Signs.

Embracing the unknown is a thrilling possibility. However, that embrace cannot take place when I'm still asking the universe why my Bill had to leave.

There is no right way to grieve. My days are roller coasters, starting with morning group humor from my incredible co-workers and typically ending with me eating my feelings and sleeping fitfully, waking confused from dreams that had me convinced that my new reality was the illusion.

I'm writing about it only because these are the accounts I seek out now to find commonalities and feel, even for a moment, less alone. And writing is my only solace.

Yesterday, I had a great start. I crossed major tasks off my list. I ate reasonable foods (not cookies and chocolate). 

And then I went to my house to pack. 

The upstairs is in reasonable shape, so I went down to the basement storage area. 

First it was the suitcase of little Vegas souvenirs. 

Then it was the box pushed way to the back of the top shelf. When I got a grip on it and tugged, the entire side of it fell away and two things slid out.

One was my wedding guest book. The other was the engraved cake server: 

Jennifer and Bill, September 18, 2010

I gave up on packing and found the ice cream, but the seeds of grief had already been planted. 

So then I found myself at the cemetery. I looked through my car for something to sit on, and while sifting through a baf of miscellany, found his 2013 union book. And it was while idly flipping through it that I found his latest message. 

I remember visiting him and writing "Best wife ever here" - I did not realize he wrote "very much so" the next day. I have been finding notes throughout the house as I've been packing, and had thought I discovered them all. Sitting there at the cemetery with this unexpected bonus was almost too much.

And then a hummingbird buzzed by and stayed over my head for a few extra seconds, and I knew these were his signs. Subtlety was never Bill's strong suit.

I laid there next to him, headphones in, listening to our music like we had countless times by the pond, and lost the final shreds of self control. Because it's NOT FAIR. It's not fair that he's not here to drive us crazy and tell the same stories over and over again and grill the perfect steak and spill his drinks all over the carpet and tell me how amazing I am, then in the next breath, how crazy.

NO.

The title for this post is the predominant word in my head. I think it hundreds of times a day, or thousands. However many times it is when a word is at the forefront of your thoughts for most of your waking hours.

But not all of them. Because there's another word chasing it, determined to obtain the lead, and that word is "WHY."

One week ago, at approximately 9:40 p.m., my world as I've known it for the past 23 years came to a black and empty end. It just stopped turning for me. And while I watch the worlds of people all around me continue to spin, mine continues to stay in suspended animation, frozen with uncertainty about a future that would involve it revolving again.

Bill is gone.

It was always him. He was always my focal point and my best friend. He was also the person who made me feel the craziest, the person who shook up everything I had come to believe in my formative years and made me question who I was and where I was going. He was the one who taught me how to believe in myself. He was the one who made me strong.

When people tell me now how strong I am, I thank him, because without him as my teacher for so many years, I wouldn't be able to survive this.

He carried me through so much. He loved me through cancer in a way that made me feel invincible. He taught me to be self-reliant because his job kept him away so much. He told me more times than I could begin to count that his big shoulders could carry anything, and to unload my worries on them and take his hand.


I feel that I can't even process basic decisions. I can't react to situations accordingly, something that was effortless for me before. I often realize that I've been staring into space, and can't remember how long I've been doing it.

I feel like I'm comprised of a void. I feel like the most vital part of me is dead. I feel like letting myself slip below the surface because then everything wouldn't be so damn hard.

He was barely 40. He spent his 40th birthday in Washington state, asking me to come visit. We hadn't been getting along; in fact, we divorced in late March. The divorce couldn't stop our friendship, though. We still talked almost every day.

He wanted me to visit, and I said no. I said no for many reasons: how would it look? What would my family think? I have two jobs. I have After Prom. I have Hume After Prom. I have the Male Handsome Pageant. Reason after reason that it wouldn't be a good idea. Instead, I had gifts delivered to him every day of his birthday week.

But he didn't want gifts. He wanted his friend.

And I failed him.

I am so angry with myself for that. I squandered my time with him in his last year, although I thought I was doing it for the right reasons. I wanted him to face his health issues. I wanted him to take care of himself. I wanted him to stop the path he was on and listen to me, because I totally knew what I was talking about, after all. If only the whole world could listen to me, there would probably be no war and stuff.

