Who Am I Now?

That fundamental question has been swirling through my head today, perhaps not in those words, but certainly something close enough. Yesterday marked 18 months since Rox passed, and I feel like I should be further along. I wonder, how long will her tragic end define my life? After 18 months, I continue to feel like there's a zombie-like quality to my life. Whereas during those first months, emotions were overwhelming me like a hive of bees buzzing around my head, today I feel dazed, dulled, foggy. My feelings aren't sharp about anything, because they almost always quickly come back to Rox, whether I want them to or not.

This morning, at the end of my yoga class, the teacher, Nancy, and I had a long talk about a wide range of things, the most memorable of which was her telling me of a friend who lost her husband to suicide 4-5 years ago. I asked if her friend still feels like it dominates her life. Nancy said that it's still with her every day, and she wouldn't be the person she is today had it not happened, but that in general, she had moved on, and was living her life again without it being a black cloud over her. I couldn't help but think, I'm really looking forward to that day.

That doesn't mean, however, that I'm in a rush to make that day happen ahead of schedule, which is the main reason I recently ended a budding relationship with a younger woman I met through an online dating site. We had a great 7 months together--it was easy, fun, physical, and refreshing. It got my engine going again in many ways. But at some point, I realized that by forming this new relationship, I hadn't allowed my relationship with Rox to run its course. I wasn't close to finished with the mourning process, which was put on hold for the new relationship. Now, since I broke that developing tie, the mournful feelings have returned in a big way, and I find myself wondering whether what I did was a healthy move necessary to achieve proper closure, or a refusal to move on.

All I know for sure is, I don't want to be a prisoner to this bizarre turn in my family history. Which makes me wonder, why on earth was I in my email archives today, re-reading terrible, hurtful emails Rox's brother sent to me during a disastrous fracture that unfolded in the weeks after Rox's death? My therapist (whose name also is Nancy) told me to delete those messages the instant I got them, that there was no reason to subject myself to such poison. But that's not me--I want to remember them, hold them as family history, so that 50 or 100 years from now, there's some kind of record of what transpired. Yet, it's hard not to wonder if I read them because I want to stay imprisoned on some level.

Which seems like an ideal opportunity to mention one other thing Nancy (the yoga teacher) shared during our talk this morning, something an ill friend of hers once said, words that seem utterly applicable here: "I have cancer, it doesn't have me."

At this juncture, suicide clearly does still have me. The question is, do I wait, zenlike, for the process to run its course and release me, or do I fight to release myself? There's probably no answer to that question, only a journey.