Cleaning Out the Closets

There comes a time in every life when you must clean out the closets, literally and figuratively. Today I did both.

I’m packing my home to move out of state to start a new job and a new chapter in my life. This has come upon me very suddenly, requiring me to make life altering decisions very rapidly over the past couple of weeks. Thankfully, I only just moved into this house 5 months ago, so things are still in relatively good order. This week I’ve been systematically making my way through the house, room-by-room, closet-by-closet, carefully determining yet again which items I will carry with me in my car, which I will store for the future, which I will donate to someone else, and which I will toss for good. Most decisions have been easy: I carried this item to this house but haven’t used it in 5 months—it needs to go to a new home now. Or, this item is too precious to decide more than once: it stays in my life forever.

But let’s be real. I don’t own anything of significant monetary value. I’m a furniture/decorating minimalist and anyone who has met me knows I’m no fashionista; my most valuable household assets consist of a collection of overpriced gluten free flours, a few too many specialized kitchen appliances, far more personal electronic gadgets than one woman needs, and a robust (completely legal and paid-for, thank you very much) music collection. No, my precious items fall more in the “sentimental value” realm than requiring extra insurance coverage. So as I started to pack up my home once again this round, I thought that I had reached the point in life where I knew which items were deemed eternally valuable and therefore didn’t require additional evaluation. While cleaning out the closets I learned I was wrong.

Tucked in the back of my bedroom closet I found them: the collection of stuffed animals that had been a part of Charles’ and my life together. They moved from our old apartment in North Hollywood into my new house in Monrovia, because I wasn’t ready to deal with them yet. They’re big kids—took up a whole moving box of their own—but I’ve had plenty of room in this house all by myself so they never bugged me much. This move is different. I’m relocating to Seattle and leaving my personal belongings in storage in California until I figure out where I’m going to live up there. Space in my car is reserved for (of course) my gluten free flours and a few clothes. Space in my storage unit is costing me by the square foot so it no longer makes sense to keep things around that I’m not ready to deal with yet. Today I had to deal with them.

I sat the stuffed animals on my bed and had a good, long talk with them. Yes, you can just call me crazy right now. I was never a stuffed animal guru until I met Charles, but he had this talent for drawing out the personality of non-human things. Stuffed animals, live animals, cars, and computers all seemed to come alive and gain a voice under his influence. So it was with these old, beat up, smelly stuffed animals now propped up on my bed. We talked about what had happened since Charles’ death two years ago, how they had seen me through the first few lonely months, how they had laughed when I tried to start dating again and didn’t know what I was doing. We talked about how I had been able to leave them to their own devices for a long time, and as a matter of fact hadn’t bugged them at all since I moved into this house. Then we talked about how my life is going in directions now that they just can’t come with me. They will always be a sweet memory of that period with a very funny man, but they don’t belong to my future. We cried together and said goodbye. Although it was sad, it was also very, very refreshing because I knew I had cleaned out another emotional closet.

On the eve of the second anniversary of Charles’ passing, I am struck by the changes which have occurred in my life and my heart in the past two years. This encounter with the stuffed animals was indicative of the emotional upheavals I’ve been experiencing these past two weeks since I made the decision to take this new job and close a 16-year chapter of my life in Los Angeles. Of course this chapter has been all about Charles. He’s the reason I moved here in the first place. What’s interesting, though, is that during the past two years without him, it has become even more important to me to feel like this is my place and my home. I think I had to learn to love this as my own home in order for me to accept that my life is moving on, post-Charles. I always say that life is all about timing, and this seems to be the right time for everything that is happening for me: time to start a new job, time to move to a new home, time to start a new blog about those adventures, time to clean out the closets.

It's Time

They say that a woman’s biological clock ticks away to the point that she knows when it’s time to feel concerned about her parental state. I wouldn’t know. Thankfully I have been relatively sheltered from the pain of that yearning as motherhood hasn’t come to fruition for me.

But the other morning as I drove to physical therapy in Burbank my eyes and heart took a long trip down memory lane and I felt, unequivocally, it’s time. Time to move on.