Don't we always feel that we know what is best in a given situation, particularly one involving someone else? I certainly did.

And when he wouldn't listen, I thought that losing me would surely make him face the reality of what his life had become.

It did not work. And now, with the crystal clarity that hindsight so kindly provides, I face what will be my newest demon for the rest of my life: could I have prolonged his life, salvaged his health, by staying by his side every day? If I had been there the night of the accident instead of trying to make him realize that he was on the wrong path and arguing that point with him the whole day and evening of June 3, he wouldn't have gotten in that truck. He would have stayed home.

And he would have had at least a little more time. Not a lot. But a little.

These are the rambly thoughts that speed through my head every day. I made it through the hell of watching my lifetime best friend die. I honored my promise of making sure he had the funeral he wanted. And then the last vestiges of shock wore off and I turned into the person I am now, comprised of wild grief, tears, and nerve endings, alternating with the most horrible kind of numb.

There are other things to face without him. We had just put our house under contract three days before the accident, and now I find myself staring blankly at the life we built within its walls. Every vantage point is a memory. The bed is as if he just got out of it. I can't bear the thought of it being taken apart and removed. The Jello I brought him home before he went into the hospital to help soothe his stomach in the refrigerator. The ice cream that he never got to eat in the freezer.

My last shift at the movie theater, he brought dinner in for the staff, and the top layer of our wedding cake in for me. Surprisingly, it was still good almost five years later. He posted a picture of the feast on Facebook, labeled "Moma's dinner."
He had just gotten out of the hospital earlier that day, weak and beaten down, and still he brought the food to me. He apologized that his visits to the theater had decreased so dramatically the last two years.

He would die exactly two weeks later. And I didn't know.

I have not been able to return to my job at the theater since. I can't bring myself to go back. That is how I want to remember the end. That is how I want to leave it.

I also can't spend another night in the house.

All of this means that I am forced to look ahead and make still more life-altering decisions in a body that finds it difficult to even move. I had planned to leave Nevada, and that is what I am still doing. But that entails so much. A new job. New surroundings. New life.

And for the first time since I was a teenager, my background noise, my focal point, my center...will not be Bill.

I'm. So. Lost.

I want to cry the tears that come from your very core, that make you howl at the injustice and fight your demons with every wounded exhalation. People who see me, who know what happened, are mainly in one of two camps: they don't know what to say or they tell me I am strong.

Here is what you say, those who don't know (and I used to be one of you): this sucks.

Because it absolutely does. The acknowledgment of the vast unfairness of life's twists and turns is almost a relief to those who have born the brunt of the ax of loss.

He is gone. My world has not started to spin again, not even remotely. I want to apologize to those who have anchored themselves to me in order to shore me up: I am not worthy of your devotion right now. Because I am no longer me.

I am made of grief and anger and so, so much regret. Disbelief and rage and void. Stringing words together to uphold my end of a conversation is too hard. Deciding what vestiges of my life to keep and which to give away as I struggle to empty a house is hard. Staring at a tiny plaque in Moore Cemetery reading that Bill Shepherd, Jr. was 40 years, 2 months, and 1 day old is incomprehensibly hard. Those big shoulders were supposed to be able to withstand any burden.

How can he be gone?

So forgive me if it seems that I can't look you in the eye, or if I take way too long to answer a question or even if I ask you to repeat it. While I may be strong, and while I do feel his strength within me, imagining a world that doesn't have him in it still feels like an insurmountable task.

Countdown: 40, F&@$ing Seriously?

So I have this milestone-ish birthday coming up in less than two months, and although I don’t feel any differently approaching this age than I’ve really felt approaching ANY age, the parade of high school friends who have preceded me to it in the last year kind of provide an ever-present reminder that it’s coming.

Most recently, it was my fellow NHSer, Angela. She celebrated the entire month leading up to her birthday with little daily treats, which she photographed and posted. While I really, really love that idea, I’m driven in a different direction – one of fitness goals that are in line with my last 18 months of deep denial that I’m aging.

