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Last Day of NaNoWriMo


Today marks the official end of the race. I have 7 chapters and about 15,000ish words. Not the 50,000 one needs to be a “winner” but that wasn’t the point of it for me this year. I have proved I can write that and more in a month. There was no need to do it again. This year was about a decent fiction novel.

Of course life got in my way in a big way. There is the writing gig which is more like journalism than I thought it would be and consequently requires more time and effort. There was flu which I am only just, finally, getting over (secondary infections get me every time). We took a holiday and I wanted to live the time rather than spend it at the keyboard.

I won’t be publishing any more of The Fenns online for general consumption. I will move it soon to a private forum and if you want to continue reading you can let me know via email or leave a post.

Not sure about blogging in general. I have slacked quite a bit this month and found I didn’t miss the personal blogging all that much because I have two grogs – 50Something and Care2 as outlets. And the memoir and novel. I also do a lot more of my radical opinion spouting off on Facebook. I have found that people there are more likely to comment on things and engage in conversation.

I made the decision to go ahead on the yoga teacher training and have my application in. I start in January and will be done by June. 200 hours of training all together. My current instructor told me she’d love to have me teach at her studio once I am done. I like that idea a lot.

I am published in an online magazine of late and was picked up for syndication again through 50 Something.

Life feels full to bursting.

The Other Side of Sadness -Updated


Update: This post was linked by a reader over at the YWBB (aka widow board) in response to someone asking if it really takes 3 – 5 years to “get over” the death of a spouse. I read the responses, and while everyone who replied made a point to stick to his/her own experiences, there was still a bit of self-serving justification going on and the real issue was never addressed.

You don’t “get over” the loss of someone you love. Over time it becomes a part of you like every other experience you’ve ever had – good, bad or unexpected. And as someone pointed out here in the comments, life is not a process so it makes sense that grief – like joy – is not something we 12 step through. Loss is an experience. More quickly than most people realize, we move on from even the worst events and back into the mainstream of life. And life changes. Even if my first husband hadn’t died, I would not be the same person today as I was the day I met him. Life is change.

It’s disingenuous to say that it takes years to find happiness, meaning or a new life. That happens quickly and in spite of ourselves. Whether or not a person chooses to cling to grief or not is the heart of the so-called “time line”. Bonanno makes this point himself in the book. People who chose to hold onto good memories and push on for the sake of the lost loved one generally are back to whatever normal means sooner than those who cannot get past the event or the feeling of unfairness. He also points out that people who experience complications in grief usually had underlying issues to begin with that the loss simply made worse.

I won’t post on the widow board, but if I were to answer this poster I would say this:

Life is what you decide to make of it. We carry loss with us always but whether or not it defines or dominates you is up to you. And even in the first months to the end of the first year, most people experience happiness and find meaning. Anyone who tells you it took three years or more to feel anything other than misery or that year two was worse than year one either had issues before or is not being all that honest – with you or with themselves. You can be happy. The choice is yours.

I just finished reading The Other Side of Sadness by George Bonnano, an associate professor at Columbia. It basically sets the record straight on all the ridiculous notions that surround grieving.

For example, “grief work”, the idea that grieving requires a thoughtful and painful laundry list of activities that a person must do before he/she can move on with his/her life. The notion exists thanks to a throw-away idea by Freud. How he can be the father of all that is counter-intuitive and the father of modern psychoanalysis at the same time is one of life’s minor mysteries, but essentially he briefly pondered the notion that in order for a grieving person to move on in life, that person must “detach” from the deceased and that this process was “grief work”. And that’s about all he said on the subject but those two words have been a millstone for me. I’ve been told more often than I can count that my wanting to move on was keeping me from grieving properly and wasn’t possible.

Bonnano has done quite a bit of research over the years, and he has discovered that pretty much the opposite of “grief work” is not only the norm but is healthier.

People who endeavor to move on and be happy – usually because they feel the deceased would have wanted that – have better lives and outcomes than those who succumb to the idea that grief is a process that must be worked through.

“Do you feel vindicated?” Rob asked me after I told him about what I’d read.

And I do.

Take that widow board with your nonsense about distractions and “grieve now or grieve more later”.  Neither of those things is true. Distractions are what healthy people do to keep from being overwhelmed in the beginning. It’s about balance. And the notion that grief can be suppressed and come back to cause havoc later? Based on a flawed study back in 1944 that was later proven to be wrong in its conclusion.

The book acknowledges that grief has ebb and flow and never completely disappears, but it debunks the notion that a person can’t get along without grief counseling. In fact, it says that 6 months should be the cut-off point as far as seeking help for complicated grief goes. Before that, sadness and emotional swings are normal.

And that’s the heart of the book, that grief is normal.  Human beings are built to grieve and if we simply followed our natural instincts, we’d be better off.

So, there is no grief process. No 12 steps. Distractions are good. Being determined to move on is the norm.

Any questions?

Holidays and Reflections


It was Thanksgiving in the States yesterday. Today, fortified by turkey and mashed taters, people are on the material end of the orgy that the holiday has become.

Oh sure, I read Facebook status updates and blogs that give thanks, but for the most part, I think the original meaning has been lost. It is a day to dig deep, be grateful and give the gift of time to those who are most special.

Holidays like Thanksgiving have a tendency to draw out the opposite emotions. I read just as many blog pieces denouncing the idea of gratitude, and citing all the reasons for doing so, as I read positive spins.

It’s not Thanksgiving here in Canada. Ours was weeks ago. Canadians sensibly schedule it for Monday and because it’s far too early to worry about Christmas, there is no accompanying shopping frenzy. The last time I went out on Black Friday was 2004. My folks and nephew had come to celebrate with us. Not that the spirit of gratitude was easy to muster. Will had gone into the nursing home about five-weeks before and I brought him home for the day. He was miserable because his mother refused to come join us. She always had this weird thing about my parents. She thought, and I don’t know where it came from, that my family was a step up the middle-class rung from hers. She imagined that my parents judged her. Which wasn’t true. Her behavior puzzled them because they simply couldn’t understand why she wasn’t stepping up to be more of a help than hinderance, but they didn’t judge her. Not like my sister, DNOS, anyway, who thought that MIL’s whingeing was over the top and self-serving.

I think Mom went out with me and I found a sweater at Old Navy that I still have because it is very warm. We didn’t get to the mall until well after the mob had been through. That same mall opened today at 3AM with a pancake breakfast for shoppers before the stores opened at 4 or 5AM. I don’t think any amount of savings is worth getting up in the middle of the night.

All in all, it wasn’t the worst Thanksgiving. Life had settled into a routine and though it was a lonely one for me, I knew that it could easily have been worse. So I was as grateful as I could be and tried not to grouse. The year before, after all, I was looking at the possibility of losing my house and worrying about my brain-damaged husband, who I couldn’t afford to put in a daycare and was leaving him on his own while I worked. Things were better by comparison.

Thanksgiving right before Will died and the next year were spent with my best friend’s family. She took us in for holidays a lot and honestly, it was very nice. Dee had kids to play with and I had friends to interact with, and maybe it might seem awful and sad to some people, but we always had a reasonably good time.

And it was a day off work. Days off were welcome because my daily routine was long and numbing more often than not.

And still, it could have been worse.

Most people don’t like to look at the brighter side when they are unhappy with life’s lot. For the vast majority, there is a lot to be grateful for in spite of personal difficulties. And that’s what holidays are really for anyway. They are an opportunity to take off the tunnel vision specs and take a good, honest look around.