the road that lay before you. You have a map and you feel like you can and are reading it correctly.  Life has a rhythm to it… it feels safe. 

Then one day, the road suddenly gets pitch black, your travel companion is mysteriously snatched away, you are alone, shuffling your feet trying to determine where he, or she, went, and the direction you must now go. It is as if you have been picked up and transplanted to another country where all of the rules have changed, even which side of the road that you drive. The physical map has been destroyed and you have to rely on your memory, and your instincts, for the details on the direction of your journey.  You have to keep asking yourself, “Now, why was I going this direction? Can the celebration of arriving at my destination feel the same with out my original travel companion? Or did I reach that destination and now there is a new one? Or has everything changed, not just the road but everything that propels me toward the destination?” 

These are questions I must face and truly meditate on the answers.  I could turn away from facing these questions or problems, as many people do, and move on pretending that my journey is the same but with one less person, only this would be pretending, a way of numbing reality.  I would not learn from it or become wiser for it.  As I also wrote in, “It’s A Long Road”, “There are no shortcuts on this journey.  People have tried shortcuts but then their wound shows up later in life because it did not heal properly.  It is a journey that we must take slowly, experience the pain, meditate on the loss, sit down occasionally when we are weak, slowly stand and move when we are able, and see and feel everything along the way.” 

It makes me think of a blind person learning how to “see” a new way.  Their sense of smell, touch, and hearing are heightened to help them experience life more fully.  If they refuse to learn the new ways, they will continue to bump into things and live a frustrated life.  They must learn to navigate with a new map. People have said there is no right or wrong way to grieve.  This is a truth, but only a partial truth.  I also believe there is a healthy, productive way to grieve and an unhealthy, deceiving yourself way to do it.  Everyone grieves differently, but I think it has to be better for us, in the long run of life, to face it, question it, learn from it, feel it, and embrace all that we can learn from it in order for it to help us, not hinder us, in the rest of our walk here on this earth. The way we do all those things can look differently, but I think we must do them in some way, shape, or form.

I have to trust God in a very real way.  I have no choice but to trust Him.  I must lean on Him. I am reminded of a verse that I have prayed for years.  Proverbs 4:25, “Let your eyes look straight ahead and your eyelids right before you.” And also, Psalm 119:105, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.”  Without my Lord, there would be no light on this new road.  A lamp shows the light only directly where your feet are and just one step ahead, but at least it is some light.  This is all I can see right now, directly at my feet and one step ahead.  It is a little scary, but there is also a glimmer of light way down the path…like at the end of a very long and wide tunnel, but it is only the size of a speck right now. The road may zig zag all over the place, but that I cannot see, and it is probably best that I can't.  At least the light is there. I am walking the road with apprehension, uncertainty, and am wounded …but at least I am walking and with my eyes wide open, facing every twist and turn with an unaware boldness.