Although I refuse to participate in any kind of 5K, half marathon, marathon, whatever, I do have two specific goals for 40:

1. I will walk 100,000 steps in 24 hours.
2. I will be able to do a headstand without the assistance of a wall.

That’s pretty much it. From a list standpoint, there are only two items, which seems incredibly easy. From a practical standpoint, it’s ridiculous.

One hundred thousand steps is, like, 38 miles.

A headstand is, like, a headstand.

Since getting my Fitbit for Christmas last year, the closest I have come to 100,000 steps was 25,000 in Boca Raton. It involved, surprisingly, a lot of walking. And I’m talking about doing four TIMES that much walking in one day. It’s nuts.

The closest I’ve come to a headstand is up against the wall after Fit Club one day with plenty of help from my sister, Shannon. Additionally, I’m doing ever-lengthening daily sessions of Crow Pose in order to lie to myself that it is in any way preparing me for a successful headstand.

I do go to Fit Club, and I do participate fully. However, I may be sabotaging myself a little with my internal dialogue.

Case in point: last night we did 21 Day Fix Extreme Lower Body followed by some type of Extreme Ab Rippin’ and a’Shreddin’ or something. Forty minutes total. What’s 40 minutes in a human life?

Hours after we started, I looked at the time remaining.

We had only been going for four and a half minutes. FOUR AND A HALF MINUTES. What the actual hell? I’m not a math type, but I’m pretty sure that’s just over 10 percent of the total class time.

That isn’t even the worst part. The instructors for these classes are on some kind of drug that acts as a simultaneous mood booster and sweat suppressant and enables them to be stupid happy and beautiful at the same time. And they talk. Cheerfully and relentlessly.

For everything they say, I have a mental counter, and this is where I struggle. If I devoted all my energy to the physical, I’d be in far better shape than I am. But instead, it goes a little something like this:

Instructor: “Post YOUR pictures of 600 consecutive squats with weights! Hashtag 21 Day Fix!”

Me: “Hashtag Piss Off Hashtag Nice Bra Hashtag I HATE YOU.”

Other Instructor: “Oh, come on, Jen! You can get deeper than that!”

Me: “My fist will show you deeper than that.”

Instructor: “If you want the results, this is when you have to push! You won’t get anywhere if you don’t push harder!”

Me: “Shit, that’s actually a good point.”

And that’s what it comes down to. I’ve alternated between lots of exercise and none exercise from my teenage years to now, but my body prefers to go hard. I like all-weekend tennis tournaments. I like Insanity Max.

I just have to convince my mind of it. Also, last night when I went to my friend’s after the workout and ate the frosting off half a box of cupcakes, I realized that it was not only the mindful, but also the mindless behavior on which I need to focus.

So, to recap:

1. 100,000
2. Headstand
3. Complete revamp of mental bitchiness and sabotage
4. Less than 60 days to goal date

Super easy.

Hashtag whatever.

Oh, Life, You Minx.

John Lennon once said, "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans."

I was so busy making other plans, in general, that I forgot all about that quote. Inconceivable, really, in someone who was fed a steady diet of Beatles along with homemade baby food.

So, as I suppose was inevitable, life snuck up and bit me in the ass.

Have you ever had a goal, like, a really big, all-consuming goal that fills you with purpose and makes you feel alive and gives you something to reach for all the time, something that feels almost too difficult to attain, but nonetheless makes you really, really driven?

Did you ever reach that goal?

And then what did you do?

A year ago, all I wanted to do was finish my thesis and finish grad school with a 4.0. It felt insurmountable...in fact, I really, really didn't know if I would get all the revisions done to my grad committee's specifications. Every day, every hour, almost every minute was given a specific task. I became an expert at time management. I also began to eat healthier, and work out.

I felt, looking back now, like I was on top of my game. Even though I had this enormous task in front of me, I was smug.

I knew I was capable of whatever I set my mind to, you see. I was unstoppable.

But then...it was over. I had my 4.0. I had a research award. I had promises of furthering the thesis, of submitting to a conference, of speaking to classes, of being used as an example.

Oh, yes. I was smug. I was so smug I forgot what had motivated me to stay so busy.