I’ve lived in this place for 15 years, 3 months, and 18 days. But who’s counting? I’m not anymore, surprisingly.

When I moved to Los Angeles as a newlywed (well, 1 year into marriage), I promised my new husband that I would “give it a good try” and not whine about having to live in California so he could make a go of his career in the film industry. After 5 years here, we looked at each other and asked, “What, precisely, defines a ‘good try’ in this scenario?” Since neither could answer, we lived on for another five and then changed the question to, “Well where else would we go now?” Somehow, slowly, this place became my home. I wasn’t ready to admit that I actually like living in Southern California until about two years ago. And it wasn’t until after Charles’ passing, when it was really no one else’s fault but my own that I lived here still, that I willingly stood up and shouted, “I love living in LA! This is my home! I don’t want to move!”

Despite the fact that I finally love it here and I finally feel like I’m here on my own volition, I know it’s time to go. It’s awful to admit that a Rascal Flatts song precisely sums up the way I feel:

I've lived in this place and I know all the faces
Each one is different but they're always the same
They mean me no harm but it's time that I face it
They'll never allow me to change
But I never dreamed home would end up where I don't belong
I'm movin' on

Don’t get me wrong—this place and its faces have been very good to me. I’ve made friends who have supported me through a great period of learning:

Learning to be married, Learning to have a career, Learning to juggle non-existent money, Learning to accept childlessness, Learning to love others’ children without envy, Learning to be a leader, Learning to grieve, Learning to be single again, Learning to love again.

This great yearning to move on comes from a desire to keep on learning—only I know that I have learned what I came here to learn and that in order to grow in the next phase of my life I need to be somewhere else.

I was afraid to move right after Charles died because I didn’t want any more major life changes all at once. I also was afraid of being accused of running away. I’m not a coward and I’m very stubborn. I have spent the past 17 months slowly weaning myself away, instead. I have appropriately (I think, and that’s all that matters, really) reveled in all the old things that used to bring Charles and me comfort. I have sufficiently cried at memories of places that only he will understand. I have sifted through the habits we developed as a couple and adopted the ones I want to keep for my own (like going to the movies, going to concerts, enjoying good restaurants, and hiking on Christmas).

Besides weaning myself away from the life I built with Charles, somehow I have started to build a life of my own with habits of my own (like urban exploration, hiking on Sundays, cooking gourmet at home, and watching hockey). It has been long enough that I no longer feel like I’m being disloyal to the life I built with Charles as I build a new life that belongs just to Heidi. I’m happy in my home—even though it is full of memories of the man who shared it with me for 14 years. However, I can feel that this home is kicking me out.

While on that drive to physical therapy the other day I drove past the Chase bank branch that used to be a Washington Mutual—where we opened our bank account the week we moved here. It was a little thing to remember, but it will always belong to November 1998.

I also drove past the little post production studio where Charles rolled in and said, “I’m looking for work. I’m available.” A slightly bigger thing to remember, but it will always belong to March 1999.

And so it goes. Everywhere I drive, I have a memory. They aren’t painful; they’re fun, usually. But those memories belong to my past. They’re written down in my journals. They’re recorded in my personal history. They’re summed up in playlists in iTunes. It’s not that they don’t matter. It’s almost like they’re willingly packing themselves up in boxes labeled, “Pull me out when you’re in the mood for a good cry” and shipping themselves to my future…in some other destination.

I don’t know where that future is located; it’s too early to tell. I love it here, I love the life I have here, and I love the people I have here. Wherever my next home is, it’s time.

Not Broken, Just Bent

I’m quickly approaching the one-year anniversary of the death of my husband, Charles. The truth is, I’ve been thinking for months about what I would write on that day; it has to be special, it has to be significant, it has to be…real. And here I am, planning ahead again how to be “real” in the moment. Well, I’m in Manila on a business trip, doing the job of five people right now, and don’t honestly know what my day will be like on October 1^st and whether I’ll have the time or the emotional wherewithal to write that day. So, what does it matter if I write a couple days in advance? I’ve already told you how I feel about anniversaries.

