Finding Meaning in the Ache

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It’s been four months since Steve’s leaving. The anniversary fell on our grandson’s birthday so I’ve waited a few days to connect with this ache. It’s been knocking, so today I will answer.

There are questions that tug at the heart of everything I’ve ever held dear, and they’re rising with a mix of sorrow and angst. Most of them, I believe, we all ask at some point. But, there’s one that stands out and presents itself time and again.

Why am I here?
What is the point of this life — this loss — this endless, aching stretch of time?

The body keeps moving. The creative work keeps calling. The world doesn’t stop spinning.

But something inside me does. It stalls, stands still, stares out the window and wonders, What now?

Even in daylight, I’m tired with an exhaustion that sleep can’t fix.
A soul-tiredness.
It doesn’t look dramatic on the outside. It looks like quiet disconnection. Like spacing out in the middle of a conversation. Like being unable to answer a text. Like hearing the music in your own mind but not feeling solidly the path to let it out.

I’ve heard of what I’m going through referred to in many ways — grief, depression, existential reckoning.

I don’t know what to name it. Only that it asks to be felt, now.
And that somewhere inside the ache, a voice is trying to speak.

It isn’t loud or demanding.
But, it is steady — persistent.

It feels like my internal compass is off and I’m adrift at sea in a Bermuda Triangle of sorts.

It’s tempting me to cut my hair and remove all social media accounts — because they were created by a version of me that died 4 months ago.

At the county courthouse this week, where I’d visited to finalize some affairs, I walked past a wall where name change forms were on display and I couldn’t help but think … maybe I’ll change my name…

Not to run from who I was, but to welcome who I’m becoming… someone new. Not reinvented. More… reversionary.
Something truer.
Something more elemental.
The version of me who knows how to keep going — not by pushing.
Not by performing wholeness, but by staying honest in the unraveling.

I don’t think I’ll resort to micro-bangs or a complete diversion from my given name.
But I do know it’s time for a ritual of sorts to acknowledge and embrace my path forward. To begin giving it shape.

Praying that the ache I carry softens into strength with each new step.