self discovery – Running Forward…My Way

Embracing the Inner Light

Published on October 29, 2019October 29, 2019 by kerrymckim4 Comments

I have only had one serious relationship before I was with Bryon. I have referred to him as the Anti-Bryon because he is pretty much the opposite of Bryon.

Like, a complete 180. I had often said that Bryon was the over correction of this relationship.

Whether Bryon was an over correction or not, he was the right guy for me. The Anti-Bryon was intimidated by my strong personality, Bryon wasn’t fazed. He had an equally strong, if not stronger personality.

Anti-Bryon does have an actual name but I do feel the need to protect his privacy though I highly doubt that he reads this blog.

The last time I spoke to him was during an AOL Instant Messenger Conversation while I was campaigning for George W Bush in 2004. The conversation was just like our relationship- one sided. I ended that conversation thinking that if he and I were going to be friends, he could put in some effort.

And we haven’t spoken since.

The Anti-Bryon and I started dating at the end of Fall semester our senior year of college. Our relationship was not exciting and never progressed. Not even physically.

After two and a half years, I wanted that “je ne sais quoi” that was missing.

And I wanted a boyfriend who wanted to have sex with me. Or at least kissed open mouthed.

This might be TMI but this is my blog. If you don’t like it- don’t read it.

One night, two and a half years into our relationship, I had had enough. We were getting ready for bed and

I confronted the Anti-Bryon. Anti-Bryon wasn’t particularly religious but he said that the thought of having sex with me made him sick to his stomach.

We went to bed. To go to sleep. Just to be clear.

I regret not kicking him out but my self esteem was lacking during my early 20s.

The next day, he did his thing and I had a rare day off so I drove two hours to Boston to do some shopping and to see my Grandma.

As I drove down to Boston in my 1998 Saturn that did not have a tape deck or a CD player, I flipped through the radio stations and I kept hearing “All or Nothing” by O-Town.

It may have just been a coincidence since the song was popular at that time.

I went to the shops in Downtown Crossing despite the fact there were plenty of malls in suburbia. I wanted the distraction of being “in the city”.

And in each store, O-Town was playing.

At that stage of my life, I never thought much about the esoteric but it was clear that the Universe was trying to tell me something.

Usually when I ask for a sign, I get some sort of riddle in return. Or ignored completely. But this was one of the few times in my life that Universe, or God or whoever the *bleep* is in charge (Charles, maybe?) has sent me a clear sign that’s it’s oooooover, ooooooover.

We weren’t in love. We were just friends. And this is how it ends.

After I visited my Grandma that afternoon, I drove back to Maine and broke up with the Anti-Bryon. He wasn’t heartbroken.

And neither was I, though I felt that he led me on. He had the best of me but he didn’t want the rest of me. He got a good deal but he had no intention of having a future with me. But I never took the initiative to question his intentions or lack thereof.

So why am I thinking about the Anti-Bryon?

I have zero attachment to him. I hope he is well and happy. I hope he is living his best life possible.

I seldom think about those years and when I do, all I remember is boredom. I don’t remember the Anti-Bryon as being particularly funny. The only funny thing I remember was this one time we went to the Portland Museum of Art (free admission with a student ID from the University of Southern Maine) and he came up behind and whispered “I see naked people…”

Like that kid on Sixth Sense. You know…the one who saw dead people.

That is the only funny thing I remember about the Anti-Bryon. But maybe he was funny but I spent 8 years with Bryon who was one of the funniest people I have ever met.

I am thinking about this because O-Town has been stuck in my head.

Except this time the phrase I am pondering is “I’ve had the rest of you now I want the best of you.”

I don’t think anyone has ever had the “best of me”.

I was a very hyper kid. I began to learn at a very young age that I had to dial it back a notch or two or twelve to appease people.

I was shamed for being too loud, too hyper, too dramatic, too talkative.

So I tried my best to scale it down to fit in and to please people.

I kept my light from shining as bright as it could, so I could fit in with others.

Because I was too much for people.

As a parent of a child with a bright light, it pains me to see her get scolded for being her.

It’s why I took her out of her dance class when she kept being in trouble for being too talkative and “overbearing”.

