“I miss me”

Grief, it is a funny, fickle, complicated, unwanted, unappreciated, and misunderstood experience. When someone is grieving, they are missing a loved one, learning to live without them, learning a whole new world, a new reality, and a new normal. They are not just grieving a person (or a job, a pet, a home, family or lifestyle for that matter), they are grieving themselves.

Grief rocked my world when my husband passed away. He changed my life forever, the life of our daughter, and the lives of many people he had touched in this existence. I was no longer the same person. I was also grieving for myself. I was mourning for who I used to be, and for whom I would be no longer.

I miss me. I miss the me that used to laugh more, the me that had the ability to be carefree or even silly at times, the me that I used to be. There is an innocence lost or part of me that has been tarnished by this experience. It has eaten away at that person, it has eroded me and changed me, like a river that forges its way through a mountain, forever changing the landscape.

While I am absolutely a different person, I am also a stronger person. I may not have felt it at the time, while I was in the midst of change and challenge, but in review, looking back, I was strong then and I am stronger now.

I had a choice, I could let this experience eat me alive and deteriorate me at the core levels, or I could chose to rebuild. I opted for the latter. Your life is forever changed, that is plain and true, but you don’t have to let it control you and how you live your life moving forward. Choose how you want to live your life and rebuild it on your (realistic) terms. You cannot control everything in your life, but start with what you can. Focus small to start and build outward. Don’t like something, change it.

I am living a very different life from the path I thought I was on. But that is OK. It is not an easier life, just a different life. Do I still miss the me that was….undoubtedly, but I love the me I am now too!