But I’ll warn you before you waste any more time reading my long ramblings: this is brutally honest. Honest feelings, raw feelings (who knew how raw they’d still be after a year), uncomfortable feelings, and maybe some stuff you just don’t want to know about me.

Consider yourself forewarned and proceed at your own peril.

People have asked me what it’s like to lose your husband of 15 ½ years. Obviously it’s sad. There are days when I see/hear something that reminds me of Charles and I want to text him and tell him all about it. There are stupid things people do and say that we would so dearly love making fun of together; we were very good at making fun of things together. If I try to explain it to someone else, it may not even sound funny; or worse, it may sound offensive. And then I just feel like a bad person. Charles knew just how bad of a person I was.

I’ve also been remembering the anniversary of all the “last” things we did together:

• Our last real date together that Friday night before he passed away. We tried a Greek restaurant that was new to us, filled up on three flavors of hummus, and then watched “Looper.” Excellent film, BTW. I think I’ll watch it again on the plane ride back from Manila.
• Our last ditching-work-to-go-to-the-movies day together when I took “ill” on a Thursday afternoon and met him at AMC.
• Our last time having sex. Thank heavens it was one of the good times and not one of those annoying times where one of us was more preoccupied with something else than living in the moment.
• Our last quiet Sunday night at home when we planned/booked our holiday trip to New York.
• Our last Charles-listen-patiently-while-Heidi-unloads-the-awfulness-of-her-workday-over-chips-and-salsa night, just a few hours before he passed away.
• Our last trip to the Aquarium of the Pacific to pet the sharks.

And then my memories start to fade a little…. How can that be?  I was married to the man for almost 15 ½ years, and we knew each other a year before that. Memories shouldn’t fade. Thank heavens for journal-writing, for picture-taking, for song-listening, all of which help prompt memories of interesting events, emotions, and experiences. But then again, sometimes I don’t want the memories anymore. Because a year can change people. It can change me, specifically.

The P!nk song, “Just Give Me a Reason” inspires the title of this post: 

“We’re not broken, just bent.”

And that’s the way I feel after a year of “surviving” the death of a loved one. In some ways I feel like I’ve got two choices with this death: Pretend the 16 ½ years with one person never happened, or own it. I flip-flop on how I approach it, depending on my mood!

Not Broken

Some days I feel broken. You spend that many years investing in a relationship, and then it ends, and you have to figure out what to do with all those years that belonged (you thought) exclusively to that relationship. It’s like those 16 ½ years didn’t really exist for me. No one else knows the value of that period of my life because the value dropped on October 1, 2012. Some days I feel really, really stupid for wasting that many years of my life investing in a marriage that just suddenly ended. Those are the days I feel broken.

Then other days I remember there’s value in learning how to live with someone and how to stick with them through thick & thin for that many years. There are life lessons I learned during that period which I may never have learned any other way. There’s also this nagging little voice that reminds me how very much Charles prepared me for being alone without him. He was my biggest champion and always cheered & supported me to become my best, strongest self—all the way through leaving me. As twisted as it sounds, it’s almost like his crowning work in life was to set me up for success to live without him. Those are the days I realize I’m not broken.

Just Bent

So is it possible for me to keep the lessons and experience gained from 16 ½ years with that man, and yet start over—bending in a different direction? Can I pick up and be the person I want to be, even with the baggage/experience of my marriage? Do others perceive me as broken or bent? I believe that largely has to do with how I perceive myself. It would be ridiculous to pretend nothing happened to me. Just like it would be ridiculous to pretend I’m 24 again, like the last time I was single.

Today I feel forty. Any you know what? I like being forty. I told my mom recently that, although I wouldn’t mind having my 17-year-old body back, I wouldn’t trade the independence, freedom, and wisdom of forty for anything! I am bent toward forty, and loving it.

The past year has been such an interesting journey of figuring out who I am, disentangling myself from what happened over the previous 16 ½ years. Interestingly, I discovered that I’m bent in some directions, directly as a result of being married to Charles, which I really like about myself. For example, I never would have come to love the movies or love live music without his influence, yet those are very real, very Heidi interests today.