I wasn’t going to pay $65 a month to have my daughters light dimmed, especially when I am sure in the upcoming years, people will try to dim her light and they will probably do it for free. She has plenty of other activities she attends and if she wants to continue to dance, I’ll find another school that’s a better fit.

When I was dating the Anti-Bryon, I tried to fit whatever mold I thought would appease him. Looking back, he never tried to fit my mold. I loved to travel and the one time he went to Boston (the actual city, not just visiting my family in the suburbs) he was pissed at me because he didn’t want to ride on the T (that’s the subway for the non-Bostonians).

Instead of saying that this relationship was a two way street and sometimes he needed to do the things I wanted, I tried harder to please him.

But during all these acts to try to please the Anti-Bryon, I lost my authentic self.

Or I should say, my authentic self became more lost and obscured.

My authentic self had been lost since I was a child.

My authentic self continued to stay lost until I realized all my co-workers, most of whom were a little older than me, were still going out and having fun. Friday nights with the Anti-Bryon consisted of watching America’s Funniest Home Videos or AFV as it had been shortened. AFV circa 2002/2003 didn’t have Bob Saget as a host so watching it felt completely pointless. You can only watch a cat leap in the air or a guy get hit in the nuts so many times before it just isn’t funny anymore.

My coworkers taught me that being an adult was not synonymous with being boring. I remember my coworker MaryBeth (I don’t know what happened to her) told me that she thought there was a more fun version of me inside and maybe if I wasn’t dating the Anti-Bryon that that side of myself could express itself.

MaryBeth saw my authentic self.

She saw something in me that I didn’t see.

I took those words to heart. The day in Boston with O-Town happened shortly thereafter.

This all happened in summer 2003.

So I decided to move home (further up the Maine coast) and I got into politics.

Politics taught me social skills and I felt a little less socially awkward though politics in itself can be socially awkward at times. I met a lot of great people (including my husband) who are still in my life but I also had to weed through a lot of narcissistic toolbags.

I learned what I needed to learn during my political years. I made some friends that I am still friends with today. I got to travel around the country and I have had some cool experiences. It was through politics where the etiquette of fine dining and other formalities became second nature.

But I found it hard to be authentic. I couldn’t take the scheming and games. So I retired. Or at the very least, I went on an indefinite sabbatical.

Bryon came into my life and when I got my political fix by tagging along to his events.

Bryon was good for my authentic self. We spent most of our free time together, engaged in intelligent and witty conversations. We traveled. We ate good food whether it was fine dining or from takeout windows.

He encouraged me not to sell myself short and to grow career-wise. He even made me read Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In.

I definitely grew during our years together.

But I still feel like he never got the best of me.

He got the best version available at that time but it still wasn’t the best of me.

Bryon and I both had strong personalities and I would go along with whatever he wanted sometimes because it was easier.

During those years, it never dawned on me that there was a better version of myself lurking underneath.

I don’t know if it fair to myself to feel guilty for not expressing a side of personality that I didn’t know was there.

Plus we live in a society that does not foster authenticity. We care more about how we appear on social media.

I just remember sitting by his side in the ICU, mustering up strength I didn’t know I had, promising him I would be a better wife.

Coming from a Boston Irish-Catholic family, guilt is one of the few emotions that I learned to express.

I wanted Bryon be proud of me but I never got that confirmation.

After Bryon’s death, I started to question everything. Why did Bryon have to die? What is God so cruel?

I questioned everything I believed or have ever believed. I questioned the meaning of life.

I believe this is what all the New Age Guru’s call “the Dark Night of the Soul”.

I thought a lot about my life and Bryon’s life. He was his authentic self. He didn’t care if people got pissed off. He lived his truth.

He still exercised tact and decorum.

There were a few times when we were watching the Republican Presidential Primary debates and a certain candidate would say something inappropriate and Bryon would day “I can’t believe he said that. You can’t say that!”

It took Bryon’s death for me to learn how to live.

It was a time of my life where I didn’t want to live. A part of me died that Sunday morning when Bryon died.

I made the decision to keep living.

And I hope no one read that in the literal sense. I never wanted to die. I just felt dead inside.

