Today...

I keep trying to write but for some reason I am having a really hard time; me - the person that can sit down to write a thank you note and ramble on for ten pages.  I cannot think of anything useful or edifying to say.  I never had any plans when I started this blog for how it should go, what it was going to be about, where it was headed or when it would end.  I just needed an outlet so I jumped in and wrote whatever was on my heart that day.  I needed to be able to express the torrent of thoughts that bombarded me daily: the questions, the memories, the insecurities, the inconsistencies, the anger, sadness and confusion as well as the doubts, the lessons, the insights, the epiphanies and the other boggy, mud-covered steps I’ve taken through this process.  But eventually something would have to change.  Either there is growth and progress as I healed in which case it would eventually just ride off into the sunset or it would have to morph into something completely different but you cannot just keep going with a continuous rant about the same old stuff.  And I am certainly not healed and the journey has not ended. Not by any stretch of the imagination but instead it seems to be going in a circle and I really don’t know how much can you write about a journey where the scenery never changes?  

This has been on my heart for several weeks and I actually took the blog down from public view for a week or so.  I had a little feedback from people closest to me asking what happened or blaming themselves and so I put it back up but I suspected even as I did that – that it probably wasn’t for long.  I didn’t want to take it down again without at least letting everyone know what was going on.  I owe you that. 

It is beginning to sound like I am in a phone system loop.  Push one if you would like to hear about my unabated anger, Push two if you want to hear about my latest crying fit, push three if you would like to hear about about my faltering faith, push four if you’d like to repeat this menu…

Better instead of bitter - that's what I'm shooting for and in checking my inner feelings against those of others that have experienced profound loss I do see a few things that I feel that are different from a lot of them.  I am not now nor have I ever been angry at Brian.  I do not see other people that still have their sons or grandchildren and feel jealousy or anger at them and wonder “Why my son and not yours?” That has truly never crossed my mind.  I would not want any human being to suffer this loss. And I can look at it and say instead "Why not mine?" I'm nobody special.

I can see people enjoy their small children or grandchildren and it does not bother me or make me sad. What does bother me however is a child crying over something preventable; a parent that does not seem to appreciate the child they have or a parent doing exactly what I would have done prior to this – taking something away from their child because of rules or to make a point and making that child cry.  That will make me cry in a New York minute and I do have an almost uncontrollable urge to tell them to please just give the baby whatever it wants, just let it be happy and love it while you can.  You could be sitting where I’m sitting.

So here is a progress report – I am functioning. Better.  I laugh but I also still cry – randomly and without warning. I am able to shop and pass the toy department and baby department without the trip ending in a puddle of tears and me running out of the store.  They are still the first thing on my mind when I wake up and the last thing on my mind before I go to sleep when I can sleep but there are more times in between that I don’t dwell on them obsessively. Strangely enough, it is getting more difficult to look at their pictures and videos??? I don't get that.  I still have most of their stuff in my building.  "Most" being the key word here.  I still have Brian’s Pepsi in my fridge and Paxton’s booster seat is still attached to my dining room chair and I am still breaking my nails on child safety latches on my kitchen cabinets.

I am beginning to go out in social situations although still few and far between.  I still prefer to be with family or close friends on a one on one basis.  I still have problems with crowds or large social functions.  But I am pushing myself.  I have tickets to a Mercy Me concert next week with my daughter, one of my two best friends and her sister.  It will be a crowd.  It is a social situation and it is not one on one or just family so that’s a baby step. 

I am planning to have Thanksgiving Dinner this year on Thanksgiving Day and try slowly to stop “pretending” (sneaky denial.)  I am still not planning to celebrate Christmas – I’m just not ready for that and I don’t have a “new normal” version to work with yet.  But again, it’s a start. 

My faith – here, we are still on shaky ground.  I’ve done everything I know to do to hold it together. One corner falls down and I run get a book or two and put under it.  It holds it for a little while and then the other side begins to lean – I go grab some Christian music and a few podcasts from Charles Stanley and carefully prop it up on that side.  We’re good for a week or two and the other side starts crumbling again.  I borrow some faith from my sister to use to fill the cracks, nail another sermon from church to that side and grab a chapter or two from the bible and glue them along the sides.  And I’ve managed to hold it together long enough to go search for more material. It is not a plumb, square or sound structure. And it is just as shabby as it sounds and I hate that but I’m doing all I know to do.  Truthfully, some days I want to take a bulldozer and just mow down what’s left of it and push the whole mess off a cliff.  And actually that may be what it takes. Maybe I will have to let God rebuild it from the ground up because my shoddy patch job trying to put it back together with the scraps I’ve got is just not working all that well.

To me, that is still the scariest part; the saddest part and believe it or not, the worst part of all of this. 

And how much longer I will keep the blog going is still up in the air but for what it’s worth that is where we are today.