Learn to Love Again

For some of you, dear readers, this is the meat of the matter: will Heidi love again? I’ve mentioned a new boyfriend here before, and wouldn’t you just love to hear all about it? That’s not the point of this post. My dating life, while intricately woven into the thread of healing from the death of my late husband, is not really the “proof” that Heidi can learn to love again.

One of the great lessons of my recent history has been learning to love, period. I identified something about myself nearly a year ago, and that is the fact that I need to love: love deeply, love madly, love hopelessly, love stupidly, love frequently. That could, of course, correspond with my dating life. But I also need to love more people in more places. Starting with my family. Spreading to my friends. Expanding to my coworkers. Reaching to my church congregation. And possibly, yes, approaching my love life.

What kind of love is in store for Heidi? Some of the love “written in the scars on my heart” will never go away; other tidbits of love have faded with time and will live only as attachments to specific songs, foods, or places. Can new songs, foods, places, and experiences foster stronger love springing from those scars? I believe they can, so long as I believe that I’m not broken, just bent. Bent toward love.

Flowers

This post is prompted by these flowers, sent yesterday because someone “misses me infinitely” now that he’s 8,700 miles away:

They’re the first “boyfriend flowers” I’ve received in 17 years. Yes, I said boyfriend. But I don’t want to talk about him. I want to talk about flowers.

The above flowers got me thinking about these flowers, the last “just because you’re cute” flowers I received from my late husband last year:

And those flowers got me thinking about the first flowers I ever received from a boy. The year was 1993. My little brother, Tom, was a freshman in high school. I was 20, living at home and working full time while taking an extended holiday from my college education. Tom was auditioning for an advanced drama class and had to do a serious research project as part of the application process. His advanced procrastination skills (I can say that affectionately because I possess them, too) found the boy with only one weekend between him and his deadline, with nothing but the public library to save him. He despaired (a bit) and wasn’t really sure how it was going to get done in time, let alone how to actually conduct the research he needed. I offered some assistance, and we found ourselves not at the public library, but at the University of Washington library, at my insistence. I helped talk him through the concept of his research project, oriented him to the research tools/systems, and metaphorically held his hand as he cobbled together a decent presentation. (Incidentally, Tom has since become very adept at conducting his own research; he beat me by completing his master’s degree this year 3 months before I did! :-P)

One night after Tom's performance in Hello Dolly that year (1993)

When Tom was accepted into the advanced drama class, that 15-year-old kid went out on his own volition and purchased flowers for me. They were waiting in a vase on my dresser when I got home from work one day. And these weren’t typical grocery-store-bunch-with-plastic-and-dead-ferns-type flowers. It was a big bunch of Freesias. At the time, Freesias were my favorite flowers. No one knew that. But Tom looked at the options and they seemed like the ones that best represented what he wanted to say, which was simply, “Thank you.” Those flowers brought tears to my eyes that day. Not because they were so beautiful (although I did love me some yummy Freesias back in the day), or because he was so amazing (although he has become an incredibly awesome brother and friend), but because someone took the time to think of flowers and think of me and select blossoms that were just right.

Giving and receiving flowers is a little (okay, big) joy of mine. I buy flowers for myself frequently and also spread blooming bouquets around my circle of friends, just because I like them. For someone who loves flowers, you’d think that just any flower will do, right? Wrong. Like my friend Chuck says, “Words mean things.” So do flowers. For example, red roses say, “I’m too unoriginal to think of more interesting flowers that match your real personality.” Carnations say, “Are you dead yet? If not, you should be, because carnations are only for funerals.” (BTW, I refused to let any carnations slip into Charles’ funeral sprays—because they’re just awful flowers.) And then there are the random wildflowers (i.e. blossoming weeds) picked from the roadside and offered in a paper cup, which whisper, “Come on baby, light my fire!”

At the end of the day, flowers are one of those delightful little tender mercies from a loving God who lets me know it’s okay to be happy. Out of the gloomiest places, bright posies manage to flourish if we’ll but notice them and give them a little attention. Much like people, flowers seem to grow prettier with love and consideration. I’ve been known to thrill over a handful of wild sunflowers plucked from the freeway median: bugs, dirt, and all. In my opinion, they’re there to make me smile.