Even with these new revelations, I continued to try to please people. People who took advantage of me. People who didn’t respect my privacy. People who used me my life’s tragedy for their gain. People who took my love and friendship for granted.

I made sure to show up to every daycare function and do whatever a Pinterest mom needed to do because I didn’t want to be the single mom who dropped the ball. Just don’t look inside my car. I don’t have it together nearly as much as I seem like I do.

The irony is, no one has openly judged me. Maybe behind my back but I don’t have the information to tell you one way or the other.

Here I am, at the age of 41 and I am finally learning that I can’t dim my light for others. My light shining brightly doesn’t affect the brightness of other lights.

We all have to live our truth.

At age 41, I finally realized that I am not going to be everyone’s cup of tea and that’s okay.

And I don’t have to drink tea I don’t like either.

And neither do you.

Don’t let anyone blow out your light.

And going forward, people can take me or leave. But I am done trying to please people.

You can take me or leave me.

Since I’ve been gone

Published on April 24, 2019 by kerrymckim7 Comments

If you have followed my writing in any capacity, you may have noticed that I have taken a break.

Can I be totally honest for a minute?

I had to stop writing because I was just so sick of it.

I was sick of being a widow.

I was sick of feeling like I had to defend my feelings. It didn’t matter if those feelings were grief related or not.

I was sick of being put into situations where I felt like I had to defend my feelings.

I was sick of being defined by my grief and my widowed status

I was sick of all the projections and expections. From others and from myself.

I was sick of the grief. It’s not like I asked for any of this to happen to me or my daughter.

I was sick of people trying to take advantage of me. Plot twist: A few were successful. Ironically these people are usually the most vocally outraged when you set boundaries.

I was sick of the people who made me feel like less of a person because I had to accept their help.

I was sick of living a life full of empty dreams.

I was sick of people telling me how to grieve and how to widow.

I was sick of people thinking that they have a say on how I live my life. Everyone has a gosh darn opinion and most aren’t afraid to share it.

I was sick of people telling me that I needed to forgive God.

I had finally had enough.

I needed to retreat and recharge.

All my writing was private. For myself only.

I needed a break from y’all.

I don’t know why I said “y’all”. I am not a Southern girl at all. New England through and through.

And no, I am not dissing Southerners. My Southern friends will agree with me.

The reality is that when I created this blog, I wrote as an outlet to process my feelings.

A way to figure out my grief.

While I can’t say that I have totally figured this grief thing out, but it is much more manageable. Sure, grief still catches me off-guard at times but I know how to handle those emotions now.

I don’t need to write a 1200 word blog post every time the grief monster hits.

And even if I did write a blog post every time grief makes a visit, I do not feel like it would be beneficial to me or to you.

Unfortunately, life never goes back to normal. And how could it? I can’t go back to my life as a wife and mother with the absence of the husband and father.

There’s a gaping hole in what is now my former “normal life”.

And the only person who can fill that gaping hole is never coming back. At least not in any Earthly form.

So I need to figure out exactly what my new normal is.

I took this time of grief and emotional upheaval and purging to question everything I once believed.

I questioned all my relationships. I started to realize which relationships were real and which relationships were fake. Some were surprising.

Once you start seeing the truth, you can’t unsee it. Even if it’s inconvenient.

I now have no choice but to live my truth. At least, the parts of my truth that I have figured out.

I am still working on that.

But really, all of us should be searching for our own truths.

As I search for my truth, I don’t feel comfortable sharing everything.

But I will share what I can.

So what can be expected from my blog at this phase-

1) Any grief related material I feel a need to write about.

2) Aspects of soul searching that I feel called to share.

3) Race-recaps. I ran a race and I still need to write up a recap.

Only YOU know what’s best for YOU

Published on October 10, 2018October 10, 2018 by kerrymckim1 Comment

“You can’t tell me what to do!”

That is the latest retort my daughter will tell me if she doesn’t agree with whatever instruction I am giving her at that moment.

She has also said it to her grandparents too so I know I am not special.

I know her teachers are working on independence and not being bossy in her Pre-K class and sometimes my daughter’s retort will be followed up with “You need to worry about yourself!”

