So Saturday night I'm cleaning my self up and going out with my girlfriends. Yes it is your typical Girls Night Out or GNO as we like to call it. So what makes this night different that it gets blog post you might ask? Well we are going out to celebrate as one of my friends puts it "celebrating d's awesomeness at surviving her first year". I have to say this makes me giggle, sigh, smile and tear up all at the same time.
I look back to a year ago; I had started working again, I was stressing over how to pull off the five-course Thanksgiving meal I had planned, I started grief sessions with my therapist, the world was on tilt and I wasn't sure if it was going to spin out of control or eventually slow down so I could at least feel my feet under me. Looking back to a year ago and my thought process to the whole situation; thinking that a year from that point seemed so far away and what if this feeling, this physical pain in my heart, didn't go away. What if it was there for the rest of my days and time didn't heal it? One morning during the holidays I got out of the shower and while brushing my hair I saw my one little silver hair that I had always been very proud of. It made it's appearance one week after Christopher went into the hospital; it was physical evidence that I was worried about my love. Then I saw another one, and another one and there was one more. Six in total, all in the same area, all silver in color. I sighed at the sight of my self in the mirror, towel wrapped around me and leaning over the sink to catch a better look at these little silver hairs that I nicknamed my "battle scars".
The funny part is while most women out there would run out and buy a bottle of hair color to cover them up - I loved them. My little proof that what I had been through was enough to turn some of my hair gray - and well not just gray, but silver. A symbolic color in my book that my great sadness had a silver lining if you will. Yeah it's a stretch and really all in the genetic make up your parents I'll give you - but I'm taking it as mine and nothing less than my silver lining. Several month later when I did color my hair I asked my hair dresser if he could color around them and leave them - I got a resounding "NO" - but that's how much it meant to me.
A year ago if I asked my self, "Hey you think you might be up for some girl time with your friends a year from now?" I would have said no, raised an eyebrow, huffed and maybe even thought of a mean, dirty little hand gesture to go with it. But as I recently told a friend... time tells all tales in the light we wish to see them in. Time has afforded me to look back on where I was in life and where I am now. There have been some rather large bumps, hills and valleys along this path, but I made it - still standing with both my feet firmly planted. So my tale of "awesomeness" as my friend puts it is over a year's worth of work. My six little silver hairs remind me that I discovered that I am stronger than I gave myself credit. Understanding that life isn't always fair, but it's all in the peace that you get from knowing that. Acknowledging that the silence we hear that makes us feel alone is only in our head. And finally being conscious of our own needs and not our desires.
So let the celebrating begin! Oh yeah... I have to wait till Saturday. :)
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