Focus: Am I Looking Forward or Backward?

I can look back over the months and initially, I felt as if the illness and death of my husband was like an explosion. The resulting crater is what I called "my life." The thought of trying to rebuild and put "what I wanted" into this crater was impossible....mostly because it felt as if there was no purpose to building my life again without him, I just would exist until I could be with him again. I did not feel suicidal, I simply didn't see a point in trying to rebuild without him here to do it with me.

I believe that I moved into a new stage of grief. However, the thought of putting things I "want" into that crater (yep, its still there) is still impossible. I don't know what I want there and it feels totally overwhelming. I still feel without purpose,happiness or contentment.

Today, I was listening to a leadership training CD. The first point was about defining what you want your life to look like. Considering where I have been over the past 16 months, I would say that trying to define this is like starting a completely blank slate. Because I have simply existed, I am simply trying to start over in creating a new life.

There was a new meaning, an "aha!" moment if you will. It is that creating a life for myself is a choice. One only I can make. The pain and grief and sorrow is going to be there for some time to come......if not always. I can choose to continue to look at the life I lost, the husband I miss and my sorrow. Or I can focus on defining my life from here forward. That I will experience grief which ever choice I make. The question is where am I going to focus? This is not to say that I should ignore my grief or to stay so busy that it has no expression. However, if you have read much of what I have written in this blog, I don't think that I has been the case for me.

 This is not rocket science, it is a step forward. I thought about where to focus (besides the past), about the creation of my "new reality". The life I still have to live. Until now the thinking was just too painful to consider. The change is making the decision to choose a path, one that includes activities that have value to me personally. It includes choosing to have a vision for the future. I am sure I will continue to have difficult days here and there. But, today, it is good to have focus.