One of the problems with taking up a hobby full time as a widow is that you use it to fill this huge void in your life. Now if this passion is golf then it will take up all your time...which is good because it cuts very much into shopping and retail therapy that had taken up most of last year. We won't go right now into how much you can actually spend and shop on golf equipment and how important the right club (read new clubs are to your game) and of course the whole emotional importance of looking good. Very, very important if you are not playing well to indeed look very sharp and pulled together. But if you know of someone who plays than you have some idea of the depth of the mess I have gotten myself into. I have tried to explain my passion a few times to people who haven't played or "gotten" golf and it is hard . Bear with me here. Sure the courses are beautiful and nature surrounds you everywhere...including coyotes and hawks. Every hole is an individual challenge and even playing the same course every week is different. Different conditions, you land the ball different places it is always new. It is something Michael and I shared a love for, something that was ours that I can still do. But if you haven't played and understood it..how do you explain to someone coming back to a game that has brought you to tears. Shooting, that's scoring the best game of your life then coming out the next time and feeling like you had never hit a ball before. Golf is very frustrating like that...you know you can do it, you know you did it before, just not today.
Where I need to start saving for sports therapy here is that fact that this is my life now...this is where I have invested my time and expectations for myself. It is too easy for my day to day happiness to ride on the flight of a little white ball. Or even more painfully the lip out of a putt, over and over again. As my athletic kids say, "Mom how can you practice so much and not get any better?" Why do I do that to myself, let my joy ride on the numbers on a score card. Well, accepting you have a problem is half the battle so I am trying go with the flow more trying not to take it to heart. You would think that after 10 plus years playing I would get the part about letting go ...let go of the bad and allow the good, enjoy the good shots even when there are less of them. Yes, I know I have a problem , I have way too many pairs of golf shoes and I am way too hard on myself.
Oh and for the record I have lowered my handicap 5 strokes since last spring...something is working. Anyone ready? A dollar a hole?
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2 comments:
Dear Karen, my name is Natalya and I have found your blog via your post on the brain temozolomide group.
I lost my partner in June 2005, he was a fit, healthy 30 year old who suffered a massive heartattack after a serious bout of pneumonia. We had been together for 10 years and I didn't know which way to turn.
Exactly a year after Damian, my partner, passed away my best friends 22 year old daughter was diagnosed with a GBM and that is how I ended up on the temozolomide group. Rose died 5 months after diagnosis.
Why have I followed the link to your blog? I started blogging too as a way of getting my thoughts, troubles, good times and bad times down 'on paper'.
It's good to be able to see how you begin to enjoy this new phase of your journey and what adventures you get up to! I have no advice as far as golf goes! I took up photography when Damian passed away as this was a passion of this but golf, I wouldnt know where to start!
I hope wherever life takes you you are able to smile and know you carry Michael with you always.
A few months after I lost Damian someone passed this quote on to me and I thought I'd share it with you...
"Lost love is still love. It takes a different form thats all. You cant see their smile or bring them food or tousle their hair or move them around a dance floor. But when those senses weaken, another heightens. Memory. Memory becomes your partner. You nurture it. You hold it. You dance with it....Life has to end....love doesnt."
My thoughts are with you and I will be sure to check in and see how you are doing from time to time.
With love,
Natalya
Thanks Natalya, what a beautiful sentiment. I will keep it close, it is so hard as some memories start to fade to hold on to those special moments. Its definitely a roller coaster and I never liked those either.
hugs
Karen
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