I scheduled my time so fully because my personal life was crashing around me. I was losing my son. I was losing my stepsons. I was losing my marriage. And I knew it.

But I couldn't do anything about those things.

And I knew that, too. So, I stayed busy, even though staying busy was also going to be my downfall.

But what happens when the busy-ness fades? Suddenly, I was finished with my thesis. I graduated, and, with my graduation, lost my job as a graduate assistant.

Suddenly, 55 hours of my weekly schedule was free.

And my problems were very, very visible.

I panicked, and almost immediately took another job. I spent as much time as I could out of the house, which felt very, very empty.

I ran away from my problems, because that was SO much easier than facing them.

If only that was effective. I was like a character in Pokemon Colosseum that nobody ever picks because its strategy was always the same...



Run. I picked "run" every time.

With all that running, you would think I'd be in shape.

I ran all summer. I lived on Slim Jims, T25, and denial. Shaun T. became my closest friend. I worked a lot.

And things got worse.

In the fall, I realized that my son needed me. I decided that he and I needed a new start in a new location.

The problem, though, was bigger than the fairy tale ending I had constructed in my head. Again faced with something outside of my control, I panicked and ran.

Sometimes, as parents, we forget that our children learn the most basic ways of being by watching us. Unfortunately, my son had grown up with me as his role model. He had watched me react to major problems with denial, and he had adopted the same policy accordingly.

The first thing that made me fully realize my weaknesses was when my son suddenly became strong, stopped running, and faced his demons head-on.

The second thing that made me realize I needed to change was watching my son begin to heal himself and become an adult.

The third thing that made me realize I needed to change was going to visit him in January and attending a couple of groups.

That's when I first heard it.

"The only thing you have to change is everything."

I liked it. It was short, to the point, powerful, and effective.

But then I attended a group comprised of other people who had lived as I had...people who erroneously felt that they could control others. And what I learned was something that we all think we know, but possibly don't fully understand.

The only person we can change is ourselves.

If my 18-year-old son could grasp this so wholly, surely I could at 39.

It felt like the first day of my life.

I would love to say that the story ended there...and we lived happily ever after.

The truth is, every day is a struggle. Although I have come a long way in this journey of understanding, the truth is I still stumble every day. I'm prone to self-sabotage.

And oh, Lord, am I a fan of eating my feelings.

Just tonight, I had a plan to go for a walk after work and enjoy the beautiful weather, then go work out at the Community Center. I scheduled dinner with a good friend who always makes me happier.

Instead, I came home, ate half a jar of peanut butter, a sleeve of girl scout cookies, two Twix eggs (they're really good. Easter candy is just evil) and way too many Doritos. Then I got in bed and watched it get dark.

Life is a process. Sometimes we have to go through these dark, dark days because we can appreciate the light so much more later.

But man, sometimes it feels like the bulb is permanently burned out. Like we're in that six months of darkness in Alaska, and time stands still.

The beauty comes later, when we're granted a new day and a new chance to start fresh.

What we have to take from that darkness is that it gave us an opportunity to learn and grow. And sometimes growth is painful. That's why we don't remember teething or, for women, the pain of childbirth. But look what we got from that pain.

Teeth and kids.

Both very useful tools. In fact, I think I used my teeth to bite someone when I was in labor.

Of course, I really don't remember that.

This has been a painful journey, and although it might not match the journeys of others, maybe you're facing a similar darkness.
Maybe it feels like hell. Maybe you think, sure, I got through bad times in the past, but this is different. This one really, really hurts.

Close your eyes and wait.

There is always darkness

before the dawn.



*photos courtesy of Hyperbole and a Half's genius creator, Allie Brosh, because I can't art.*

FREE AT LAST!

Although I have alluded to my most current obsession in the most casual of ways, I feel like enough time has passed that I can come clean with everyone about what my life has been like for the past two point five months.

I was ate up with the Fitbit fever.

I got it for Christmas from my dad and stepmom, and I was instantly intrigued. I'm obsessive about my weight, and I love exercise, so this was a great idea to my way of thinking. Much like giving paraphernalia to an addict might be, but I digress.

