Good Morning Sunshine!

Good Morning! Inner Strength.

Today I am thinking of inner strength and how we get to it, how it is felt. Once felt, there is confidence in ourselves that we can handle things.

When a partner dies, the world feels uncertain, although the world one knows remains pretty much the same. The significant other is gone. Depending on the preparedness for that loss, well, there you are. There are things one must deal with so they know the new securities of their new foundation. The unknowns are what shake you. However, moving forward happens. Things settle down, and confidence grows. It wasn’t too bad in my case I did the budget and had been dealing with household matters.

What has been the struggle is being suddenly single by the loss of Thomas. Death___it is poof and your gone. All but what you own. And all that you were becomes memories. Nothing new here. Thomas is not the only one who ever died. However, as his partner, I have been left to work through a great loss. Others have lost a very good friend, and uncle, and stepfather, and grandfather___. There is comfort in not being alone in mourning loss.

It is the body’s physical response to death that shakes you, because you have not done “this” before. For me a great heaviness, fatigue. Like coming out of the water after a long swim, and being bound at the shoulders. Strange thing to feel. A mind is a curious place, as it tells the body how to feel. The only release from this has been to relax and give into just being present or tenseness sets it as well. I listened and paid attention. This felt like wisdom.

Writing has always brought relief, so I began writing. I did Shibui Found Image Art at first, knowing it would help me as well. This has felt like going on a personal retreat. One that needs to end, and perhaps revisit. This is a pivotal time I feel where inner strength is found. It is a point where confidence comes into play, the certainty that you can handle what comes your way.

I had expected a Tsunami to broadside me because of how much I love Thomas. But it has not come. Instead, things make me cry, and I have read that out, ok at the end of it. I should cry, crying is healing. It honors the loss of love. I would not have Thomas be here with what he was going through just to have him physically present. It became time to let him go. We knew it was going to happen, grieve began then, I feel. Grief had threatened before, strokes, heart surgery, then advanced pulmonary fibrosis. It took a bit of time to get to this reality. The time to think and process.

I assume this next year will progress. What happens I can shape by taking new paths, by pivoting and moving forward with goals. It helps to become clearer because you can see how you can move forward. The emotions you have become understood.

Inner strength is something one must believe they have, that it is not just words being said. There is a dubiousness to my being a writer. And that is that intellectually I can pull things together and write stacking up the pros and cons of my arguments. This time, the voice in my head came out with, “Come on old girl! Where are you really at? It caused doubt in myself? Generally, not a lot shakes me, but death does. I am confident that I like anyone will react and then I go into a “how to solve this for everyone mode.” Instead, it became “Do I really feel ok?” Or, “Is this the writer calling upon what writing skills, and intellectual concepts. Usually, I feel keen to know myself but self-doubt comes hand in hand with the lack of control you feel at a time like this!

Thomas’s death was nothing I could prevent. More to the point is I do like being in control of my world. Most people do. You can not control death, nor the confusion around it. What does control mean to us? It means we will prevent things from happening, that we understand something so well we know how to react to it. That we are able to be self-sufficient in the matter, be in control of body and mind. Not with death. When shaken by not having the illusion of control____. Things feel so out of control, like you may after all not be able to deal with all of this, and all of this feels overwhelming. Even with the wonderful support you have. When you are suddenly alone, and everyone goes home, your left to become present in your own life again, and come to terms with it. It is ok not to control everything. That is not where real securities are.

The world, life continues with all its complexities. We are left to find the balance in our own lives. It’s too much to deal with everything. It is enough to deal with what we can, as we can. It is knowing where to find the balance that gives us inner strength and confidence.