September 9th, 2024

It’s possible this has turned into the longest post I’ve ever made (I know, shocking, right?) Just know you’ll need to set a few minutes aside if you choose to read on but this has some important themes regarding understanding anyone you know who is experiencing grief and depression.

I have taken some time away from writing recently, but not because it doesn’t live in me almost all of the time. I have written for myself, for my own thought processing and healing, but not for public consumption because I have been concerned over the reactions, just as I feared what this phase in my life would mean for me, personally. Notice I said I was 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙘𝙚𝙧𝙣𝙚𝙙 over what my readers would think (which is often different from what they will actually 𝙨𝙖𝙮) but was fearful only of what it means for me personally. The former, you have to consider in your own spirit and, as a recovering people pleaser, I hope you’ll find compassion and understanding in your heart as opposed to judgement. The latter, I took up with God and, as always, He has been walking me through how to manage the feelings that go with this. I’ve heard Him speak to my heart over it on a regular basis the last couple of months as I’ve been thoughtfully scrutinizing all of the cogs and wheels that are constantly rotating in my brain to produce thoughts, both negative and positive…and what choices will rid me of the negativity.

So here goes nothin’…

I’ve spent the better part of sixteen months sitting inside my house…”the better part” meaning 95% of the time. I had someone else grocery shopping, began working from home, had almost any food I ate (that I didn’t cook myself) delivered, and spent many, many days just sitting in my own bed…all day, in my pajamas. Somewhere around January the grief poured over me in a fresh, hot wave (Scott’s birthday is in January and he will never, ever spend any of them here, with us, again) and I found myself in a very scary place; it’s a place I’ve been only once before in my life and, both times, I had to constantly (𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙣𝙩𝙡𝙮) remind myself, over and over throughout the day, of every single reason I had to be here. And yet God continually reminded me that He didn’t leave me here, living, just for me to make alternate plans.

It’s important for anyone who has never experienced major depressive disorder to know that I love my family, quite literally, more than whether or not I take my my next breath. When you’re in this phase of a depressive cycle, you battle irrational thoughts every minute of every day and many nights (all night.) It is 𝙣𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 that the value of your family, your blessings, your faith, is LESS THAN the value of peace. It is that the pain of those days makes you wish for anything that will stop it and you’ve tried everything on Earth that you can think of to do so. And you also know, in the pit of your stomach, that despite how happy you try to appear, or at least how “okay” you attempt to seem, it hurts your family to see you the way you are. This makes it a struggle, an overwhelmingly vicious spiritual warfare, not to believe they’d be able to move on and would ultimately be better off if they didn’t have to watch you do this anymore. This time, though, I knew exactly how much grief costs and had learned some valuable coping mechanisms from the last time. Also, I’d like to say that experiencing depression doesn’t automatically mean that you have less faith; on the contrary, it means you have to lean on that faith all the more just to survive and, ultimately, relearn how to thrive.

I realize that not everyone who has lost someone they dearly love goes through this specific battle. Grieving is different for everyone and not everyone faces a chemical disorder that causes this particular brand of despair. I’m not telling you this so that anyone “feels sorry for” me. 𝘿𝙤𝙣’𝙩 feel sorry for me; I am winning. I’m telling you this because 𝙎𝙊𝙈𝙀 people do live in this place and, if no one tells you, it will likely never cross your mind to truly think about what it is like for someone walking that path.

I spent a lot of time crying to my best friend, actually telling her that I was having to fight to stay here. I talked to my sister (who lives this battle daily since last year) and to others to whom I’m very close. I 𝙙𝙞𝙙 𝙣𝙤𝙩 share this specific part of the battle with some people I love exactly because I didn’t want them afraid, because I have beat this before and I had every intention of doing it again. You see, this time I 𝘿𝙄𝘿 talk about it and that kept me from making other choices that poor coping mechanisms allowed me to choose in it before. 𝙄𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙜𝙜𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙖𝙧𝙚𝙖, 𝙩𝙖𝙡𝙠 𝙩𝙤 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙞𝙩…𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚.

