Last summer a professional friend of mine changed jobs. When I asked him why he was leaving his current company he said, “because I feel like I have been surviving there, not thriving.”

His response stuck with me and was a dominating thought during most of my runs for the rest of 2018. I realized that since my husband died in 2012, I have been surviving, not thriving.

I am ready to change that.

When significant loss occurs, the game of survival begins. At first you just try to survive an hour. Then you build up to a day, then a week, then a month and so on. It is a constant battle of telling yourself “just get through this…just get through that…”, whether it is surviving the holidays, your kids’ birthdays, your own birthday, your late spouse’s birthday, the anniversary of their death, your son’s big game, getting dinner on the table after a tough day of work, school projects, teenage attitudes, etc.  It’s all about surviving.

There are many dimensions to survival after significant loss: emotional survival, physical survival, parenting survival, career survival, and financial survival. There might be more types of survival but those are the five that have characterized my life for the past seven years.

Survival after loss is a major accomplishment and the only people who can understand that is people who have experienced significant loss. I am so freakin’ proud that I am still standing today. My life is a house of cards most of the time, ready to crumble at the merest unexpected gust of wind, but it has not crumbled yet. I cannot count the number of times I have collapsed on my bed at the end of the day and whispered “another day down.”

But as 2018 came to a close I realized that I have spent nearly seven years surviving and it’s no longer enough.

I want to thrive.

As I ran on New Year’s Eve day this week, I thought about the last time that I was truly thriving. It was in 2010 and 2011. In 2010, Wyatt was born, we moved back to California, and I started my job at The Clorox Company. Despite our reluctance to move back to California, we were enjoying being a family of four, watching Nathan finally getting to be the big brother we had always wanted him to be, reconnecting with our California friends and family, and I was experiencing a hockey stick learning curve at my new company. Were things perfect? Of course not. But I felt like I was thriving.

Gordie died, unexpectedly, in March 2012. Thriving ended. Surviving took over.

Emotionally I stopped thinking and planning for the future. I ended my life long commitment to goal setting. My only goal was to be able to manage my grief so that I did not cry in public places or in front of my kids. Sadly, I still have not conquered that goal. I went into survival mode. I wanted to get to an emotional state where my new life was manageable enough that I would stop hating it.  I wanted to get to an emotional state where other than love for my kids, I felt relatively nothing. Feeling nothing meant I would not feel the pain. Not thinking or planning for the future would prevent me from unexpected, unplanned and unpleasant surprises that deviated from the plans and goals. That’s surviving, not thriving.

From a career perspective, I also went into survival mode. I had always been the primary bread winner for our family but without Gordie, I was now not just the sole income, I was the ONLY income. There was no backup. It was just me. If I did not work, my kids would not have food and shelter. If I lost my job, the house of cards could blow down. When I returned to work three weeks after Gordie’s passing, my Boss asked what he could do to help, if there was another position at Clorox that I might consider that would be less demanding than my current Director role.

“Please no changes”, I said quietly, looking down at my folded hands in my lap. “I cannot take another change right now”.

“OK” he replied. He kept his word for years.

But my career had turned from thriving to surviving. My only goal was to hang on to my job, to do my job better than anyone else could do it…not to get promoted but to protect my current position and income. I realized soon after Gordie died that my career had hit its ceiling and it was a painful realization for someone who had thrived on climbing the corporate ladder, who had Vice President aspirations, who kicked down doors every time someone closed them, who enjoyed shocking people when they underestimated me.   But life had changed. I did not think that I could chase my career and be the type of only parent that my boys deserved. I continued to work my ass off, but I set boundaries so that others were not raising my children 12 hours a day. I gave up thriving in my career.

Financially, the game has also been survival. With career ascension now not part of the plan, I was relegated to a life with the same income and I was now faced with the major extra expense of a full time Nanny to replace Gordie who was a stay at home Dad. On top of that there were other expenses that were new to me like house repairs and renovations now that my amazing construction husband was gone. Since Gordie passed in 2012, my only financial goal has been to grow my retirement fund as much as I can, maximizing the benefits offered by my company. My paychecks and bonuses cover our day to day life but if I am being honest, we live paycheck to paycheck. There are choices I make and I realize that: my kids go a private faith based school, I have a Nanny instead of more affordable after school daycare, and I take my kids on multiple vacations every year. I also have more jackets and shoes than I need (although as I have mentioned in previous blogs, my closet pales in comparison to most closets in my town). So, I do understand that I am blessed compared to some other solo Moms and Widows in the world. I am grateful to God for that. However, when I put myself through an MBA program in the late 90s, my goal was not to just survive financially, it was to thrive financially.

From a parenting perspective, I am barely even surviving, much less thriving. Gordie and I had two kids very intentionally. We always wanted our kids to have at least one of us at games, performances, and other kid events.  Each kid was supposed to have one parent to help with homework at night. One kid was supposed to stay home with one parent while the other parent took the other kid and his friends to the movies. Two kids. Two parents. We knew we would often be dividing and conquering but each kid would always have a parent and never miss something because their only parent was with their sibling. Sadly, God and the Universe had another plan for us and my parental thriving turned into surviving. Life for us is hectic. My kids have to make tremendous sacrifices because they only have one parent. Their life with one parent is not what they would wish on even the meanest kids at their school. Our schedule each week is like a chess game with multiple parties involved to handle all the practices, games, and activities. I spend Sunday nights writing the playbook for the following week’s chess game. It’s exhausting just trying to survive solo parenting.

Physically might be the only area where I have more thrived than survived. My use of running to help me through grief allowed me to complete my first half marathon after my husband died. My desperate need for a physical outlet for my anger and frustration at being catapulted into this life has also kept me physically healthy through swimming, biking, and playing tennis. However, although I am very disciplined about running 4-5 times per week, other activities are often de-prioritized due to solo parenting. I’d like to see that lessen in 2019. I’d like to put myself first now and then and experiment with other physical activities that intrigue me and will make me feel like I am thriving.

Nearly seven years of surviving… almost 2,555 days. That’s a really long time to just survive, especially for someone who used to take life by the balls and kick ass.

I’m done. No more just surviving. It’s time to get back to a life of thriving. I’m not sure what that will look like and I expect it will take years to make progress to evolve from surviving to thriving.

The first step will be the hardest. I need to think about the future, create a vision of what I want my life to be, and then outline the lily pad path to get there. I gave up thinking about the future and daring to dream nearly seven years ago. My dreams were shattered and it was devastating. I never want to feel that type of pain and disappointment again. But I don’t think it’s possible to thrive without dreams and a vision. I’m scared of being devastated again but survival is no longer enough. I need to take that risk to get to thriving.

I recognize that I will continue to have the same issues that have confined me to surviving: one income, solo parenting, no time, etc. But as we embark on 2019, I am determined to relocate the ass kicker inside me, create a vision, set some goals and figure it out.