The Year of Loss

Every year, in the weeks before my birthday, I feel myself entering into a new phase of my life. I don’t generally know what the theme of that phase will be, but sometimes I have an inkling. At the same time I am looking over the previous year and giving it a name, a description. I’m evaluating what lessons I’ve learned, and where I missed what might have been obvious if I hadn’t been blinded by my own agenda. What I find is that that I am generally confronted with the same lessons over and over. At this unique time it becomes abundantly clear that I am not adrift in my life, but am in the current of a great mystery that possesses design and elegance, if not ease.

I’m at that time again, transitioning from one phase into the next, from the known into the unknown. I have entitled this last year “The Year of Loss”—not very uplifting, but a true fit. I’ve lived through years before that were permeated by loss, but they were different. There were gains and places for renewal. For example, once I had 5 people die in a 12 month span, but also 4 births. I got separated, but I also found myself again. There was a constant push and pull, a yearning for balance, that seemed to be expressed in the very fabric of my journey. Not so this year. This year was like a forest fire.

Early in the year I had identified two losses that were already fast upon me--the loss of identity, and the relinquishment of expectations. My children were both going to school full days and for the first time in 8 years I had blocks of time where I belonged to no one again. I didn’t even belong to myself.

From the moment my first child was born, my identity was wrapped up in motherhood. Though I had fought it initially, I eventually, with my whole heart, surrendered my life to my children, to my place in the center of the home. Then, in a flash, I was sitting alone on the couch faced with the question, “What do I do with my life now that they don’t need me so much?” This year’s identity crisis isn’t about limitations the way the accepting motherhood was. This time, wide vistas spread out before me and I am overwhelmed with the possibilities. Worse is that I have become comfortable in my identity as a stay-at-home mom and have largely lost my desire to be much of anything else. I write and that seems to be enough right now. Still, there is this little voice inside of me that says I ought to want more and if I don’t I will lose my value in the world. That little voice tells me I am living a dangerous half life straddling the line between parenthood and pointlessness. The best I’ve been able to do is shrug and turn away from it. “I’m not ready,” I say, and I move on until it finds another opportunity to tell me again that what I am now is not enough.

I thought for the last ten years that when my kids were all in school that I would get a job again outside the home. The stay-at-home thing was a temp assignment in my mind. Now I’m not so sure. My husband just wants me to find my bliss whether or not it brings an income. I recognize that the life I have—one that was commonplace and expected in the not so distant past—is now a luxury that I feel guilty accepting. I am asking myself if I need to adjust my expectations of myself. Why should I now live out the expectations I made for myself before I even knew what this chapter of my life would be like?

Expectations are sort of a subtheme in this year. All of us, at one time or another, want or believe something ought to be a certain way. Expectations, to an extent, are really positive. They keep us accountable to one another, tell us where our limits are, provide us with a sense of safety. But sometimes expectations tell us who we should be even when those definitions don’t fit anymore, or they never did. They prevent us from seeing what we can be and what bounty we can access in our relationships. Sometimes those expectations make us and those we love feel like we aren’t enough. And worst of all, they can lead us on a hopeless journey that will ultimately hurt or harm us.

As I said, this year I have been forced to confront long held expectations that I have had of myself, but I have also had to accept that my expectations of some of my family relationships will not be met. Parting with my expectations hasn’t been easy. I have been grieving lost hopes, feeling a tremendous sorrow in knowing that I will not have the depth or quality of loving that I had longed for. Still I recognize that in letting go of my expectations I forgo a relationship that will never be for a relationship that can be, even if it is very limited. But the grieving comes first.

The final recurring loss of this year was “the final loss”. One of my cats died very unexpectedly this passed Christmas from heart disease. Though he was by no means my favorite cat, I loved him. He took up substantial energy and space in my day to day living. His absence created a vacuum for us all, but most particularly for our youngest child who often called out for her “Buddy” to “come back”. (Walking your children through grief is a pain unto itself for it means witnessing their sense of permanence be shattered.)

Exactly two months later, shortly after the 10th anniversary of my grandfather’s death, I lost another of the great men in my life, Perry. From the time I was five years old, he was like a second father to me. Though he had been gravely ill for the weeks prior to his passing, his death came as a shock to me. I had hoped to see him once more, to say my good-byes and tell him how much I loved him. When he died four weeks before my scheduled visit, I was devastated. Losing Perry felt like being robbed. For the last several months I’ve felt locked down in a grief that is only now starting to abate.

Despite there being moments of happiness, pride, joy, and gratitude, I swirled around all of my losses as if caught in a long succession of whirlpools. Just as I would break out of one orbit I would be drawn into another. With these losses came grief. And too often with that grief there came a self-centeredness which crippled my ability to reach outward toward love, comfort, and assistance, those things which I needed most to sustain myself. The only thing on my mind most days was being a good mom and getting through the day.

As the summer sun breaks through the ceaseless rain of spring I feel the shift happening again. I know I will have to carry this work with me to some degree, but I am anxious for a new focus. I want my fresh start. Like the forest floor in the aftermath of a fire, I too am cleared out, raw and charred feeling. All that’s left to do is wait to see what new growth will rise up from the emptiness.