I appreciate the fact that she is learning to set her own boundaries. It is something I have struggled with my whole life. But when I tell her to complete a simple yet essential task like “brush you teeth” or “put on your pants,” I tend to respond to her with “I am your mother and I can tell you what to do!”

My daughter is only four but I admire her ability to be true to herself. I hope she never loses it.

Maybe we all need to be in touch with our inner 4 year old who doesn’t want to brush their teeth or wear pants.

As far as I can remember, I have been the person who always sought approval of others.

It began with my parents.

I was concerned about having their approval on everything, even into adulthood. While parental guidance is generally a good thing, it is not healthy for a grown adult to depend on their parents opinion to make every decision.

When I went off to college, I found another group of people to seek approval from- my friends.

My friends were good people but they obviously had a different level of emotional investment in me than my parents had. My friends convinced me to get an eyebrow piercing. This form of approval was much more exciting than my parents approval. My parents never would have approved of an eyebrow ring.

I felt like a real bad-ass. Me and all the other people on campus who had eyebrow rings in the late 1990’s.

In my twenties, I got involved in politics and I had tons more people to seek approval from. I had to seek approval from my political party leaders, the leaders of any political organizations I belonged to as well as my peers.

I had to seek approval from the people I was allied with in whatever organizational politics were going on. The dreaded “politics of politics”.

(Bryon referred to it as people fighting over who gets to become the mayor of Candy Land.)

Oh and voters.

I had to seek the approval of voters.

I mean, they were the reason I got into politics in the first place.

Bryon entered my life during my political years.

One of the things that drew me to him was his intelligence. I trusted his judgment. And I sought his approval.

Bryon did help me boost my confidence and see my self worth, I still wasn’t confident enough to make my own decisions.

I had trouble making simple decisions without his input and approval. He used to email me at lunchtime about what I wanted for dinner in hopes that we could come to a decision by dinnertime.

Don’t get me wrong. If you are in a marriage or a committed relationship, you do want to confer with one another about decisions that affect the both of you. But a grown adult should possess the ability to make simple decisions. The only decision I was capable of making was hot or iced coffee. (Answer: Iced. Almost always iced.)

But I needed Bryon’s opinion and approval on everything. The sad thing is, he spent years boosting me up and I was so co-dependent on him that he never got to see me soar.

Why have I always struggled with making decisions?

For me, I think it was due to the fact that I was indecisive and because I lacked confidence in myself.

The latter is silly because my gut is almost always right. When I look back at things I regret, it usually starts with ignoring my intuition. When I meet people, I usually feel good, bad or indifferent. When someone who gives me that bad feeling befriends me, I will regret it.

It’s the price I pay for ignoring my intuition.

After Bryon died, I went through a personal metamorphosis.

When Bryon died, I wasn’t simply heartbroken.

My soul was completely shattered.

And when my soul was completely shattered, I questioned everything I believed or have ever believed.

I began to live my life more intentionally.

Life is a gift and I want to the rest of my years to be meaningful.

So far my widowhood can be split into three phases.

The first phase of widowhood was the “WTF happened to my life?” phase and can be equated to morning fog that is so thick that you can’t drive in it. That lasted about three to six months and was full of sadness and anger.

The second phase lasted until I was about 18 months to two years out. It was still foggy but less so and it consisted of me actually getting used to the fact that Bryon was really gone. This phase tended to be filled with sadness and emptiness.

Now I am two years into my widowhood “journey.” (Seriously, why do we call grief a journey? A journey implies something pleasant and I would rather have a colonscopy than go on this “journey” again).

I am currently in the “Third Phase” which is the phase where I need to start living again. It doesn’t suffice to just think about it. I need to actually do it.

The Third Phase is lonely. Everyone else has moved on and because I am not sitting on my couch, unshowered, and crying while drinking a box of wine and watching the Gilmore Girls on Netflix that that means everyone thinks that I have also moved on.

I am much better but I still have my moments. Luckily those moments that cause me to tear up usually last for 2-5 minutes. In the earlier phases, certain memories could have me crying for several days.

And a widow never “moves on”. We move forward, but we do not move on.

But the Third Phase is also tricky because I have decided to move forward but I am trying to learn my way. I am trying to figure out my new identity and acclimate to a life that is filled with just “my” goals, not “our” goals. There is no “how-to” manual for navigating the Third Phase.