I linked it up to the corresponding app/site on my phone and computer, respectively, and was super excited to watch the steps rack up on the device since I was up and down and around a lot in general in my jobs.

You can only imagine the disappointment when I realized that my average day only had around 5000 steps.

Clearly, I needed to STEP IT UP!!! GET IT? FITBIT HUMOR, AMIRITE? come on now.

Anyway, it started with walking around a little more.

Then a little more.

And then there was a Movin' and Losin' corporate challenge that started February 2. Suddenly, my obsession had wings. Winged shoes. And I was wearing them.

I started by going up and down the three-four giant flights of stairs up to the top of the building. First two times, then three, then seven, then my entire lunch break.

Then I started

Things I Learned From Nevada Fitness Club, Part Five: Graduation

I talk about Nevada Fitness Club a lot. Actually, maybe I don't talk about it out loud. But it's kind of an ever-present background noise in my mind.

It's because precious little is more important to my Monday through Thursday routine than going to the Community Center at 6:30 and swimming out 40 to 60 minutes later in a pool of my own sweat, riding on a workout high that lasts at least an hour. Or until the fifth spoonful of peanut butter. Whichever comes first (it's the peanut butter).

It was not always this way. In fact, on January 27, 2014, when I went to my first workout, I decided five minutes into what was clearly a routine exclusively for the graceful that Combat Cardio was not for me. The instructor, a man I had previously considered a friend, spent at least 48 of the 50 minutes telling me what I was doing wrong.

"There are other people in this damn class!" I telegraphed to him furiously in my mind, but he was too busy talking about my horrible technique to read my thoughts.

But when it was over, I felt this crazy rush, and knew that air-punching my invisible enemy was the workout for me, after all.

Though the workouts varied, one thing was a constant: my location in the gym. I hugged the back corner, right in front of the door, so I could bail if necessary, and so nobody could see me labor through the moves. I'm kind of a clumsy, gawky person, and I didn't want anyone to see what I looked like trying to do hip-hop and agility drills.

As the months passed, I saw people make noticeable progress...the woman in front of me lost fifty pounds in 2014. But as far as regulars, people who were there with me at the beginning and the end of the year, it was kind of just me and that woman, whose name I still don't know. She's awesome, whoever she is.

Summer ended and the weather cooled, and as it did, attendance picked back up. I kept my spot in the back and waited for the rush of new people when we came back to class January 5, and although there were a few new faces, it wasn't as packed as I thought.

Until this week.

All week long, my spot was taken by a new attendee. Actually, the whole back row was new people. Who were these people!? Why were they in my spot?

Luckily, there was a giant, spotlighted area on the front row waiting for me. At first, this made me angry. What right did they have to stand in my spot!??!? Why did I have to go to the front!?

And then, it hit me. Those people were me a year ago. I had spent the year in the back of the gym, feeling out of my element, out of shape, out of breath. But a lot changed in the past year. I could get through the workouts now. I wasn't winded. I didn't feel like as much of an idiot.

It was time to graduate to the front of the gym.

And it wasn't that bad. Mainly because I couldn't see the people that could see me, but whatever.

Sure, I haven't made the noticeable changes that many in the class have made. Christy has lost 11 inches and 15 pounds; another girl, a runner, shattered her record for the mile since she started working out with us.

I haven't really lost any weight; I don't look that different. My physical changes are limited to the fact that, in the beginning, I spent a lot of time wheezing on the floor.

My real changes came from within. A year ago, I started to work out because I thought I needed something to fill the time while my husband was working on the road. I was accused of over-thinking things in general, and I thought a hobby would prevent that, give me something to fill up my time so my imagination didn't work overtime.

Instead, Nevada Fitness Club sharpened my focus and increased my confidence. To be fair, I had no confidence to start with, so I had nowhere to go but up, but gainz.

It enabled me to stop obsessing and attaching importance to things I could not change, and instead focus on the only thing I COULD change...myself. I'm a different person now, and I have Nevada Fitness Club to thank.

So I'm happy to give up that back-row spot if it means the others can get even a little of what I've experienced from these classes.

I just wish the light wasn't quite so spotlight-y on the front row.

