Making Change(s)

Hope is the present confidence in a better future.  Based on the work of C. Richard Snyder and colleagues in the psychology of hope, I like to use the acronym "I-HOPE" to describe the process and strategy of choosing hope.  

• I=Identity
• H=Help--both getting it and giving it
• O=Optimistic thinking styles and tactics
• P=Pathways to the future and flexibility in seeking new pathways
• E=Ends and purposes that matter and that generate worthwhile goals

I have been reflecting on "Identity" in the wake of a big change, like the loss of a loved one.  In the first months after Anne's death, I felt like an alien visitor from another planet.  It was as if others were speaking a language I couldn't understand.  They talked about day to day activities.  They made plans for the future.  They acted as if things in this life were certain and stable.  They counted on things to remain nailed down.  

That language made no sense to me.  Didn't they know that everything in the universe had changed?  Didn't they understand that it could all disappear in the blink of an eye?  Didn't they see the threats and dangers all around them?  And why weren't they as anxious about everything as I was?

Those fears and anxieties subsided after some months.  They haven't, however, disappeared.  There seems to be a long-term residue of such questions in my mind and heart at this point as well.  That residue tinges everything I say and do.  I am happier than I have ever been, if some of the inventories at www.authentichappiness.org have any validity at all.  Yet I have my times of intense sadness and grief.  I have more hope that ever for the future.  Yet, when asked what my plans five or ten years from now are, I really have no energy for an answer.  Today will do, thank you.  I feel stable and in good humor, but I know that I carry a burden of anxious irritability that must be managed constantly.

I am not the same person I was.  This is no great insight, of course.  We all change and re-write the stories of our identities regularly and constantly.  For me (and perhaps for those who have lost someone suddenly) there are two differences, I think.  One difference is that I experienced rapid change in my relationships, my work, my residence, and my community--all within a six month period.  The other difference is that I can point to a "before" and an "after".  There is that personal watershed of November 20, 2010.  It seems that the river of my life flowed one direction before that day.  It seems that it flows a somewhat different direction now.

I am the same, and I am not.  That's true for you as well.  But there are things that don't work for me the same way they did just a few years ago.  The most obvious difference, for reasons I don't understand very well, is that I feel and function differently as a pastor.  I won't bore you with the details, but it is becoming clearer and clearer to me that I have to relearn this business at some fundamental levels.  That's intimidating--and exciting.  The intimidating part is that I really do wonder if I can learn to do this in a different way.  And I really do wonder if I want to bother with that relearning.

Some others in situations like mine don't seem to have experienced the same disintegration and reconstruction that I have experienced.  So it makes me wonder if I'm odd (well, no real wondering about that one) or just incredibly self-indulgent (a strong likelihood in any event).  However, my reading and study have shown that a fairly complex reorganization of self-identity is one of the common responses to the sudden loss of a spouse or a child.  Such an intimate relationship is knitted fully into a person's sense of self and life story.  So a major reorganization and a full re-integration are, perhaps, not surprising.

What is your experience of yourself post-loss?  How have you been changed?