This process is very overwhelming. My life has at least ten different paths I can take and I have to decide this on my own. I have to decide which path is best for me and my for my daughter.

As I adjust to my new vision for the rest of my life. I find myself falling into my old patterns. I started to look externally for approval.

But that needs to stop.

Because I know very few widows. At least “in real life.” I am connected to thousands online but not many in my day to day life.

So that means most people, including my own parents, learn about widowhood from me. Well me, and This is Us and the last fifteen minutes of the How I Met Your Mother finale.

But even if someone has regular conversations with me and reads this blog, they don’t get the whole picture. I don’t talk or write about everything.

There is no way I can accurately portray the depths of grief in written or spoken word. There is not way I can convey the emptiness and hopelessness I have felt. And I don’t try because no one would understand. And they can’t understand it because they haven’t gone through it.

Very few people know what I have gone through. And that, in itself, is a good thing. Even if I feel isolated and frustrated, I am glad so many people won’t have to experience this. I am happy that most people get to grow old with their loves.

Therefore, when I think of all these life decisions, only I know whats best for me. Sure, my friends and family care about me and want whats best for me and my daughter.

But they aren’t me.

And I am sure they aren’t seeking my approval on their lives.

Only I know what is best for me.

And that statement doesn’t just apply to widows.

It applies to everyone, including you.

Only you have lived your life. Only you have felt what you have felt. Only you have felt the depths of your own experiences.

Only you know what is best for you.

Just because I am a widow…

Published on June 15, 2017June 15, 2017 by kerrymckim3 Comments

Just because I am a widow doesn’t mean that I can’t make my own decisions. Please stop second guessing my choices.

Just because I am a widow doesn’t mean I am helpless. I am actually the opposite of helplessness. I watched my spouse die. I survived something that most people can’t even imagine. I might need help with some tasks, but don’t misconstrue that as helpless.

Just because I am a widow doesn’t mean that you can ignore my feelings and dismiss them as part of grief. Trust me, I have don’t more thinking in the past year than I did my previous 37 years. My feelings are very well thought out.

Just because I am a widow doesn’t mean that I need to defend my feelings, especially those about God. A widow is allowed to be mad at God. It is not your place to scold her or re-educate her. It’s up to the non-grieving to be supportive and understanding.

Just because I am a widow, it doesn’t mean I need to put up with poor treatment. I have been through something so horrendous that you probably can’t even comprehend. I miss my spouse and I can be lonely. But I am used to being lonely and I would choose that over being around people who treat me poorly.

Just because I am a widow doesn’t mean that I don’t have responsibilities. I have a full and busy life. I am not just sitting around my house.

Just because I am a widow doesn’t mean you can tell me how to raise my child. I am capable, thank you. My child is happy and well taken care of thank you.

Just because I am widow doesn’t mean I am desperate for love. (This one is directed to all the scam Twitter accounts that started following me. The ones that when you look at who they follow and they are all widows). Trust me, I had the love of my life and I lost it. When I decide to date again, it isn’t going to be with some random, bogus Twitter account.

A better version of myself

Published on June 11, 2017June 12, 2017 by kerrymckim9 Comments

I am always wondering “what if”. What is Bryon hadn’t died? What if Bryon hadn’t gotten sick? What would we be doing? How would the crisis have affected our relationship? I think about Bryon playing with our daughter. I think about Bryon hanging out with our friends. I think about going to political events with Bryon and our daughter.

Usually when I visualize how life would be with Bryon and I, I am imagining life with him at his healthiest. I have no idea what long term effects he would have had if he had survived. I know we wouldn’t have been able to go on a cruise (our favorite way to travel). In fact, I would have been nervous travelling anywhere that was not close to a large medical center, let alone on a ship in the middle of the ocean. Had Bryon survived, our lives would have been drastically different.

But Bryon didn’t survive and our lives are drastically different. And one of the things that is drastically different is me.