Our society teaches us to be ashamed of weakness and to look at depression as just that. It teaches us to suck it up and just keep swimming. But would you tell a man with no legs to just get up and walk? No, someone would try to help make him new legs then take him to physical and occupational therapy to learn how again. In clinical major depressive disorder, you have no tools, no prostheses, except the ones others help you use until you’re back on your feet again. If no one tries to understand that we are literally missing parts then they simply cannot fathom the degree of difficulty in the circumstances; dopamine, monoamine oxidase A, seratonin, and norepinephrine levels are askew and it makes you feel “crazy” because that’s a word that society has come up with for anyone who isn’t “in their right mind.” And, just for the record and from my extensive research of a topic that affects me directly, research indicates that people with ADHD are significantly more likely to experience major depressive disorder compared to those without ADHD; studies show individuals with ADHD can be up to six times more likely to develop depression, suggesting a strong connection between the two conditions. In fact, all neurodivergents are at higher risk.

All of that wasn’t even supposed to be part of this writing when I started, but I’m often led in a direction that needs to be heard anyway. I guess today was one of those times. Excuse my temporary digression but please consider it carefully in how you react and respond to someone in the trenches of this war.

Moving on, around March I began to resurface from what often felt like drowning; many of you have read my descriptions over the past year and you may remember that being underwater or buried in a pit of mud and mire was a common theme. I was still lost in grief (some days I feel I still am but my “muscle memory” to lift out is getting better at responding sooner) but was facing the rest of the first year. It doesn’t get “easier” after the first year, by the way; it just gets different. There is a realization that, although you’ve checked off holidays and memorable events that you’ll never experience with someone ever again, now the realization hits that they’re not really checked off at all. Every year forever will be filled with the same days and every year forever they won’t be here. It felt like acknowledging surviving those days the first year was a way to feel like you accomplished something as you managed to get through them, and you did! But there will be plenty more of those unwelcome challenges to overcome. It’s like saying, Oh, HOORAY! I made it through mile 1 of a triathalon!!!” when everyone knows that’s only a drop in the bucket. You now settle in to trying to figure out what life looks like in the long haul.

One of the things I began to struggle with was how it felt as though my future, the one Scott and I dreamed of together, was just gone. Gone altogether. Poof!

While pondering this (again and again and again) and trying to see if there was any path that didn’t include daily devastation, I began to consider what ways it might look different. The vacations and trips we had planned, for example, I still wanted to do those bucket list things. I had to cancel our belated honeymoon (as we called it because we were in the throes of raising five teenagers when we married) which should have been this past summer. We were actually supposed to leave June 1st of 2023 but had postponed it to the following summer when Scott was injured in March. I didn’t want to cancel all of the rest of the dreams and plans because I’m still here and he’s already enjoying the ultimate paradise where he is now. The first task to face was thinking about how I didn’t want to do them without him and coming to terms, once again, with the fact that it is simply impossible to change that part of it.

Over a period of weeks and even months of contemplation, I got to a point where I said “I can still do those things; I can still try to enjoy doing fun things and see how that goes.” And yet I still don’t want to do them alone. So, my best friend, Kelly, and I planned a trip to Houston to see my daddy and to just have a little getaway. I knew I’d enjoy getting to see my dad and stepmom but had no idea how much I would actually be able to enjoy just living again. You may have seen our pictures. We did Escape Rooms and indoor rock climbing and theater (live & movies) and dinners. We acted ridiculous at times (iykyk) and laughed until our bellies and cheeks hurt. I honestly think it was the first time I fully realized that I’m not just alive…I’m still 𝙡𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙣𝙜. What a purely shocking revelation.

Coming home from that trip or maybe shortly thereafter, I told Kelly that I need to LIVE more. I think I was really surprised to know that I could leave my house and actually experience joy and laughter and fun. Be assured that there was a guilt aspect of this that I had to wrestle with, but I saw my husband looking at me with a facial expression like “what are you 𝙩𝙖𝙡𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩?” and saying “Jennifer, baby, really??? Stop it.” He would have hated seeing me walk through the last almost year and a half because he loved seeing me happy. And so then I began to think (and to talk to both him and God) about my next question.

