Season 2, Episode 1--It's a New Year, So What?

A New Year requires New Year's resolutions, or does it? How do you make New Year's resolutions when you are in the throes of grief?

In this episode, I discuss the challenges of remaking your life after a spouse dies as you question everything about your life, yourself and your direction. Listen to how a life list and working to redefine your life can help you move through the grief and into a New Year.

Transcript

Welcome back to my podcast: A Grief Journey. My name is Kay Colley, and I’m your host. 

This is the first episode of season two of my podcast series and today I’m going to talk about the New Year—answering the question: It’s a New Year, so what?

When you are a person in new grief, so much of life doesn’t seem to make sense to you. At least that is the way I remember it. I just walked through the motions of life in those first months after Terry died. As I mentioned in the last podcast, I’d made a plan for how to spend Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve because I knew I would struggle with loneliness during those holidays. But after the holidays were over, I was left with a New Year, and according to American tradition a new year requires New Year’s Resolutions. So here I was, less than six months after Terry had died, trying to figure out what this New Year should hold. What should I do? Where should I go? It’s a New Year—so what?

These questions were all running around in my head. They were also questions that one of my grief counselors kept posing. Not exactly in the ways I’ve posed them. Instead it was more gentle nudges. Early in the rawness of new grief, so much of my life was still bound with Terry’s, and my grief counselors worked with me to untangle the me from we and us. In those first few months, I couldn’t fathom a life without her. I had so much regret for not being able to do all of the things that we had talked about doing, go all of the places we had talked about going. I felt guilty for not being able to complete the life we had started, so I set about trying to complete trips and do things we had always wanted to do—for Terry. At first, my counselor encouraged me to do this, then, she nudged me further, encouraging me to create a list of things I liked to do; places I wanted to go. The beginnings of creating a new life for myself that would be a separate life from our life together. 

I asked hard questions of myself and created what many people call a bucket list because that was what my counselor wanted me to create. I have never really liked the idea of a bucket list because of the connotation with death. So my list isn’t a bucket list. My list is a life list, things I want to do, people I want to see, skills I want to gain, places I want to go. Some of the things on my list were things that Terry and I had talked about. Others were things I had always wanted to do. Some were new—found in a place within me I didn’t even know existed. I’ve used this list since then to help me remake my life.

All of the questions I posed at the beginning of this podcast: What should I do? Where should I go? It’s a New Year so what? These were questions I asked myself so many times during those first few months, and I continue to ask them now. Terry and I had been together for 19 years. I found it difficult to move out of we thinking. And creating this list was one step toward me thinking. 

It has been difficult to move my focus and my thinking to me thinking, and there are times when I do one of the things on this list and it throws me into a wave of guilt, regret and grief because I wish Terry was still here to help me celebrate my triumph. One such thing was walking the Camino de Santiago. Terry had introduced me to the movie The Way, and we both became fascinated with walking The Way, but for her, it was only a fascination. For me, it was more than just a fascination. I wanted to walk the Way, and this past summer, I did. Or at least the last part of it.

As I was walking the Camino with a group of friends, so many confusing emotions welled up in me. I wasn’t sure what was happening and spent part of the first evening sobbing quietly in my pillow as we all went to sleep. When I realized part of my overwhelming emotions were wrapped up in Terry, in grief and in shared fascination with walking the Camino, I began to feel better. Naming the emotions, linking them to my grief and talking about that with my traveling companions helped me. And when I walked along the outskirts of Santiago, I left a shell that Terry and I had picked up years before during one of our beach trips. Other pilgrims had created an altar near the outskirts of the city, and I placed that shell there. I had used that shell to identify myself as a pilgrim throughout my Camino journey as all pilgrims do. Actually, I had fastened a shell to each of my two packs, one symbolizing me, and one symbolizing Terry. I decided I would leave one of the shells along the path, but when I thought I had lost one of the shells in transit, I wasn’t sure I wanted to leave the other. As I was walking toward the altar, I felt a pull to leave the last shell fastened to my pack, so I did. About a week later, when I had returned home, I was going through the pockets of my backpack. The other shell, the one I thought I had lost, was in the backpack the whole time. Finding that shell made me feel like I was on the right path.

That was last summer. About six months have gone by since then and it’s a new year, again. So what? I’ve asked myself that for this podcast, and here’s the answer for me…no resolutions this year. Maybe no more resolutions ever. I haven’t decided yet. What I have decided is that this is a year of discovery. Every year since Terry died has been a year of discovery for me. Sometimes I’ve been comfortable with the discoveries. Sometimes I haven’t. I just keep moving. Sometimes it’s backwards. Sometimes it’s forward. Sometimes it’s sideways. It’s all a discovery, and this year, I’m looking forward to seeing what that discovery will be.

In reading the New York Times at the end of 2022, I saw this piece of advice from Valerie Rosenfield from Oakland, California: “Walk toward the monster (the pain, the scary thing, the grief)” Thank you for that advice Valerie. For this year of discovery, that’s what I plan to continue to do. 

And that wraps it up for the first episode of season two of A Grief Journey. Thank you all for listening. On our next episode, we’ll answer the question: What do I do now when we hear from my friend Cindy Nitschke, who will talk about how to handle the sudden death of a spouse.

Remember, grief is a process, so keep moving through it. 

This is Kay Colley. See you next time!