Tag: joy

Life’s Laundry Pile

As I sit here folding laundry it occurred to me that that life is like laundry… Sometimes its clean, sometimes its dirty and sometimes its in chaos.  It could be folded neatly, hung beautifully like in the all pictures dedicated to organizing a closet.  Or it can be in heaping piles hiding away in the closet, dirty and stained.  Our Laundry life paints a pretty good picture of our own internal battles that we struggle with every day.

I love how one minute every piece of clothing can be sorted, hung, organized neatly put away and in the fleeting next moment the clothes are all over the floor drooping out the basket. Piles on the top of the washer and drier.  Piles in the closet.   My daughters socks are in ever corner of the house and between every cushion of the couch.  To add to it she can never seem to find the laundry baskets, or the washing machine. Her dirties end up all over the floor in every room of the house, shirt over there, underwear attached to pants over there and if we are lucky, her underpants might make it to the washer, most of the time if I don’t get them picked up in time, my chocolate lab finds them delicious and eats them.  Yes he has a fetish.

My baby’s dirty clothes end up on top of my clean shirt that laid down to hang up but I got side tracked and now the wet soiled clothes have literately  pooped on my favorite clean shirt.  My husband washes his daily because of work, but not before they end up on the side of the bed not making it to the hamper in the least.  But he washes them.  My teenager…I should not get started here.  Everyone knows how that goes.  My teenager has more clothes than my daughters, my husbands and mine; it seems his clothes spend more time on the floor of his bathroom.  The clean ones spend even more time unfolded,  slung across the floor with no hope of ever finding their way to a drawer or a hanger.   I have two other children that do however manage to get their dirty clothes in their baskets with pride every time and they still have matching pairs of socks.  There is a glimmer of hope.   I just looked in my closet (the whole reason I am writing this post) and thought to myself… I have not seen a pile that high in ten years  (single life habits).  I went way back on this one!  I am still shaking my head.

I have a sign hanging above my laundry room entrance: LAUNDRY: Sorting out life one load at a time.  Lord have mercy there is more wisdom in this one saying then I ever thought possible.  Here I am sitting at the kitchen table, my pile of clean laundry dumped on the table, catching up and it hits me that life like laundry.  Its clean one minute, dirty the next, and we spend so much time washing, drying, hanging, folding putting it away all for it to get dirty again.  It just like life, some times we get so backed up that we feel overwhelmed, sometimes we are so good at just doing it everyday (god bless those people)  that it makes you shine as bright as the sun, and some of us can never find the joy in the clean clothes because we know the impending doom of whats to come anyway.

Every day is a delicate balance.  The dirty piles equal being overwhelmed, the clean neat piles are equal to happiness.  The urgency to get caught up is where the balance tips between clean and dirty.  The balance is in the “follow through.”  We tend to get so caught up in the ‘tackling’ that we forget to try and balance it out with a simple easy mantra to follow… “a load a day keeps the lorazepam away”… of course there always that fleeting moment when you want to toss it all out the back door pour gasoline on it and light that shit on fire.  Sometimes facing it “tackling” it, is just what we have to do with life.  One load, one problem at a time.  We have to tackle the hard stuff when its coming at us full force and other time times we make the field goal with ease.  No matter what we have to do it every day.  We have to face the world every day.

The struggle between doing it and facing it are harder for some than others.  We have to find balance in our lives knowing that we will be facing the laundry piles every day whether we want to or not.  The sunrises and the sun sets.  The Sun is shining above the clouds… I just heard that recently and its so true.  Just because it seems grey during the day, that bright warm star is still there.  So as my daunting task of laundry presses on, as it will everyday that I wear clothes to be washed, I will too.  I will wash, I will fold, I will hang the clothes.  I will do it on days I don’t fell like doing it.  I will ask for help in doing it.  I will try not to be so damn miserable doing it.  I will FINISH one load at time, and continue on to the next!  Just hang in there laundry doers!

If I win the lottery I will hire someone full time to service my laundry.  End of story.

 

We just have to believe that the “universe is unfolding as it should.”

Back in my twenties I was working in a family restaurant and waiting on couple young gentleman when they asked if they could read my palm.  Since I didn’t have to pay for the service I gave my okay.  When they finished they were starry eyed.  They explained how the lines worked and what one palm would reveal versus the other.  They pointed out some self truths that I was already aware of like my struggle between the religious obligation and my spiritual obligations.  But the most fascinating thing that my hand revealed was that I would have a child, a very special child i would give birth to at the age of 35.  Now to give you some perspective that was roughly 13 years ago( children were not on my radar).  But what struck me the most is what they said, ” this child is going to serve a purpose in your life and be the most special child.

