Hey, so I’m back! I had to take a little hiatus from the blog, because life was LIFING. At the end of last year, I lost my mom, Carole, to pulmonary fibrosis (I will be writing about that soon) and then a few weeks later I lost my sister-in-law, Melissa. It doesn’t even feel right to call her my SIL, because she was the sister I never had. Then at the beginning of this year, I had spinal surgery, which I am still recovering from. Fret not, this surgery has been a long time coming. I fractured my spine when I was fifteen and it never healed right, and the doctor told me way back then that I would have to have surgery eventually. And finally, eventually came. I’ll be good as new in a year or so. Given all of that, plus a few realizations I’ve had in therapy, 2026 is shaping up to be a year of major change for me and mine.
Loss changes people, but it also changes relationships. I’m not just talking about Carole and Melissa. I’m also talking about my late husband, Dave.
Entering into new relationships when people in your life think you should be mourning your spouse forever (I will be) and think you should never be happy again (no one I lost would have ever wanted that) also changes relationships.
Sometimes, people walk away from you, and you have to let them go. Because your life is yours. Not theirs.
Sometimes, people who you thought were friends will try to tell you how you should be grieving and how you should move forward with your life. Like there’s a set of rules. Spoiler: there are no rules when it comes to grief.
Sometimes, when you live your life authentically and learn to grieve the way you need to grieve, rather than the way THEY need you to grieve, your “friends” will walk away. Something I’ve learned: let them. When they walk away, let them. It’s okay.
Samantha and I started 2026 by letting go of people and things who no longer serve us. We made a fire. I wrote a letter to those “friends” I spoke of. I read it by the fire. Then I burned it, along with the sweater they gave me when my dad died in 2019. By the fire, I released so much negative energy.
I will no longer waste energy on people who only love me when I’m useful to them. People whose presence in my life is self-serving. People who drift away when I need help, when things get bad.
There is cleansing in the burning, healing in the ashes.
Something Samantha tells me when I get anxious, when my PTSD gets bad, is that we have old stories in our heads. But what we’re doing together is writing new stories. I’m in the last semester of my MFA program, finishing up my thesis, and writing new stories is always on my mind, even as I write my old stories.
A good deal of my thesis work has ended up focusing on past traumas. Religious trauma, my first (incredibly abusive in every way) marriage, learning that abuse isn’t normal, divorce, finding real love, losing the person I thought would be my forever partner, learning how to move forward in life after loss. Not moving on but moving forward. Old stories and new stories.
Old story: my ex-husband (the first one, not the dead one) once told me that he never talked to me because I have nothing interesting to say.
New story: as I finish up my MFA in creative nonfiction writing (CNF), I’ve learned that I do have something interesting to say. People can relate to my story and they want to hear it. This program has finally made his voice in my head shut the hell up.
I stopped writing after Dave died. I was floating, feeling like there was no purpose to my life. I found my purpose in CNF and this community of writers at Bay Path.
There is cleansing in the writing, healing in the sharing.
We’re writing new stories. We are about to write our biggest story yet. In June, we are moving to Mexico.
I was apprehensive at first, but given the state of this country and our government’s view on queer people, I knew it was necessary to get out. Now, I’m looking at it as a great adventure. New country, new culture, new life, new story.
I don’t know what the future holds. No one does. What I do know is this:
There is cleansing in the old stories, healing in the new ones.
Cover photo by me
Robyn Weaver 