It's bad

 I haven't felt this in many years.  I feel hollow, empty.  I just want a hug, a real tight hug.  I feel like people think I'm not a hugger, but I really am.  I'm drowning, a shower didn't help.  Usually water, I know with the waves and drowning analogy it seems counter intuitive, but alas the shower did not help.  I've had a few realizations, my Dad died two weeks to the day after my birthday.  I discovered that at work, calling patients to remind them to pick up their meds.  My Gram died the day before my birthday and my Dad died the day after her birthday.  So fuckin weird how dates have such a hold on my brain.  This year would have been our 25th.  That has been weighing on me as well.  I can't seem to get out of this funk.  Distraction of work does the trick for some of the time, but now I'm just burnt out.  I've worked the last 10 consecutive days, not easy stuff either, extremely stressful.  I've worked over 50 hours a week the last four weeks.  

One relationship ended and another came back.  The timing was so weird, I wasn't ready.  I didn't have time to process the end of the first.  I think it was less than a week.  I said I just wanted friendship, but I'm too much of a people pleaser and gave in.  I didn't have time.  That ending was not as difficult as ours.  I still needed time to process and get over it.  Probably a couple of months, not a few days.  With you it took me years, then all of a sudden boom.  

I want to share what's in my brain right now with you, but I feel like it'll be too much.  I don't give you enough support or maybe I do and I just don't know it, that sounds conceited. It makes me think back to all those years when J asked me why I feel guilty asking for help, I needed more help than you did.  Maybe the situation is the same now, I'm struggling so bad because I've had so much loss.  I really want this emptiness to go away.  I want to feel comforted in someone's embrace.  I want to be able to cry without worrying about hurting feelings of the person that's there.  

It's not fair, I know that.  I really want you to help me, but I can't ask.  When people say let me know what I can do to help, that puts the burden of the person needing help.  They have to ask for it, I don't know what I need for help, I don't want to be a bother.  If people want to help they just do it with no expectation of being paid back or expectation of praise, just do it for the sake of helping the other person.  I don't know my mind is just going.  

Maybe the action of my fingers hitting the keys and me releasing some of this has helped.  I still need a hug and feel like I'm being swallowed by the hollow in my chest, but I can breathe a little better now. 

take care, 

Solo

 Traveling solo especially abroad, has allowed me to relax.  It feels like I’m on retreat without the structure.  Gives me the chance to reflect & be with my thoughts & not have to worry about the immediate needs of others, a concept extremely foreign to me.  Granted it’s been one day, but it’s been a glorious day & I’m ready to start day 2.  Modern technology allows me to keep in contact with my best girl.  She & I have been close, but since her graduation, actually since completion of her 1st year of college there’s been a shift.  I’m still her Mom, but she’s doing all these things on her own & it makes my heart swell.  It’s like I’m watching the fruits of my labor just blossom,  

So far this trip has truly shown me being on my own is not only “not a bad thing” but it can be a good thing.  Don’t get me wrong I would have loved to travel & share all this with R, but alas that whole death did us part got in the way. I’m at a point in my journey where I see couples enjoying each other & it doesn’t hurt as bad as it did before the wave doesn’t drown me, it’s a mild lilt of water over my feet & hugs my ankles. The desire to be a wife again is no longer there.  Don’t get me wrong I still desire companionship & relationship with a deep connection to share things, to laugh, to solve all the worlds problems one minute & the next moment come up with a silly song.  

take care, 

My ocean

 What I've learned about my grief and maybe I use this analogy because I grew up on the west coast and the beach was a place I found joy and peace and excitement.  The ocean is magnificent and powerful and not predictable, at least not predictable to me.  I describe my grief as the ocean.  I always start on the shore.  There can be horrible storms and the storms pull me out to the sea.  In the early days I wanted to be pulled out never to be returned to the shore.  I'm trapped in the waves just barely surviving and just barely able to do a dog paddle to keep my head above the crashing waves.  There can be storms not so horrible, I'm still pulled out to sea and I can catch my breath a little easier in between waves.  At the end of the storm I'm always brought back to the shore.  There are times the waves just come in and reach my knees or just my ankles and sometimes the waves are so small they tickle my fee and I laugh and giggle.  There are other days I ride the waves and enjoy them like surfers, the waves bring me on a fun trip and it's thrilling.  

Early in my journey before I met you I was pulled out to sea for days, weeks at a time, it was the horrible storms where I was drowning.  I did not want to  come back to shore I wanted to perish and never return.  What kept me dog paddling and gasping for air was C.  She was on the shore and she was also caught in the horrid waves at times.  I needed to be her buoy.  When she was drowning I would do my best to bring her up to the surface and as a drowning person will do with an untrained swimmer I got pushed down into the wave trying to keep both our heads above water. 

 When I met you I was still caught in storms, sometimes it was the horrid ugly storms other times it wasn't so bad I was just drifting out there waiting to get back to shore.  Eventually I got use to the tides and learned to navigate them better.  There are more days now that my toes are tickled and I'm giggling or I'm out riding the waves like the best surfer ever.  There are still storms out there that pull me out to sea, but they don't last as long and they are very rare.  Sometimes I'll be standing on the shore, my feet in the sand and this huge wave crashes over me, but I'm not dragged out to sea, I'm not struggling.  I'm just drenched and the wave is gone as quick as it came.  This ocean will always be in my life.  I would like it if you were on the shore giggling when the waves tickle, waiting for me on the sand when I get pulled out to sea or having a towel ready for me when I'm drenched with an unexpected wave on the sand and being my biggest cheerleader as I ride the wave in style back to shore.  I hope that makes sense. 

