I love meeting new people. I love learning the stories and perspectives of others. I will conduct an interview for prime time TV just standing with you in the grocery store line. I learned that from having two very outgoing parents and a sister I refer to as “the mayor” because she knows everyone in all the places. I embarrass my kids and introverted friends all the time. I used to introduce myself as a wife and mother and daughter and sister. 

It has been very hard for me to explain who I am with introductions now without turning into Morticia from the Addams Family. I know how to ruin the vibe real quick! Sometimes I hear myself explain that both my parents, my husband, and my dog all died within 3 years. It is hard not to answer the question honestly when asked about my family. They are dead. That is what I want to say because that is the truth.

I had a beautiful family and they are gone. And now I am not a wife or a daughter. I am not married but I am also not divorced. My husband didn’t die valiantly of cancer, he died by suicide fighting a different kind valiant battle that no one will recognize the way I do. Who am I? “Hi,I am a single mother who co-parents with a ghost and I take out my own trash.” Try that for a sexy blurb on the dating apps. 

My therapist asked me what it would look like to be fully “seen” in the world. She was prodding through my weekly recall of all the ways I beat myself up and she challenged me to imagine what it may look like if I walked through the world authentically as myself. Big feelings and wrinkles just laid bare for all to see. I don’t know how to show up with new people. It feels awful to think of myself as vulnerable and exposed and making other people uncomfortable or sad. I cried when we did this exercise in my session and I couldn’t stop crying just thinking of all the sorrow and gaping wounds that everyone would see. 

But what if my authentic self is MORE than just what I do not have anymore. What if I laid bare my happiness and all the good stuff too? I have to challenge myself to reframe what I don’t have anymore and integrate all the suffering I have experienced into my identity. Grief cannot be my whole story. It would be so unfair to leave out all the lovely years I had when my parents and Erik were on the planet. I don’t want to leave out all the wonderful parts and just skip to the tragic ending.

This is not a mindset that will be consistent for me or anyone human with emotions. I know my story is sad because I live it every day. And I am definitely going to be Debbie Downer in the ice breaker game at work sometimes. I am definitely going to introduce myself to some handsome man at the bar and watch his face tell me “WTF have I just done” when I lead with the word, widow.

But what if I shared my life story this way sometimes?

I had a mom who could light up a room with her wicked Yankee humor. I had a mom who retired from her career to care for my young children so that I could have a career as a working mom. My kids stayed with Nana and they were spoiled with popsicles and homemade meatballs. I had a Dad who taught me to love traveling adventures. He used to put us on a Delta flight to Anytown USA and just go explore with us. I had a Dad who continued to work into retirement so he could buy a pontoon boat for his grand kids to live “the lake life” like he gave to me and my sister when we were young. I had a husband who made me coffee and rubbed my feet. I had a husband who never missed an opportunity to show up for his kids. I had a husband who knew my love language was filling my gas tank for me and yellow roses. I had a husband who took a boat captains class just to make my dad trust him with the aforementioned pontoon boat. 

What if we lead with the good stuff more often? What would your story be if you let the hard stuff fill the middle pages and you leave space for a spectacular and unpredictable ending? What would it feel like to call out the good stuff in the midst of all your pain? That is the work I am going to do as we enter another spring season of new beginnings and bittersweet growth. I want to lead with the good stuff.