Sitting in the Tension

There are constant new realizations and adjustments in life after loss. Just when you think you’ve got it down, that you’ve learned to live this new life, you realize there’s more work to do. There are new levels of learning, adjusting, and growing. I guess that’s really no different than any aspect of life, though, right?

Some of these processes are easier than others and right now I’m in the midst of one that is proving to be quite lengthy. I’m calling it “rediscovering who I am.” I don’t think I realized until fairly recently that this was going to be so hard and time consuming. While it began the moment I lost Justin, there wasn’t yet an understanding that this was something I was going to need to do. The first couple of years were spent just trying to navigate life in general and I feel like I’ve gotten that down pretty well. Life has fallen into a daily rhythm and I’m used to the routine. But now I’m in this process of trying to figure out who the heck I am since a massive part of me is no longer what it was for so long. When you were a wife for just shy of 30 years and then suddenly you aren’t anymore, it’s disorienting. For those 30 years decisions I made were made with Justin in mind. All my plans included him. I really never thought about what I wanted or needed on my own because we were a we. But now I’m an I. And I’m having both a hard time with this realization and thoroughly enjoying some aspects of it at the same time. 

It’s a strange thing to realize you don’t know yourself as well as you once did. To realize that so much of who you’ve been has shifted. I’m in this process of discovering who I am again because the me without Justin is a different me. It has to be. A big part of me died when he died. The aspects of me that existed as his wife are no longer in play. So now I have this huge chunk of myself that has to be adjusted and remolded as I figure out this different version of myself. It’s both a scary process and an exciting one and where I fall on that scale depends on the day. Sometimes I enjoy thinking through things and rediscovering my likes and interests. Sometimes I’d like to already be familiar with this new me. But the beautiful thing is that God already knows who I am~ He already has a plan for me. I can trust that He’ll guide me there. Yes, it’s scary. Yes it stretches me in ways that I’d really rather not be stretched. But I’m grateful I’m doing it with the one who knows me better than I know myself. He’ll show me the way to finding me again.

Sitting in the tension of the anticipation and the anxiety of rediscovery.