Hey- things are better and got there… hmmm yesterday/slowly through this whole week. We’ll start with Friday night and me in a goodish mood for fucking once, yeah?

So yesterday evening the girls and I got wings and watched a Spiderman movie and it was good. Movies are still too long for my mind/heart right now- I have this weird restlessness that makes any one thing for too long sit weird with me… but I made it through. (goddammit, I clearly JUST said… whatever. Mentioned in passing.)

But- as there was a 30 minute wait after I ordered wings to when they’d be ready- I went next door from the wing place to the At Home store (used to be Garden Ridge) to peruse some bullshit I wasn’t going to buy. I hate the place- fyi. It’s all the fake decor things that mean nothing and cheap bedding that isn’t cotton and it’s soul-less in that weird modern way things are. Like Hobby Lobby but without the creativity of craft stuff.

And what I found was this: y’all, I don’t think the trad wives are okay. We really should be worried about them.

Can’t you just picture her, eyes closed, clutching a kitchen counter and saying that to herself? RELAX RELAX, BLESSED HOME, BLESSED…. BLESSED. Damn girl. Life isn’t performative please stop putting on and calling it happiness.

I thought it was a Blessed Home?

…

…

WHAT.

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.

Okay though, in a sea of soulless “wall decor is not actually art” at least this one is a bit skilled and an interesting composition… wait.

What in the absolute Medea-esque infanticide…

And what rough beast

it’s hour come round at last

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born

So yeah. The Trad-wives are imploding. Pray for them- to like, live, laugh, love or something.

And scene.

Okay, that was my Friday night. Friday day was good too. But let’s back up.

I took off Tuesday to next Tuesday for “not shattering into a million pieces if I keep forcing myself through” reasons. Surprise, surprise, it did work, I am not a bucket of shards right now! And I got there with still having to get the kids to and from school- so this was day trip breakthrough stuff this week. Now my own scene is set for you, I hope.

Tuesday: Honestly I had to run hither and yon in the morning to get the plumbers some additional things because I’d bought the wrong faucet for the tub/shower and found out the SECOND they were ready to install them. Asher was a huge fan though, so he was like, making lemonade out of the box at least.

I then WAS going to drive to Austin and hike around Pace Bend Park. I have been wanting to do this/ absolutely dreading doing this. That was where Lucas and I met. Where we spent so many camping trips and day trips… where he asked me to marry him.

I then pulled two Oracle cards (shit why not- I was feeling apprehensive about this idea of mine) and it was all death and destruction and accidents and ruin. I didn’t go. Thanks, cards, even if the truth was I wasn’t ready and I even already KNEW that, you know?

And besides… be careful going to the past. You can do it, it’s just that no one is there, you know? In the headspace I was in I can see how that realization would have been devastating and hollow, and I was already overflowing with both of those feelings on Tuesday… I didn’t need to pour more on top.

I will go to Pace Bend at some point. But that week did not need to be this week.

So instead I meditated in the front bedroom and just went… what am I doing. What am I doing today. And this week. And each breath, and who am I, and am I moving forward or not?

I had many long breathes with my eyes closed and my mind empty.

I opened my eyes a while later to many clear thoughts.

Thoughts like how women who live for men and chase them are not ever happy, nor loved by said men. We all bore ourselves, so someone living FOR us is also boring TO us. Ergo… if I did everything these days for Lucas I’d bore him and do both him and I a disservice. We all want partners who surprise us and interest us. To do that we need to be our very best selves and live for ourselves and then share that best version of ourselves with others. That’s what I tried to do while he was alive. And so I realized I shouldn’t change that now. For someone to be interested in us we have to be interesting. I was not being the best spouse to my ghost husband by only focusing on him. Also like, I was slowly killing myself in the process and life was truly and deeply brutal and uncomfortable and felt wrong.

Okay.

I realized I’d been spending my time thinking pretty solely (soul-ly. snort.) about Lucas and his life. And our life. And all of that makes sense to do, so I’m not beating myself up over it but I was forgetting about that little thing called my own life. And my own soul. No wonder shit was dark.

So what had been- and I promise it is true- a fully unintentional plan for this week off to like chase the past or something, it all got turned on it’s head on day 1. Thank god.

So… with this new sense of things I went about the day/week/life.

I worked out. I cleaned the house. I went to the grocery store. And I went to a garden center out of town. Who deserves a reward for trying to turn her life around and achieving some enlightenment through meditation?

Me!

It’s a 7′ tall bouganvilla. My favorite color that is insanely hard to find. Perfect form. And on clearance for $50, the last one, in fact. (regular priced 1 gallons were $26.99)

I took it as a sign from the universe/Lucas I was on the right track.

Hopefully it’s a better sign than this one I got carrying mulch bags to the backyard last week.

That night I made like a meal meal for dinner- with sides and a sauce for the chicken and got the girls all set up and then down for the night. And sure I drank 4 beers but I didn’t cry sitting outside under the stars later, and it was okay. It wasn’t all better like a snap but better like a newly applied bandaid and Neosporin is better.

Wednesday: I got the girls off, the dogs fed, and coffee brewed and I took off for Castroville in the morning. Yes I went to the cemetery. I visited my ancestors and took pictures and the location of a toppled tombstone of my 4th great grandfather’s 1st wife so I can discuss with my dad and uncle as to how we’re going to fix it. I then went to the hotel Lucas and I loved down there to look around. And I walked around the pool area where we spent many a truly lovely evening.

