I’ve kinda been going through a thing lately. Considering the fact that when I’m flipping through Marketplace and come across an “inexpensive” sports car such as a Lotus or Lamborghini (driving an ’85 Lamborghini Countach… red… rear spoiler… has always been a dream of mine!) my brain goes, “Well, if I sold everything and took everything from savings and “retirement”… I could almost buy that!” makes me think I might be having a midlife crisis topped with the taste of Widowhood. The emotional and psychological roller coaster has been quite entertaining!… and tiring.
It hasn’t been one specific thing or another causing me stress or making my brain feel like it’s on the Spin Cycle, it’s just been one little thing after another… one more thought that piggy backs on the previous one until I realize I don’t know which station the current Train of Thought left from! I’m all for wanderlust and finding adventure in the unknown or on the unfamiliar road, but in my Widowhood I have been fighting to regain that ability to look past Today… Tomorrow… into Next Week… and maybe Next Month. It has definitely gotten better in the last 3 years or so, but man… the relentlessness of Life can simply be overwhelming at times.
On The Fourth of July, I was reminded that there are experiences in our lives… some big… some small… that have the power to pull us out of that tailspin of trying to figure out the entirety of Life and instead creates a landing pad for a brief layover in the Present to help calm the nerves… and stomach… from the recent bouts of turbulence.
In December of last year, I wrote a post about losing an earring as I was running around the woods chain sawing trees down around the fire pit. The earrings were a gift from Kateri and made by our dear friend who also made our wedding rings… not to mention married us…! I was given them about two weeks after we learned of Kateri’s cancer, which was before we truly knew the extent and severity of her diagnosis. Needless to say… I was pretty upset with myself when I realized I was rocking the single earring look from the 80’s… 30 years late! Fortunately, one of the things Widowhood gives you is the knowledge and experience that things… important things!… sometimes just go away… and you just have to accept, deal with, and adapt to it.
Well, as I felt like my life was spinning out of control last Thursday, Amanda and I were up at the fire pit grabbing the cast iron griddle for Onion Burgers we were having that evening. I was proudly showing her how I had leaf blown all the pine needles away when I noticed her bend over and pick something up. Her fingers had that pinching look to them like when you pick up something small and/or delicate… and my mind went straight to, “No… WAY!”. When she turned around, in the palm of her hand was that almost complete circle of meteorite and gold!… without a back… and we both stood there in awe for a moment stunned by what had just happened…! To have that experience… at that moment in time… sorta slapped my brain back into focusing on what I have instead of what I’ve lost or asking the questions, “Where am I going?”, and “What am I doing with?” my life. It was a moment where I saw what I had… here… and now… and the clarity it provided quelled some of those runaway thoughts and brought a bit of comfort along with it.
Although Amanda finding the earring is huge and one of those “I can’t believe you did that!” type things for which I’m super grateful, it was pretty much luck that she happened to look down while standing directly over it. I love Amanda… not because she found the earring, but because when it was lost, she bought me a metal detector for Christmas to find it! She knew how much it meant to me. She knew my attachments to it. She knew I was beating myself up over losing it. And all she wanted to do was help ease some of the sadness that particular loss had given me by inserting Hope back into the equation.
Life can get hard sometimes and it can cause us to lose sight of all of The Good we are surrounded by. We unconsciously take for granted those things we need to support and carry us as we wander through this crazy world. I’m super thankful Amanda found my earring and it’s back being part of my day to day, but I’m even more thankful that she came into my crazy world, and I get to share each of those day to days… that I get to share my Life… with Amanda.
…and Xander.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
- Priorities and Perspective… we need to keep those in mind… and sometimes be reminded of them.
- I was gonna add “Perseverance” in there somehow but thought the 3 P’s sounded kinda weird and like some sorta Self-Help book mantra or something you’d see on a bumper sticker!… or something.
Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning 