Roll with the changes

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As some of you know, my fiancé passed away in January of last year. He had a short illness with pancreatic cancer, so from the time he was diagnosed until he passed it was just over four months. That time was extremely intense with testing, chemotherapy, and the choice to enter Hospice care. If that wasn’t hard enough, we were dealing with the legal system not allowing Steve to get divorced. After six years and four filings, the proceedings were delayed again so we were not able to be legally married before he died. After Steve was admitted to Hospice, we had a private ceremony on the winter solstice, a bittersweet reminder of all that we had endured through our relationship and the short time we had left.

As you can image, Christmas last year was extremely difficult. After Steve passed, I had to deal with the aftermath of his death, the legal issues, the business issues, and my unresolved emotions about all of it. I made the conscious decision to actively grieve it all. A lot of people told me to stay busy, but I knew that wasn’t what I was supposed to do. I wasn’t a hermit -- I went to work and saw my friends – but I also put myself in situations where I knew I would be triggered.

I watched every single episode of This is Us, thinking to myself This is emotional ipecac. Little did I know that there would be scenes that mirrored my life with Steve, reflected conversations we had, events we had to endure. People often told us that we had an epic love story, one for the ages – just like Jack and Rebecca, even though we were together only seven years. One of the Hospice counselors told us that we had lived a whole lifetime in the short time we had been together. I often had to stop watching to let myself cry it out or walk away when the mirror became too difficult to witness.

Being without Steve during that time was very challenging. But month after month, I continued to do the work of grieving, to let myself feel whatever I needed to feel. If I was angry at him for whatever was unresolved, I just let myself feel it, write it in letters to him, yell it if need be. If I felt remorse or guilt or cheated out of more time with Steve, I let those feelings out, too.

Throughout the whole process, Steve would often come to me in vivid dreams in which he would talk with me. Sometimes he would apologize for things I had forgotten about. Other times he would just sit with me if I had trouble falling asleep, holding me in that space between waking and slumber. There were days when I could not function, could hardly get out of bed and I would ask him to come to me in a dream. He always did, so I didn’t feel like he was completely gone out of my life.

Time went on.

This past autumn, I went to Sedona and felt like I had a reset, but not completely. It was great to come home and start new projects, but there was always a lingering sadness. It wasn’t that I was living without Steve. It was something else, something unresolved inside of me and I didn’t know what it was.

Until this past Christmas.

On my way to Hospice to take a package of cookies to the staff, I chose not to play Christmas music because I knew it would trigger me, and I didn’t want to cry. So, I turned on another channel and a song by REO Speedwagon blasted through with an energic introduction. I laughed because I instantly recognized the song Roll with the Changes. It was almost as if Steve was talking to me in the chorus:

So if you’re tired of the same old story, turn some pages

I’ll be here when you are ready to roll with the changes

When I came home, I spent some time thinking about those lyrics, asking myself What’s the same old story that I’m holding on to? In those quiet moments, I knew that when it came to men, suffering had become a painful, but familiar pattern. I had to suffer without Steve before I met him, suffer the pain of being single. In our relationship, I suffered through the challenges of being with him and all the baggage he was carrying. After he died, I suffered through the grief of losing him. I mistakenly thought that in order to feel normal, suffering was part of the bargain. The old story was the belief I had to struggle, to have an intense, complex relationship in order to feel alive.

But no longer.

Now the life that I have is calm and focused and rich. I write and create content for my website and YouTube channels. I teach yoga and spiritual astrology workshops that bring me satisfaction and joy. It is a wonderful thing to connect with people in a way I could not when Steve was alive. It’s a bittersweet paradox to know that this is the most peaceful my life has ever been and that I wouldn’t have it if I hadn’t had Steve in my life. But I couldn’t have it if he were still here – humanly. That makes me very sad, but it’s also a truth I have to accept.

Still, I think he would understand.

About a week after Christmas, I had a dream about him. I went to hug him, but Steve wouldn’t hold me as tightly as he did when he was alive. He gently pushed me away from him and said, “Don’t get too close to me. You have to do this on your own now.”

I know what Steve meant and it’s not that I must walk through this life on my own, but to learn how to be in this place by myself, which is completely novel – to live in sustained peace and grace. It’s quite new, but I quite like it. I’m grateful for Steve in whatever way he is in my life and will continue to be. And with his love, I’m now more than ready to roll with the changes.