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Erica Roman Blog

I write so that my healing may bring healing to others.

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Tag: patton oswalt

1 Post

Erica Roman Patton Oswalt widow

When did agreement become a prerequisite for kindness?

July 8, 2019 — 13 Comments

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I’m not a good spender. For Mother’s Day, Neil orchestrated a collection from friends & family that amounted to $700 so I could go buy myself a new wardrobe. Since then I’ve only purchased a shirt and a blazer. Yesterday I decided to actually go shopping with it. . As I strolled aimlessly though the aisles of clothes, I had to combat old instincts. The old Erica had a poverty mindset that valued quantity over quality and function over form. Buying an $80 pair of black slacks gave me so much anxiety considering I could have bought 4 cheap pairs for the same price. . That poverty mindset hit hardest when it came to buying a pair of earrings. My ears are very sensitive and even gold plated earrings would make my ears burn so severely that my whole ear was hot to the touch. I’ve been wanting a pair of solid gold earrings for years. It had been so long since I’ve worn earrings that I was worried that my piercings had closed. . When it came to purchasing them I felt apprehensive. I felt like I was wasting money. The earrings I picked aren’t extravagant. The small gold hoops were on sale for $40 at JC Pennys, but I still kept thinking that they weren’t as practical as a shirt or a pair of shoes. . Historically I put very little value on my needs, much less my wants. I have wanted earrings for a very long time and the money I had been given was to be spend on things I wanted. I forced myself to buy them and I think they’re my favorite purchase so far. . . Other things I’ve needed. I needed running shoes. I needed black slacks I can speak in. I needed a few nice outfits for my internship. But the earrings. They were for me. Just because I wanted them. They have no purpose except that they make me happy. . I think sometimes we get into a high functioning mode and we forget to invest in ourselves. I thought it was just a widow thing or a mom thing, but I have a feeling it’s a human thing. . As I actively work on shifting from surviving to thriving, I have to constantly remind myself that thriving looks like taking quiet walks when I’m overwhelmed, it looks like napping when I’m exhausted, and it looks like buying earrings even though they don’t serve a practical purpose.

Yesterday I took my first step towards getting professional counseling. . The person conducting the intake interview was about my age. She was super sweet as she ran through the list of questions she needed to ask. . The whole time I kept making jokes and making light of my answers. “I know, we’ve got a lot to work with here.” “But wait, there’s more!” “Are you tired yet? Cause I am!” . Even while I was joking I knew that I was just in protection mode. Both for myself and for her. . I needed to keep myself from feeling the emotions connected to the facts of my life experience. It wasn’t a therapy session, we couldn’t linger on the hurts I was bringing up, so it was safer not to feel at all. Dark humor is a very effective tool for keeping emotions locked down. . The other reason for all the jokes is because I have this thing where I feel like I need to shield others from the weight of my story. I often worry that hearing about my reality causes second hand trauma so I mask the pain with jokes. . I think one of the things I’m looking forward to when it comes to getting counseling is being able to speak completely unfiltered. I can write about my emotions for the world to see but that isn’t as scary for me as it is to let myself cry in the presence of others. . “Why now?” Was one of the final questions. After coming as far as I have, why seek counseling now? The answer is simple. Because I don’t want to stop until I’m the absolute best version of myself. . I have issues that pre-date widowhood. The #anxiety I struggle with has been with me since childhood and I don’t want to carry it around anymore. . Healing isn’t passive. Time does not heal all wounds! If you break a leg and don’t get it fixed by a doctor your leg will heal crooked. . Too many people are walking around with crooked brains and crooked emotions because rather than getting professional help they let time heal them. . You can’t have a whole future if you haven’t sorted out the broken parts of your past. I don’t want that to be me. I don’t want that to be you. Let’s all get the healing we need so we can give healing to others. . #healing #counseling #youngwidow #ericaroman