The winter time blues have a funny way of making you think about your life making you stop and think about what is important.  After Mary died it has been a roller coaster of emotions that seem to go in cycles.  I imagine my life is the earth and my emotions are the winds and they dictate all of my emotions in storm form, some stuff is seasonal, it goes with the season, then some of it comes out of nowhere like a blizzard or twister.

That’s the stuff that gets me.  That’s the stuff that turns left when I anticipated right.  I have had to learn how to be a stronger person without my person with whom I talked to about everything in my life.  I have had to go on in this world with the currents and temperature fluctuations without her here.  Its like reinventing yourself at every turn, at every wind storm, at every rain fall, every snow storm, every hard freeze, every hard thaw and new spring blooms.  As my tears have fallen less,  my perspective on life has  grown deeper.  As I dig through her collections of treasures that meant something to her they really don’t mean anything to me but somehow there is a desire to hang on too it.  A desire to touch the hand writing or read the letters, or laugh out loud at funny things.  Sometimes its like those are the last things I have left in this world to talk too and only because they belonged to her.

I find that in times under pressure, the sadness and anger are stronger than ever, and when there is less pressure in my atmosphere I am lighter, airy and more forgiving.  I find that at every new sunrise I am in for a long day to look forward too and then at sunset I wonder about day I left behind.  I am sad most days but have had the courage to accept it and keep flowing to the seas.  Keep moving forward.  She would not want the sadness to keep me from following my dreams.  She would not want the sadness that she held on too to follow me every where I went.

Earlier I told you story to start this blog, Why did I tell this story you ask, well as some of you may know that in the last 10 years I have been Married, inherited two children from my husbands first marriage and then we had two of our own five years before I was 35.  In the fall when I was 34 I had gotten pregnant and I want you to know it sure was surprising .  I was done, on my way to raising our 4 children.  Not a 5th!!!!

God had a different plan, my palm became a prophecy. I was scared.  Some divine force was preparing me for something I had no idea was coming.  I can remember confiding in Mary that I was scared that I would lose all my other family in some accident and this baby and I would be it.  I thought the worst scenarios because of what was seen in my palm. I was actually  going to have a baby  at 35 and my palm reading was coming true.  I was a wreck for months.  At my baby shower I had everyone write something about me to my baby so for whatever reason something happened to me he would know me.  I told Mary all of these things and she never let me get to wrapped up in them for very long.  She said, “what will be, will be.”

When I gave birth to my new son, I was thirty five and not dead.  My family not dead, and the worst was over….I thought for sure I was in the clear.  I literally stopped thinking about the palm reading and went on with it.  My day to day.  My little tribe of five.  Mary even went on a road trip with us and I was so mad at her the whole time.  She was not well.  She was dying then.  I was so so mad at her.  I was mad at everyone (turns out Postpartum takes many forms).  Anyway looking back, we had some really great times, great laughs and all the kids got spend time with her doing the games she liked to play and being on the road with all of us.  I am glad she came.   I am not mad about that anymore.

On Oct. 10th she passed away.  She had had an Aortic aneurysm that started leaking and with in 24 hours it fully ruptured.  There was no coming back.  They did everything they could but her little weak, sick body could not recover.  On my drive back from the hospital in my silence I thought about the night ten years before… The baby that was going to be special, going to serve a purpose in my life, came to pass. My little man keeps me laughing when I cry, he keeps me cussing when he is into everything and he gives me the biggest best hugs a mama could have and he calls me me mama, wants his mama and is the biggest mama’s boy ever!  Sometimes life gives you the things you never saw coming, or doubted, because he needs you to be strong, courageous, and to end chapters in your life so that you can move on to the next chapter.

Every day I tell that little baby how special he is.  Because he is special and God knew that to overcome my sadness one day at a time, I would always have the light to move forward.  I would always have this little mischievous child that makes me laugh.  He makes my world go around.  He makes the storms pass,  keeps the wind blowing, and the currents flowing as they should.  We just have to believe that the “universe is unfolding as it should.”

Today I cave…

I don’t know what the hell happened but I woke up today mad as fire.  I cannot even remember dreaming about anything.   WTF?  I was angry.  Angry that I had to get up??? Angry at life??? Did I take my meds last night??? Yes.  But Angry was I.

I woke up to a dog in my face, (okay with that, that doesn’t happen a lot) but then the baby starts to scream at me.  Demanding a bottle as usual.  I am trying to tell him it is going to be okay but then he just gets louder I turn to look at my husband and he is asleep.  I still cannot figure that out, how he seems to sleep when the baby is screaming.  Sometimes I don’t hear him and my husband wakes up;  still I wonder how do they not hear the baby most times?  They other thought in all this early morning chaos developing is how come they don’t hear my alarm but not thier own?

