Without Me...

Jamie just walked in from his "man cave" (a.k.a. "the garage") and said, "You don't have a blog without me, and I don't have a blog without you." Now, this is from the man that still doesn't have an independent email address and claims that computers will only change his life when, "it starts packing lumber into a house." So, he was speaking metaphorically. However, I knew what he meant. We are a team. In everything we do, we are a team.

He is right that without him, I probably wouldn't have a blog. I've always said that Jamie is a better storyteller than I am - he has a more creative voice and way of saying things. Just ask him about the exploding propane tank sometime...

I write a great scholarly paper, which is my strength, though this blog has given me a new voice and helped me discover an inner storyteller. But I know that without my teammate, I wouldn't write in the same way. Not because he literally writes the words, but because he inspires the ideas, the thoughts, the emotion that I find words for. And I know that for him, I take his ideas and help organize them into scholarly words and grammatically correct research papers. So together, we do write this blog; just like together, we live life.

Now, Jamie and I are, by far, very different in many, many ways. He is an introvert and I am the extrovert...he likes to tease me by saying that I have a "daily word minimum of 5,000 words a day" or I don't fuction well. And to some degree he is right. I am the extrovert. I feel energized when I am with friends and talking and having a great discussion. I do, however, find myself less of an extrovert than I have been in the past. I think grief does that - it has the power to change your very personality. I still love to sit and have a glass of wine and chat with close friends, but I don't get the same surge of energy from being in a group of people that I used to. In fact, I kind of dread it because it will mean questions I don't like answering and conversations I'd just rather avoid because they are emotionally exhausting. I'd much prefer the company of a few close friends, with whom no explanation is needed. I never knew just how much grief can change the fabric of who you are until I lived through it.

I know that I am okay with who I am now - I still have moments where I miss the "old" me, mostly because I have moments where I miss the "ignorant bliss" of that life. And after Faith died, I went through a very angry period. I was extraordinarily angry at feeling so changed and different because I liked the person that I was and I knew that this new person was someone different, and someone I never wanted to be. But, now I have found acceptance of this new person. This new person that prefers a bike ride with my husband and an evening at home over a big party; this new woman that would rather get a $25 pedicure with Sarah, followed by a barbeque at their house than go shopping at the mall during Christmas season (kill me now) and a lunch out at a busy restaurant; I actually like this person that enjoys time alone, in my own thoughts, just with myself. I didn't think that would ever happen, but I have realized something...

If I wished to be the old person that I was, I wouldn't know my daughter and have had that experience. And as painful as that has been, I wouldn't trade what we have gotten out of it. Iknow that the man - the teammate - at my side, always has my back. He'll block any tackle, catch any play, and go down in my defense - no questions asked. I believe he knows that I'd do the same for him. I am blessed to have him as my teammate in all that I do...I couldn't ask for a better reason to keep playing this game.

Erica