Before we left for Texas, Kelly already had a travel nursing contract planned in Kentucky. There was a part of me that felt like she was my life jacket, I think. I’m capable of being alone (clearly, ugh) but even though I can enjoy a day by my pool alone or reading a book or whatever, I can do little more than an “LOL” alone (which we all know doesn’t actually mean the person is laughing “out loud” but maybe more of a quick release of breath through their nose and a smile. Let’s be real here.) I have a handful of other close friends but, at this stage of life, most of them have husbands, families, are on their own adventures. I had to start thinking about what would happen to my plan to keep on “actually living” without my friends being the primary supporting actors in this dramatic movie that is my life.

You’ve probably guessed where this is going by now. And both God and my husband know, not only where it’s going, but exactly what it will look like. We’ve talked. A LOT.

I’ve made the decision to begin dating. Well, to begin seeking to meet people with whom I have commonalities in faith (first), importance of family, hobbies and/or enjoyable activities, and who are capable of understanding that I still love, will always love, Scott. Someone who wants to develop a friendship and then let God show us if it is intended to be any more than just that. And someone to just enjoy life with. It feels like a tall order but won’t God do it? I believe that He has held my hand and led me through deep waters and dark places to get here. I also believe that when He puts a desire in my heart (and if He puts it there then it’s one that is not out of line with His Word) it is because He has a plan. He has a purpose in it. And I’ve known through this whole last 16 months (tomorrow) that He has always still had a plan for me.

I’m almost 52. Dating is not something I thought I’d ever be doing at my age. Wouldn’t have wanted to. But my God brings beauty from ashes, and I have full faith in that. I might live until tomorrow or I might be 104 when I die. Maybe I’m actually middle-aged right now. And I do not want to spend this life alone.

I’ve learned to look at it like this:
When I was pregnant with my second child, I remember thinking “I already love Austin (my oldest) more than it should be humanly possible to love another person. HOW am I going to love another baby on that scale when Austin holds 𝙨𝙤 𝙢𝙪𝙘𝙝 of my heart. Of course, when Luke Reilly was born, and then Christian Owen, I learned that love never, ever gets divided; it grows exponentially to accommodate all of those whom you grow to love. I did not have to love my boys less to fall hopelessly in love with Scott and I do not ever have to love Scott less in order to, potentially, love someone else. I’ll just always love him. It seems like as simple a fact as 2+2=4.

I said this recently to another sweet girl who lost her person:
“I’m just getting to a place where I can try to look forward without looking back…and what I mean by that is that I’ve realized I don’t have to look back because he’s always just here. No matter whether I stay “in the pit” or try to move out of it, he’s going with me wherever that is. The memory of him is everywhere, in practically everything I do and everywhere I go so I’m not leaving him behind, because he became so much a part of who I am. I am who I am today because of who he was and how he loved me. That’s not just going to disappear because it’s fully engrained in the person I am today.
I guess what I’m saying is that it’s going to get easier to navigate eventually. For awhile there, I wasn’t sure that it ever would. It felt impossible. I’m not saying that grief is “gone;” I think I’m just saying that I’m learning to accept that it’s a part of who I am and may rear its head occasionally but it is not going to define me. I believe that part will come for you, too.”

I’m choosing to live by my own words. And to live my life on my own terms (as opposed to people pleasing) as long as I’m in line with God in it. I know, as surely as I know the sun will continue to rise each day, that some people will hold harsh criticism for this choice; they may not choose to say it to me, but it’ll be there in some people’s hearts. Some will think it is “too soon” or that it somehow means that I didn’t love Scott as much as I’ve said. And I’m okay with that because I look for my wisdom elsewhere.

The fact of the matter is that I have held open discussions about this with those who matter the most in this decision (in addition to God & Scott): all of my children, and my mother-in-law. My kids want me to find my inner happy again, although Luke said that anyone I decide to date better know two things: 1.) that I have three grown sons who will 𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙨𝙪𝙧𝙚 he respects me and treats me well and will be there to answer accordingly if he doesn’t (boy moms, you already know) 2.) he has very big shoes to fill. My response to this part was that no one will be filling Scott’s shoes; anyone new will have his own shoes and will be responsible for filling those. My mother-in-law reminded me, ever so sweetly, that Scott would not want me to spend my life lonely and that she supports me, trusts my decisions, and that they are still my family, always. 💕 I could not have asked God for more beautiful family than those with whom He has blessed me and who are all so dear to my heart.

So…now you know. I love you all and wanted you to know my heart, as always. 🫶🏼❤️‍🩹