Love Persevering: Chapter Six

Coming to Terms

Alright. You tore the cover off. Now what?

That’s, in my opinion, normally the hardest part. Pulling it off and finding all the things you hid away for years is jarring, but it gets a bit easier after that. You’ve seen it now. You know what it looks like and maybe even why it’s all there.

Coming to terms with it all is where you finally wake up. I always thought of this part relatively similarly to when I would experience a break up or know that it was near the end of the line. At some point, you wake up and realize that what you’ve been experiencing isn’t okay. This is about the same.

No one can change you or show you the light. You have to do that for yourself.

Remember the brick I’d spoken about? The one that I pulled off myself? That was my beginning. That was when I knew that I had to start taking things seriously. I remember texting my therapist and asking her to schedule a meeting as soon as possible. When it arrived, the first thing I said was “So, I’m not going to lie to you anymore.”

She was a bit shocked, I think, to learn that I’d been lying in the first place, but maybe lying was a strong word. I was withholding a lot. I wasn’t talking about the deeper problems that kept me awake at night. It was time though. Time to open the gates, to let the flood run through.

Once you get through that piece, once the door has been kicked open, it makes the rest of the work a bit lighter. You’ve said it all now, what else could happen? That was what I’d told myself, at least, and it was true for the most part.

There were still problems I’d face moving forward, difficult issues I’d need to address, but I was free. I remember that call with her feeling like it had lifted a hundred pound weight off my shoulders. How was that possible? That had always seemed like an exaggeration to me, like someone just needed to explain how it felt, but it was real.

Not long before that was when I’d gone on medicine to help control that anxiety and depression, but the pill didn’t work as well until this weight was gone. My chest expanded easier, released without issue, and I felt as though I’d been gifted a set of new ones.

Here, though, is where it can get sticky for some. I’d experienced it slightly, and randomly.

Doesn’t coming to terms, accepting that it happened, moving on feel wrong? Almost as though we are dishonoring them by letting go, by allowing ourselves to experience happiness in any capacity.

After that first therapy session, we’d talked in depth about how important it was to finally do something for me. In my last long term relationship, we’d planned on taking a trip to Colorado. Fortunately, that never happened. COVID had come along and allowed me the opportunity to take this trip all on my own.

A few people in my life were scared for me after knowing the thoughts I’d experienced, but they trusted me. This was something I had to do in order to start moving forward and start living my life for me.

No dating apps, no one to pull me from what I wanted to do, no focusing on anyone but myself.

That trip healed me in ways that I cannot even begin to explain. I’d taken three hikes in what I remember was just a five day trip. I’d traveled through the city of Denver, gone on a private hike with a guide that taught me about the bits of their nature in Colorado, met with a friend who had just happened to move there that summer, hiked solo at the Garden of the Gods, and even made a trip to the Red Rocks Amphitheatre. This was the life I’d always wanted to live, one full of travel.

When I arrived back home, I was fully refreshed. Not yet fully healed, if that’s ever even possible, but absolutely on the correct path in order to get there. From then, I felt ready to take on whatever was ahead of me for the first time since I’d heard that Kathy was diagnosed with cancer.

I’d continue to travel a lot with my best friend as much as possible. We’d headed to Cleveland just for a day trip, we’d driven to Niagara Falls and stayed over night, we’d driven to Cincinnati to buy him a Bengals jersey for his birthday, and then we’d booked a flight to stay in Oregon for my 26th birthday. This was all packed in to the year following my 25th birthday.

I was doing it — working. Doing all of the things that I’d needed to do that were healthy for me and not just distracting me from everything negative in my life.

As someone who is a people pleaser, someone who puts everyone else’s needs before my own, this was something that I’d had to do. Focusing my energy elsewhere, carrying that love that Kathy had given me, and moving forward.

For me, that was what I’d needed. I needed to let go of that guilt and live a life that Kathy would be proud of.

Accepting that it was real, that she was truly gone, was difficult. There were, and are, still days when I would drive home from work and go to click her name for a call, times when I’d felt that may she’d be in that same rocking chair when I went home, moments when I’d texted her just out of habit. That was exactly what grief is though.

I’d quoted Andrew Garfield in my introduction during his 2019 CNN interview – “(Grief) is all the unexpressed love, the grief that will remain with us until we pass because we never get enough time with each other, no matter if someone lives till 60, 15, or 99.”

Just as he said – all those moments that I’d gone to message her, that is grief. It’s that deep, grateful love that I felt for her having no place to go. So, I would put it elsewhere, pay it forward, in her name.

I’d call my mom instead. I’d call my sister, or my coworker, or my friends. I’d call just to hear how they were, to ask how their day was, and update them on mine.

That love didn’t have to stay stagnant, holding still in time, with no release. Coming to terms with my grief made me understand that. That unexpressed love is hard to unravel, but using it for those who are still in your life can make the difference.

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Thanks for reading my sixth chapter to Love Persevering: Unraveling Grief. I hope you’ll come back around for the seventh chapter! You can subscribe to be updated when it drops below!