I get up. Grab the baby. Find the bottle. lost the damn Binky again.  I hate that thing.  I spend more nights trying to find that damn thing than actually sleeping.  Any way as soon as I stand he smiles (momentary happiness on both are parts).  I scoop him up and go to the kitchen. I do not even know if I said good morning to the kids.  My wake up was so foggy.  All I know I was pissed.  Sponge Bob was on, my daughters alarm clock is blaring country music (not my cup of tea these days) and she is still sleeping.  She must take after her dad (doesn’t hear her own alarm). I get the stuff to make a bottle and little man is finally not crying. He then starts to talk.  From talking to me starts yelling again as soon as he sees the warm milk come out of the microwave as if I need to move faster!  Yes I have fallen to the microwave to heat the damn milk up… get over it now.   Get him back in to the bed with the bottle so that I can move on to the kids that need to get on bus in 25 minutes.

I walk right into the crib trying to get into the bath room (we have to push it out of the way at night because if I keep it where it is the baby has discovered the joys of light switches and turns them on and off in the middle of the night).  I push that shit out of the way and make it to the closet.  OMG.  The damn closet is a mess (its not a surprise but some how it fuels my anger).  My pile, the kids pile with my clothes too.  I grab pants, a shirt and socks.  No underwear!    I take my daugher her clothes with a miracle matching pair of socks and head to the living room.  Okay she is eating,  My son  is eating and baby temporarily happy. Check.   Underwear. Not Check.   Laundry room here I come.

Are you F**KING KIDDING ME!!!!! The dog just ate a second pair of underwear out of the dirty laundry basket for a second day in a row.  My daughters no less!!!! No wonder I cannot find any underwear.  The damn dog eats it!  I shuffle through the dryer and have no luck.  I go back to the closet and say a quiet “please God” prayer to help me find some underwear.  I open the drawer back up and there they are.  Say “thank you” prayer to God.  I needed those underwear.  Did I forget to mention I went through three laundry baskets full of clothes that have not made it to their destinations in three weeks?  Anyway yell at the kids that they have 10 minutes and socks and shoes and clothes are not on yet.  I go make the lunches and now that I think about it, I missed brushing my daughters hair.  I was about to then the Bus shows up at the driveway not even a drive by….missed that.  OMG i”m still mad.  I cannot seem to get my act together.

I grab the baby put him in the pack and play turn on Sesame’s Street.  And give him a toy car he shouldn’t have.  I walk to the fridge and open it up. pretty empty fridge. still frustrated that just two weeks ago we had to  unplugged it to thaw out ( another trial and tribulation not for today’s session).  I see the single solitary coca cola can in the fridge.  I cave.  Grab it, crack it open and gulp it down.  The sugary, carbonated joy goes down my throat.  I take a deep sigh and the tears roll down my face.  In this moment there is joy and a little guilty pleasure.  I have not had a coke for breakfast in years.  But damn that Coke was good.  Grab eggs, toast, and make breakfast for the little guy and I.

Somewhere in the middle of everything my husband did get up and saw that I was not a happy girl.  I told him I was angry and I have no idea where it came from and that I was raging.  He said to keep my head up and gave me a big hug.  I did feel better with the hug, but it didn’t change the fits of rage I was feeling all morning.  I think I did everything from count down from 5 and breath even cry.  But sometimes you just cave.  Surrender to the anger.

Good news is I sat down with my guilty pleasure, a coke my eggs and toast that the baby and I had to eat shortly after my husband left.   The baby was content to eat his toast and toss the eggs to the dogs.  I changed the channel and put on Kelly and Ryan.   Not a big fan of this show but some where between John Stamos pictures and a new talk show idea it made me laugh out loud.  Finally, a laugh came out loud. I think the baby even laughed.  I sat and drank my coke from the can and laughed at that them laughing.   The anger that had been with me all morning had subsided.  I looked around the house and felt the “to-do list” getting bigger, but it was okay.

I caved today to anger and that feeling.  I think its important to express when your upset even if you cannot pin point it.  And maybe that is just it…  You don’t have to have anything specific to set you off.  I guess its how you deal with the anger that matters.  I drank a coke and ate eggs and toast while watching five minutes of a funny show.  Sometimes it’s a pumpkin spice doughnut.  Sometimes it’s getting your nails done with a friend. Sometimes it’s your husband just giving you a hug. Giving you the love you needed. The kind of love that you need in your moments of rage.  Just take what you can get and cave . Anyway I digress.  To work I go.  Happy Thursday!

The Final Stage of Grief

So for many of you that have been following my journey with the loss of my step mother Mary, I had to go to the Island today.  For those of you that follow me but do not know me, that is my home away from home.  I have been visiting almost my whole life, Whiskey Island, located in the 1000 Islands on the Saint Lawrence River.

