A shooting star is nothing more than a small meteor, burning up in the Earth's atmosphere on entry. These little heavenly bodies never make it to the surface, but instead are absorbed into the sky, as if nothing ever happened. They just burst into a beautiful spectacle of light, and streak across the sky. The ones that actually collide with the Earth's surface are much bigger, and come along much less frequently. But oh, do they leave their mark. On collision, a larger meteor drives deep down into the bedrock, displaces rock and soil, and creates a crater. The ground is forever changed, the terrain destroyed and turned into something completely different. While it is still composed of the same elements that existed there before, there is now something else there too. The collision has left a hole. It has also left a part of the meteorite, melted into the ground, an inextricable part of the land. Over days, years, and centuries after such a strike, the land will change again and again as it is weathered into something new. Flora and fauna may change, climate may change, and after it all, the land will look nothing like it did before the meteoroid set its collision course. It is something new.
Perhaps it is a labored metaphor, but I was hit with such a meteor. I can see it vividly in my mind's eye. Tragedy came swiftly, collided with my happy life, and turned it into something unrecognizable. It left a deep, wide hole. And the grief is still there, melted into me, a part of me that will never really go away. It is something that I have begun to learn to live with, a thing that I will get better at carrying as time goes on, but a thing which will always be there. It lives deep inside, and has changed my surface and my core. I feel it every moment. I am forever changed, and the change extends into every facet of my life.
Two days ago, I left my house for the final time. On the last day that the house was mine, I went in alone, and walked through every room, remembering a life that seems so far distant now. In the kitchen, I stood at the stove and imagined stirring the risotto in my red Martha Stewart pan. I stood at the island and thought of taking cookies off the cookie tray. In the basement I sat where the sofa used to be and thought of eating popcorn, watching a movie with Ryan on a Saturday night. In the master bathroom I thought of doing my makeup every morning, while Ryan sat on the bed in his button down shirt and slacks, drinking coffee and making fun of The Today Show. I thought of the spot on the counter where I'd set the pregnancy test that turned out to be positive, and how lightheaded I was when I saw the word "Pregnant" appear on the stick. In Ryan's office, I imagined the expression on his face when I ran in that same morning and told him the news. And in the bedroom, I sat where my spot on the bed used to be, and yet again, begged for Ryan to just come home, so that I wouldn't have to leave the house alone. Then, I said goodbye to the place, knowing that I will never see it again. The collision in my life happened a year and a half ago, and in the moment that I left our home for good, it felt strangely as though my transformation were complete.
It's not, though. Perhaps the destruction finally is - I don't know. But I still haven't changed into whatever it is that I am going to become. I don't even know what that is yet, or how long it will take. How do I become a new person, and yet keep the parts of me that make up my core? Because there are parts of me that I want to keep - while I was forced to change, there are parts of who I am that remain, and yet they are often entirely incompatible with this new life. While I go through the motions of my life, being a Mom, going to work every day, I still wake up every morning and think, "now what?" In which direction should I turn my feet? And how, while carrying the heavy weight of grief and loss, do I begin a new life?
I pose these questions because I truly don't have the answers. I don't expect anyone else to either, and I don't know how long it will take until I find them for myself. But I do know that I will find them. I'll probably find many of them without realizing it, gradually, over time, bit by bit. I'll learn to carry the weight, to live with the hole and yet live a full new life. I'm already so, so much better at it than I was six months ago. While the hurt hasn't gone away, and won't ever, it has become somewhat more bearable, and I have become stronger. I will learn how the new circumstances of my life fit in with the old person that I was, the person that I want to keep. I'll learn how to make the two compatible, how to blend them into something tolerable. I think I've used the word "insurmountable" in a post before, and I'll use it again here. It seems insurmountable - the thought of starting again. But it can't be. The only option is to find a way, let a new life take form, and hope that one day it might be as beautiful as the old one was.
