Time vs. Process

We’ve all heard it– time heals all wounds.

If only it were true.

In all years my speaking with people after loss, particularly suicide loss, there have been those who had lost a loved one long before I had and their pain was much greater than mine. If it were true that time heals all wounds, they would have been leaps and bounds ahead of me. Instead, often they had been told to stuff their grief (mostly because it was suicide) into the back of the cabinet and move on.

Watching that pain was an integral reason why I worked so hard to process the loss of my sister, my parents, of my divorce, and the countless other losses that have happened in my life. When people ask how I was able to meet Greg and marry him and have such a good marriage, I tell them it’s because I did the work.

I trudged through the incoming surf and darkness like in the photo of the temple in Bali above. It wasn't pleasant ever and I hated every stupid minute of it, but I knew that if I wanted to go forward, it was what I had to do.

The processing road is rocky, but if you choose to stand still and simply look at it, things might get better for a time, but they’ll come back and eat away at you in a bigger, more painful way. It’s better to push yourself forward. You’ll find that sunshine, you’ll find the rainbow.

You’ll find the happiness. I know because I was there and I found it myself.

The Continued New Journey

I didn't plan to get a new car. Heck, we were dropping my car off for a sizable amount of service. 

However, through a series of events that had begun to domino the day before, that afternoon I left with a loaner while mine would be delivered from another dealership in the state several days later (because if I was going to get a new car, I wanted all the new techonology that came with it).

What surprised me though, as we emptied my old car and I took photos of the two surfing-related stickers that I would have to leave behind, was the sadness I felt.

It was a nice car, I hardly had any problems with it. But it was more about what it stood for.

In September 2011, trading in my Ford Edge for a Ford Escape was the first item on my list after my then husband and I agreed to divorce. I would be moving my hometown where I had a house but I would have no job per se and needed to bring the payments down. I left Albuquerque on November 1, 2011, with my sister Karen for help and Chaco and Gidget in the backseat in a new 2012 Ford Escape.

Now really, you see these white cars (like mine) everywhere because many government entities use them. That's a good thing: it's a stable model. But for me, every time I saw the car I was reminded of what I had to give up. It was good that I was moving forward but the further I get from that time in my life, I see how challenging it was. 

The story did change obviously and then the car took Greg and I several thousand miles across the country to meet both our families and to explore together the summer of 2014. Since then, the car traveled to California multiple times, carried our surfboards both inside and on the top, as well as a countless items from the Los Angeles garment district to start up Chelle Summer.

I didn't need a new car. We earlier had agreed we would wait but we had an opportunity for me to get a new Escape, one that makes my old one seem primitive. And we did it together.

I was sad to let go but I am more excited about the journey together: about the fun adventures Greg and I will have in this new car. Sometimes there are reasons we don't ever know why life takes us into something new when we don't really feel we need it. 

Life continues to weave our lives together for us.