Who am I now
There are so many titles that change with the passing of our person.
Wife
Husband
Mother
Father
Son
Daughter
Grandchild
Friend
Lover
A moment in time changed your title, how is that possible? You still feel like a wife or a mother. You still refer to your person as your husband or your son. That person was a part of you and now there is hole in your heart you can’t imagine will ever heal. The truth is that your identity may be different in the eyes of others, but it remains the same in your heart and soul. How you refer to yourself in reference to your person may never change. If you are a mother, you will always refer to yourself as their mom, you will always refer to him as your son. I still, after 5 years, refer to Mike as my husband. He may not be according to law but he will remain that way in my heart always. Someday I may marry again, and I would refer to that person as my husband, however that will not lesson the piece of my heart that will always know Mike by that same title. Identity may simply be a label yet your life and how you see yourself in the world has changed without them in it.
So who am I now? Where do I fit in my world? That is a tough question. Finding your new identity takes a lot of time and a lot of trial and error. You are not the same person you were before. What was once important may no longer be a priority in your life. People who were a staple in your life may fade away, don’t be surprised it happens more often than not. Life as you knew it has been changed forever. Give yourself time. Healing takes time. The more time you spend on your healing journey the more you will get to know yourself and see the possibilities that have been laid out before you. It may not feel like it now but there are positive things that will come from your journey.
I knew not long after Mike died, that something good needed to come from his passing. There was a reason he had to go and I was left here on earth. I believe I had to go through my own journey with grief to know why I was still here to carry on without him. My journey made me who I am today and gave me the tools to survive in my new world. I am not the person I was before he left, how could I be? I had to take the lessons I learned from our time together, add them to the lessons I learned during the early part of my journey with grief and use them to help me figure out where I fit into this new world of mine.
I’m not saying this was easy, quite the opposite! It took me well over a year to be able to believe that there was a reason all of this was happening to me. Was I angry that I had to do this, absolutely! I was never angry at Mike, I was angry at having to do all the heavy lifting that comes with losing someone you love so much. After about a year, I had a choice to make. I could let the anger and grief consume me or I could try to find somewhere positive to spend my energy.
We are all faced with this dilemma at some point, do we continue a downward spiral or do we try to pull ourselves back up and make something good come from our grief. Again, I am by no means saying this was an easy transition! It took me time and a lot of energy to come to the realization that I had to make a choice. I asked myself what Mike would want me to do? That was when I knew that I could no longer continue my downward spiral. I had to start working toward the positive that I knew was come from his passing. I had to start figuring out my identity now and how I wanted to impact my world.
Once you can climb out of the really heavy part of grief you can begin to figure out your place in your new world. You can begin to figure out who you are without that person and why you are on this journey. There is a lot of trial and error with this process but you will get there. This all takes a lot of time and energy so be patient, you will get there.
