The Acceptance Stage- a.k.a. when life begins to move on.

I have finally been feeling lately that the “acceptance” stage of grief might be cautiously starting to seep into my life. The terrible month of June, and the 5 years that proceeded it, still haunt me sometimes. In the early morning, I must force myself to get out of bed, or else the half-sleep will bring with it fearful dreams and anxiety. I still feel a ball of hurt and anger well up sometimes, but it’s not every day, sometimes not even every week. My thoughtful, caring counselors have been a tremendous source of support and continue to help me through this unavoidable process. My husband has mostly been open and vulnerable, supportive and remorseful. And now I even have a midwife who I can feel comfortable with, who wrote me a thank you card this week and told me what an honor it was to listen to the baby’s heartbeat with me. Made my day.

Others have truly loved me through the road to healing, and sometimes I just shake my head in disbelief at how remarkable it has all played out. Though I still can’t say I’m grateful for all the “bad” that happened, I can at least say that life today is 1,000 times better than life before June. I wouldn’t trade a second of grieving for the chaotic, fearful, resentful years that proceeded it. It was certainly a necessary pain.

While the future is more unknown than ever before, I can feel myself slowly relinquishing the need to know (because, truly, there are no guarantees anyway, no matter how carefully you plan or how hard you wish). And what’s more, I can see myself one day actually believing that no matter what happens, I’ll be okay.

So maybe it’s just the peace that comes from a completely unhurried Saturday, or the intoxicating comfort smells of crock pot beef stew and baking pumpkin bread, or the fresh new face we’ll soon see in the White House (ahem-obama-ahem) — but gee whiz, and dare I say it, things seem to be lookin’ up