A Very Lucky Girl

I'm reading Abigail Carter's "The Alchemy of Loss" and bawling my eyes out on every other page.  I can't tell if I am moved because I empathize, or if I'm moved because it's really good writing, probably both.  (I met Abby at the Healing Center, her husband, Arron, died in the World Trade Center.)  I just finished reading the part where she's getting ready to go back to work, and she is dreading the faces.  The faces that say, "I ache for you but I have no idea how to express it." Or as Abby puts it, "that look of desperation in someone's eyes, willing me to tell them everything was fine.  But it was not fine and it would never be fine."

Abby details the thoughts she had of her husband's last moments of life and the recognition of regrets and physical pain he must have had.  This wrecked me.

I read an article today in the online NY Times entitled, "For the Brain, Remembering Is Like Reliving."  Without the scientific data or fancy degree in science, I could have written the article.  I am typing Michael's journals into the computer to take with me to Italy.  I'm hoping they will help my brain relive some of the memories and I will be inspired to write.  Mentally, I don't think I am taking it in.  I'm in such a hurry to get it all done before I leave and I am mechanically trying to decipher his handwriting.  I'm not taking the time to understand the meaning behind his words.

But my body is remembering.  I feel the burn between my shoulder blades and the dull ache in my bones.  I feel wasted, even when I've done very little. 

I didn't expect this to be easy.  I expect it to be excruciating.  So why am I doing it?  Martyrdom?  Masochism?  I don't think it's either.  First of all, I am giving myself plenty of room to breath, in Italy of all places, for 3 months!  Surely that's not masochism.  Second, I am writing this book for myself (if other's should come to enjoy it-great, but not the goal), a cathartic adventure of sorts.

According to the online Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the word Catharsis is New Latin from the Greek word katharsis, from katharein to cleanse and katharos, to purge.  The fuller definition is "a purification or purgation of the emotions (as pity and fear) primarily through art; that brings about spiritual renewal or release from tension; elimination of a complex by bringing it to consciousness and affording it expression."  

This is why I'm going to Italy to write "The Book."  And I expect there will be a lot of tension before there is a release or renewal.  The goal is not to escape, or move to Italy (as some of you are fantasizing about), or to find a husband (as some of you have feared).  I hope that by bringing forward Michael's life and my experiences in it, that I will afford it the expression that will help me release and renew.  Forgive me it I struggle through this process initially and take you along for the ride.

"You're a very lucky girl," a dear friend of mine keeps reminding me, and as I doubt myself along the way, it is a mantra that stirs me on.