I Used to Be Smarter...[alternate title: I Think I Just Blew My Own Mind]

I work with kids (think ages 4-12) every day as part of my job. I used to think that I wasn't all that kid-friendly; like, as a person, I just wasn't into it or whatever. Kids are noisy, they're messy. They're unpredictable. They make it hard to sleep sometimes.

I really liked mine (and still do. Mostly. More than half of the time), but I inwardly reacted to kids the same way I react to a horde of mosquitoes...by telling myself to run to a place where they were not, and quickly. I didn't know how to talk to them, I didn't know how to deal with them.

My son kind of cured me of that temporarily, but I found it to be an issue again when I returned to my old movie theater job. I could make all kinds of small talk with adults, even teenagers. But small kids...I would smile in a forced, most likely terrifying, way, and say something like, "HI! ARE YOU EXCITED FOR THE MOVIE!?"

To their collective credit, they took it well, and most had the sense to pretend I wasn't talking to them.

Now I work with kids on the reg, and I have found that, on the contrary, they're a delight. I'm kind of jealous of them. They know what they want. They're not afraid to tell someone. They work actively on their goal if they haven't reached it. Things tend to be more concrete in their world than abstract. They're (mostly) pretty sure of who they are as people. They aren't afraid to tell you what they think of you when asked.

So I guess what I'm curious about is, when does that change?

I remember the Renaissance Festival when I was a kid. It was magic. I loved everything about it...the costumes, the games, the booths, the food, even the car ride.

It was that cloud of nostalgia that gripped me when I took my son to the Festival when he was four...

...and it was NOTHING like I remembered. When did everything get so expensive?! The gas, the money to feed us, the parking, the walking, the highway robbery-style prices of EVERYTHING inside those gates, the price to get IN those gates...it was just depressing and sad. I saw it through different eyes...through jaded, adult eyes that realized it wasn't an educational thing for kids, it was a money-making scam.

It was that same storm-colored lens that became part of my everyday eyesight the older I got. "C" was the letter of the day in my younger adulthood...C for Compromise. As I got older, and more afraid of endings, and more clingy and attachment-happy in my thirties, Compromise went out the window and the letter morphed into "D" for Desperation. Such was my desire for everyone to get along and, more importantly, for everyone in the world to love me, that I became chameleon-like based on the company I kept. Oh, you like that? It's my favorite too! I liked what you liked...no matter what that might be.

Slowly, over the course of the last year, I have started to peel back the layers of this Jen-of-all-trades and realize that I'm not a lot of the things that I thought I was. As I have shed those layers, sometimes unwillingly, sometimes eagerly, I have started to see who I really am.

And it was as they fell that I started to understand the term "inner child."

I embrace the notion that attachment is born of fear. I have learned (just this year! Like, literally the year 2015!) on a core-deep level that all I have to really worry about is me, because I am the only one I can change. I don't have to be responsible for anyone else's happiness. Only mine.

And the most important thing I learned was who I am.

I love my kid, unreservedly and unashamedly. I love to work out four nights a week until I can't form a coherent thought. I love to walk. I love to read. I love a few shows on television. I love learning new things, and getting to talk to different people all the time. I love appreciating beauty in things, specifically nature's surprises.

I also learned who I was not.

What it comes down to is that all of those things I loved, I have loved as long as I can remember (except my kid, because duh). They were the things that grounded me as a child. Swimming until my limbs were jelly, playing hide and seek until the dark necessitated a call from the porch...those were my workouts before I understood what working out was. Losing myself in new books, meeting new people at church...I thrived on those encounters.

As I have come to realize these things, I have started to cast off the heavy cloak that was my previous life. The glass lenses aren't storm-colored anymore. They're not rosy, either...not yet, and they may never be. But I feel, in longer and longer bursts, HAPPY. Happy the way I was as a kid. Happy in the way that means that you can just be, and not label something or think too much about what it really means.

Uncomplicated. Wholly. Happy.

I'm kind of a present-moment kind of chick, so I'm not going to project that this means great things for the upcoming new decade of my life.

But I'm seeing more hide-and-seek games in my future.