Library book

Fate, really I don't know about that, I'm not a subscriber.  Though I didn't toss it, I was real close to tossing it, but I didn't.  Am I crazy for even entertaining the idea.   It's been a little over 3 years.  Timing is so weird.  

I wasn't heart broken, just wasn't a good fit for me, I don't know I'm pretty tired, drained.  Lots of energy expended today.  It's so easy.  I'm all over the place and so non-coherent.  There wasn't even time, though not sure what that would look like.  I still remember the parking lot promise, I think you  may have forgotten.  Different phase of my  life.  No longer daughter.  I'll always and forever be Mom, but a different capacity.  I have more confidence, I think.  Life is good, I think I'll just go with that for now.  

take care, 

Dear Mom

 Dear Mom 

What's it like these last 15 almost 16 years?  Gram was there to greet you, what does she look like now?   What about you?  How are things going with Dad?  Is it weird to see him after all this time.  Is time even a thing there?  I miss the fact that we can't laugh and joke about things, especially now.  There are so many moments I have with my daughter that I know you experienced or at least I think you did.  I remember you telling me I was so funny and I have those same thoughts with my daughter now.  I realize now, like at this very moment that you were a person too.  I know that sounds so dumb, but I had that realization when I wrote the second eulogy for Dad's funeral.  You had dreams, fears, excitement, disappointment, grief.  Thank you for being my Mom.  I know you loved me because now I'm a mother, I'm your daughter and saw how you loved me and learned from both you and Gram.  I wonder what you would think of your granddaughters.  Yes plural, one with your namesake.  I know what it's like to have your daughter go off to school now like you did so long ago.  Mine is so much younger than I was when I left home.  Mine is also so much closer to home than yours nearly 28 years ago now.  I was home longer with you, mine has spread her wings at a younger age.  Circumstances are different, but the launching is the same.  I know you felt alone after both of your kids left the same summer.  In your home there were two others to share meals, share words, and share space.  It was not a silent home, much quieter I'm sure.  

What are your thoughts?  I guess I'm still looking for your approval, wondering if I'm doing ok in your eyes.  How's R?  Did you greet him, you finally met his Mom I guess.  How'd that go?  I can't even imagine you and L in the same room together.  What about AS?  I know you met here, during times of celebration.  I don't know what else to say Mom, you've been gone so long, I still miss you, miss that cackle of yours and getting us both going and Gram would joke about how many eggs we would lay.  I have those type of inside jokes with C, memories I hope she will think back on with fondness some day.  

I know I do things differently than you did, I know you loved me the best you could and I hope you know I love you and still think about you all the time.  

take care, 

Kites on the Ice

 I'm sitting here in the coffee room, great name by the way, drinking a hot white chocolate something and looking out onto a frozen lake in Buffalo Minnesota.  There are lots and lots of cars out there, daring mother nature, well at least in my mind that is not familiar with the practice of driving on frozen lakes.  Pictures of the nasty sister falling through the ice from "Little Women" come to my mind.  The room is quiet and dark, just the natural light coming in from the window overlooking the lake.  Ice houses, families, dogs all having a wonderful time.  There was a kite festival earlier today so cool to see this community enjoying their Saturday February 14th, Valentine's day.  I have found more books of poetry to peruse and use as a spring board to contemplate and reflect.  I need to do this more often. 

I truly wonder what you would be like now my love.  I'm sure you would still be the avid reader, what discussions would we have these days.  I think I would be a different person at this moment, I may not even be at this retreat and learning to be a befriender if you were still on this earth.  I like the way my life is right now, it's not better than before it's just what my life is these days.  I remember you saying home is where ever I was.  I learned from a woman today who's husband passed away, all though I think she may have been divorced when he passed, I'm not sure.  Not all marriages are good and fulfilling.  I know I sound so Pollyanna, but you were all I ever knew.  You asked me to grow old with you every day, and now I am here growing old without you.  I'm not in the same place I was years ago when I made my silent retreat here, I've grown even since then.  I'm proud of who I am and what I'm doing, I don't want to blow my own horn, but I'm being honest, not boastful.  

I love you handsome man so very much, I often think what our lives would be like.  Would our daughter be on the same path as she is now? Would she be at the same school? Would she choose the same course of study? So many questions, questions that really don't matter, the answers are pointless, but fun to think about sometimes.  I do miss your daily humor in my life.  I miss the jovial, the "dad" jokes, the puns.  I guess I really miss my own Dad for the same reasons.  I must sign off for now my love.  

take care, 

 

The Starry Night 1889

What laughter booms across the night sky

from the bellies of heavenly beings? Few hear it,

but sometimes the breath of heaven curls like a bard's beard

and what has only twinkled begins to beat and throb. 

Behind it all a drumbeat calls over the mountains. 

The villagers think it's thunder, those who are not asleep. 

Only a few remain awake to see the starry, starry night

and witness what they can barely imagine how to tell. 

Some nights the roar breaks the silence.  One was there

when it happened, and saw, and tried to tell the secret,

and died young.  How much of life he gave for this

we cannot know.  We know only that something precious

as nard was poured out at the foot of these hills, 

the blue, the yellow bought with solitary tears. 

From The Color of Light Poems on Van Gogh's Late Paintings

Marilyn Chandler McEntyre

Not sure why this poem stuck out to me, but it did.  Maybe something about the laughter from bellies of heavenly beings.  I will leave this here.  

take care