As the crisis began to unfold, I had to change. I went from being one half of a two person team who took care of a toddler and I instantly became one person who had to take care of her critically ill husband, our toddler and myself. Everything became my responsibility, plus I had to stay on top of Bryon’s care. Luckily I had help. My parents did take care of my daughter and when they had to go back to Maine periodically, friends would step up and take care of her. Friends prepared meals and did tasks around my house, like mowing my lawn. I remember thinking that I couldn’t wait to tell Bryon because he was going to be proud of me for rising to the occasion.

I also remember thinking that I couldn’t wait to fill Bryon in on everything that had happened. I filled him on some of it, but I was waiting until he got better to tell him some of the events that had transpired. I vowed to myself that Bryon would have known everyone who helped me and our daughter. There were certain people who should have been supportive and always had high expectations from Bryon who offered little to no support and made my life difficult but I did not tell this to Bryon. I didn’t want to stress him out and I figured I could tell him when he was well again. But of course that never happened.

Before this crisis, I was a very different person. I was innocent and ungrateful. I did not know how good my life was and I never dreamed something like this could have happened. Through this crisis, I learned I was much, much stronger than I ever thought I was. I think everyone has that potential for strength during a crisis, though you have to choose to be strong and not fall apart.

I have much more confidence in my abilities than I did before. I used to care what other people thought, but that changed quickly. When you are a widow, people think they have a say in your decisions and how you live your life and are quick to tell you how to live your life, how to grieve, how to spend your money, how to parent- the list goes on. I survived one of the possible worst case scenarios that could happen in my life. I am sure I can survive anything else, even any consequences for any potential screw up that might be my own doing. (Take away point- if you feel like giving a widow any unsolicited advice, just don’t. We are capable of seeking help and if we wanted your opinion, we would ask for it. No ands, ifs or buts.)

Another effect of going through one of the two possible worst scenarios imaginable is that I don’t live in fear anymore. I survived. It’s not easy, but it’s been 15 months since that day that Bryon went into septic shock and I am still here. I am still in my house. I am working. My bills are paid. I have travelled. My daughter is happy. Fifteen months ago, my life crashed down and I had no clue how I was going to do it without Bryon but I am. I miss him so much that it hurts, but I am surviving. I don’t fear what comes down the road because I realize that things can easily fall into place and am open to opportunities.

I don’t stress on unimportant decisions. I used to be a person that would stress about picking two items on a restaurant menu. Now I realize that there is no need to stress about things like that because that isn’t an important decision. I should just go with the hamburger and if I don’t like it, I will go with the turkey club the next time. I no longer sweat the small stuff.

I am open to friendships now. I am an introvert (though some online tests call me an ambivert which is technically in the middle of the introvert-extrovert scale) and I usually just kept to Bryon and a very few close friends. I had a lot of walls and I never let my guard down. After this crisis, I have learned to let others into my life. It’s okay to need people and it’s okay to lean on them. I have learned to embrace the love that comes with friendships.

While I am more open to friendship, I don’t tolerate being treated poorly anymore. I don’t tolerate B.S. If you can’t be supportive of me or my daughter, then you don’t get to play a role in our lives. Grief is exhausting and I don’t have the energy to deal with people who cause drama and make me feel bad. As one of my closest friends says “less negativity and more high-fives!”

But I used to seek the approval of other people, but now I know that the only people that I have to answer to are myself and my daughter. For the first time in 38 years, I am being true to myself and I have the confidence to work toward my dreams. To live the life I want to live. And even though I am tired and exhausted all the time I feel like I am a better mother. Sure, I seem scattered and forget stuff, but instead of being concerned being a good mother and appearing as such, I just focus on my daughter. Not what others think (though I will use self-deprecating humor from time to time). I also am not concerned about being the perfect family because it’s just my daughter and me. Now I am just concerned about my daughter being happy and I know that (in addition to covering her basic needs-very important), it is my job to make sure she becomes an independent adult and that she becomes of the best version of the person she is supposed to be.

I am a better version of myself. The hard part of that I like myself much better now, but I would not be this person if Bryon were still alive. I don’t like who I was then, but I would give up my new self if it means Bryon could come back. But that is not going to happen. I can only move forward with the life lessons that I have learned by loving Bryon and having him in my life. I am a better person because of him. Everyone that is in my life now knows that I am who I am because of Bryon. In a way, he is a part of who I am now even if he is no longer here.

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