I’ve always been a front row student. If I sit in the back I‘m constantly distracted by everything between me and the teacher. Being close helps me to take everything in. . Back in 2011, I realized how much I still needed to learn about my faith so I signed up for the first class of the ministry school my church was launching. . It was because of that 8 months of sacrificing my time, money and energy that I gained the character and skills I needed to navigate away from divorce and then later to stay afloat during the tsunami of grief. . In 2017 I moved back to Nashville alone with a 2 year old and an 8 month old. I left the safety and support of my friends and family for one reason: my Nashville church had started a second year of ministry school and I needed more healing that I was getting in Florida. . Year 2 was like emergency heart surgery. It hurt worse before it got better, but without it I don’t think I would have made the recovery I’ve made. . . In the last year since graduating year 2, my life has finally settled into a steady rhythm. I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to be in the redemption part of my story. I spent so long barely keeping my head above water and now I’m standing on solid ground. . Now that I’m standing, I’ve been able to think about the future. I have spent a lot of time thinking about where I want my life to go from here and the steps it will take to move towards that vision. Which brings me to the point of this post. . . My church has added a 3rd year which serves as a structure for internships. They only opened 15 or so positions and I’ve been accepted for one of them. . I will be interning under our personal ministries pastor. She’s amazing and has been helping people in trauma for a long time. There is so much that I can learn from her. . I feel called to ministry. I want to learn all I can about loving and serving people well and I couldn’t have found a closer seat to the front.

Two years ago today I wrote a feisty blog defending the right of @pattonoswalt & widowed folk everywhere to love again after loss. It blew up bigger than I could ever have imagined. 3.5 million views on my blog site alone, not including all of the other platforms that picked it up. I found my words trending and with that came a ton of support and also a lot of criticism . Soon enough my 15 minutes of fame passed and life returned to its normal routine. While most of the criticism faded as soon as the internet found something new to buzz about, there was one thing that people would continue to bring to my attention . You know Patton is an atheist right? . Why would you defend a crazy liberal? . Did you hear about that joke he just made? . Every time those accusations have come at me I respond the same way. “What does that have to do with anything I wrote about?” . It makes me angry that I live in a culture where I have to justify why I defended someone from bullies. Let me make this perfectly clear. I don’t have to agree with a single thing that someone says, does or believes in order for me to show them kindness and stand in their defense when they are being wronged . I think both political parties are corrupt and full of it. I compared the last election to a race between Emperor Palpatine and Jabba the Hutt. I couldn’t in good conscience put my name behind either so I voted for JarJar in protest . But I have close friends that voted on both sides of the party lines. I might not have felt that either candidate was worthy of my vote, but I can respect the lines of reasoning of my friends who decided to choose one or the other. If I could only associate myself with people who lined up with my political views I’d have maybe two friends . My wish for America is that the 2 sides would come together and come up with solutions. We are becoming more and more divided but I believe the answers are somewhere in the middle . If we stopped thinking that disagreement is the same as hatred we might actually begin to heal our nation. If we shifted our motive from being right to finding solutions, we could truly become a great nation . Finish reading on my site. Link in bio

Tonight I’m sad. This week I’ve had an undercurrent of grief flowing beneath all the things I needed to accomplish. It’s only tonight that I’ve had space for the grief to come to the surface . The littles are asleep in bed. Neil is at the movies with Brenden. There is nothing but the distant sound of fireworks to accompany me and in the silence I am allowing myself the time to feel sad. I’m sad because Jocelyn asked if she could have a guitar. When I asked her why, I was hoping she would say so she could be like her Dada. She said like her teacher. I’m sad because I met Jon on July 4th but I can’t remember if it was 11 or 12 years ago. Details are fading and it feels like a secondary loss. I’m sad because my life is filling up with people who never knew him. I finding myself missing my friends from Florida. When I’m with them Jon’s name flows easily into the conversations and it makes me feel like he’s still present. I’m sad because Jon is dead. That statement still feels so wrong to me. Even 3 years later sometimes my mind still has difficulty comprehending that there is no where in this world that I could travel to reach him. I’m sad for everything he is missing. Even things as inconsequential as him not seeing End Game. I only got into Marvel because of him. Back in the day, Jon had to explain to me that the upcoming Iron Man movie was not, in fact, a movie “about that old rock song.” . I’m feeling sad. And that’s good. The fact that I am permitting myself to cry when I need to is a testament to the healing I’ve fought for. Allowing ourselves space to feel our sadness is healthy. We need sadness. #Sadness speaks to the value of the thing we lost. There’s something pure and holy to tears shed because of the absence of someone we love. Sadness is the evidence that we have loved and hoped and dreamed. In order to experience happiness and joy, one also must feel sadness and grief. You cannot have one side without the other. Your only other option is to harden your heart to all emotions and live a life half alive, feeling nothing. That price is too much for me to pay. Tonight I feel sad which means tomorrow I can feel happy . #widow #ericaroman #sad #grief

Happy Birthday America. We are with you until the end of the line. . . . . #fourthofjuly 4thofjuly #america #captainamerica

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© Erica Roman, 2017. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Erica Roman and Erica Roman Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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