He wasn’t there. It was just a pool but now I already knew it would be. I did just have to check though. It was okay.

There were kittens running around, and I smiled at them. I wasn’t hungry so I didn’t eat at the restaurant we liked either. I listened to Social Distortion on the ride home and it wasn’t right but at least it wasn’t my “Sad Love Songs” Spotify playlist either.

That night we carved pumpkins, and lit candles and incense on the ofrenda. Things were a little better but still sad and that’s okay too. That is how it’s gonna be.

Thursday: Halloween. I took a nap during the day and did some chores. Did some cleaning. My 15 year old went home with a friend after school and went trick or treating and had a sleepover, so I didn’t see her all day aside from the morning. My oldest was supposed to come with us but decided last minute to nap instead (she’s been working a 2am to 8am shift making donuts at a cafe for a month or so. She’s now quit and has a new job with normal hours at a smoothie place- I am thrilled as that was a TERRIBLE and disruptive job for her, but at least it was a job. Makes for a fun story later in life at least). And so that meant the trick or treating was just me and my youngest.

We started with a big group of her friends, and two of their moms are good friends of mine, so it was good. We ended the night just the two of us, walking hand in hand up a dark street. And that was fine and all but it was also the most surreal shit that came close to making me buckle at the knees, when compared to last year with the 5 of us. It was a quiet house that night after the youngest was down. I cried myself to sleep.

And then I woke bolt up at 2am, wide awake. Got up. Ate 3 of my youngest’s Reeses and had a glass of milk. Read for a while. And then every time I closed my eyes to sleep I saw Lucas’s face. Over and over and over. There have been days I can’t call it up lately, in my mind’s eye. This was a change. I went to sleep again, but this time smiling.

Friday: Friday felt different. Walking the youngest to school we saw a grey fox cross the street. I noticed the birds chirping on the way back. I enjoyed my coffee along the way. I then had breakfast with my Dad and headed out to the San Fernando cemetery in San Antonio. I’d never been to my great and great-great grandparents’ graves… I was resolved to find them and take flowers. Thanks to FindaGrave.com I knew which cemetery and section block they were in.

I walked extensively. And saw so much loss. A wife who died in 1965, buried next to her husband, a private first class, who died in July of 1943 (WW2 casualty). and right next to them was their son. Inscribed on the son’s stone was “Born and Died November 14th, 1943.” And I thought of that poor woman, and the awfulness of 1943 for her and how she lived for 12 more years afterwards.

And the cemetery was full of things like that.

• Husbands living for 60 years past their wife.
• Wife after wife who outliving their husband. So many who’s husbands died in WW2, and who lived into the 70s and 80s… but there they were. Together again on a double stone.
• A husband born in 1898, buried 1964, and an empty side of a double headstone next to him. Engraved on the bottom- together forever. Except they weren’t. Did his wife remarry? Move? We won’t know.
• A husband and three children, all dying on the same day in 1953. (car accident, I’d presume. Or a fire.) The mother’s headstone from the 60s with “loving mother and wife” engraved on it.
• Even my own ancestors- many of whom outlived their spouses by years- is that better or worse than my great grandparents dying a mere 8 months apart?

And I swear, the comfort that comes from facing this is not ghoulish. It just illustrates no one gets out without it. What can feel so very isolating right now is not (as my brain wants to serve up) some unique and special form of suffering. There are worse things, and there are better, but in the grand scheme… it’s a normalcy, of a kind.

I am not alone. But I was the only one alive out there, in the cemetery at midday.

Afterwards I drove to the Historic Market Square. Bought a couple of hearts (a blown glass one and a milagros one, for my wall). And then I sat at the gorgeous bar at Mi Tierra and had a michelada. When the bartender asked if I wanted to close it out after I ordered I joked: “Yes please, I gotta drink and drive.” And he laughed. And I smiled. And then I just sat there and I thought.

I thought about life. About the past. About how I felt good, doing something like this for myself. And about the time Lucas told me to not feel defeated even in the face of big things.

And then I had a good Friday night, like I mentioned there at the beginning. And I’ve had a good day today, with gardening and seeing my sister-in-law and writing. And why, I wonder, did I need you to see the play by play of this week? I don’t know exactly, but I guess it is the thing we all want- acknowledgement and witnessing of pain and grief… and maybe of the healing too. Hopefully it wasn’t like I was Bird Boxing ya to make you see it. Probably it had at least a twinge of that though, so my apologies.

But again. Capturing the lessons I find along the way and putting them down is important. I keep forgetting them, and so being able to reread them has been so vital.

• Do not be defeated
• This IS the very human-est pain, it is not unique.
• Live for yourself, don’t spend your life tending alters. Even if the thing you do, for yourself, is visit cemeteries.
• Buy the things that make you happy (Mexican folk art hearts or bougainvillea), not soulless “wall decor” (see how I tied that shit up neatly)
• Moving forward isn’t letting go.

None of this is linear. No breakthrough ever seems to stick. But each time I’ve cracked them once, I know I can do it again. And if I collect them and write them down I can refer back to them.

In May I learned there is more to the universe than just what can be seen.

In August I decided to live, not just survive.

In November- on the very first day of it, in fact- I decided that if I live, I have to live for myself.

And I don’t know what the next lesson will be. Or how much backsliding I’ll periodically do. But I do feel better able to face it than I did on Monday.

Thanks for bearing witness for me, this whole time. It means a lot.