I knew at some point I was going to have to go the island.  I have been dreading this visit for so long and in all honesty if I never stepped foot on the island again, I would be okay not doing so. Everything in the cottage is her.  Every piece of furniture, plate and doorway is her.  All the linens, the towels, the random things in random spots are her.  every painted room, every stripped room, everything about that place is her.

The warm welcoming spirit that was there is no longer there.  the island is truly solitude.  It does not smell like dinner,  like cigarettes or box wine.  The love that filled every ounce of the place has vanished.  Its just a place with a few personal items.

I have grieved the loss of her pretty hard over the last 9 months.  Since her passing  I have cried my little heart out.  But the cry that happened in this place, in the last room she was in, painting. My chest was tighter than it has ever been before in my life and my sobs were harder than they had ever experienced before and I literately thought my chest would explode, I had finally known it… heart break.

Every turn, into every room was heart breaking.  I didn’t even make it too her room.  My chest was growing tighter with each passing moment.  My dad discovered me in the that bright yellow room and all I could do was just fall into his arms and sob.  Even though I was mad at him for as long as I have been, he was still my daddy and let me cry with out judgement.

I wander back into the kitchen and turn the radio off.  I sit in silence staring at her chair at the kitchen table.  How strange it had been to sit at that the table and the smoke coming from the ash tray was no more.  Her chair sat empty.  My heart felt empty.  The kitchen conversations have ceased to exist.  Every thing that she worked hard for to make it home is now empty.  Just feels like a place that is unfamiliar.

Stuff that should be there is gone.  Stuff that once sat in the same place has been moved and its too hard to be in this space. I am frustrated because there are cob webs in spots that would never be.  There are not the usual cleaning products used to keep the spider poop away (yes they poop) and the bugs are not vacuumed from the window seals.  The little things Mary taught me to keep  care of the cottage are not used.  Not remembered as if all her reason and logic has been thrown out, not thought of.

The one person that knows best, is not accepted… “I am too sad to deal” too “distraught” too “attached”…. “Too Broken.”  Well I am not!!!! I want to scream at all these people who have moved things and I want to yell at my Dad and make him ask me about all the trinkets and where everyting came from!!!!!   I KNOW!!!!!!! SHE TOLD ME EVERYTHING!!!

I cannot see the smoke, rising from the tray, I don’t see the devotionals sitting where you sat, I don’t see you at all.  Not your smile, not your pain, not your shade of red hair that was you.  This place is now a place, a memory, a place where you once were.

Anger, sadness all of it pent up in my heart bursting every time something is not there.  Not even sodas in the fridge (no one understands).  Key kitchen utensils, gone.  Fruit bowls, gone.  Tupperware, gone.  Nice antique stoneware we never used, being used.  It was never meant to be used.  It was on the top shelf for a reason!!!! To be looked at as decoration.  ON DISPLAY!!!  Little night lights moved.  Back porch is even diffrent.  ( I couldn’t part with the old set furniture that I took it off the rock and I will restore it if it kills me).

I am here and I cannot relax, I cannot enjoy.  The love is gone.  the memories are whispers on the wind.  Even the mysticism and ghost like feelings are gone.  I take that last statement back…the north wind is blowing cold this morning and the dogs are edgy and my nerves are on the fritz.

I miss her lists everywhere and the rugs are missing in the kitchen.  I gaze out the window and my steam is rolling off my coffee cup and it trails me to the sights out side.  I see the orange Lilly’s blooming everywhere.  The trees are blowing in the wind the birds are singing with joy.

When I think back moving forward.  I will know what it has been like to have slept on an island.  Play hide and seek in the dark.  Create wild stories by taking time and playing dictionary games all night along with the bugs.  I will have know what it was like to have loved on an island, to have missed on an island. To take the best hot baths in the best tub in my favorite bathroom in the whole house.  I will have known that and exprienced that in such a way you only see in movies or read in books.

With Mary’s passing the love that resided here is gone.

It’s Just a place, just a cottage, just a kitchen, with a few chairs around a table and one chair in particular that sits empty.   I have come to know the final stage of grief.

 

***** I have combined two separate times together but the feelings remain the same.  I did end up staying at the island for a couple of days and returning to clean to help with renters.  Sweeping and scrubbing the porches was always my job and as hard as it was, that feeling in my chest did lighten and I took pride in my work and felt that Mary would be proud and that I honored her.  The only thing missing was the Ammonia we used to clean with… That shit is the only thing that cleans spider poop off walls and gets grime off the painted wood floors, just a side note.

The Kitchen Table

Yep hanging on by a thread. Laundry had piled up again, teenager has life problems, girl preteen high lows are getting to me, the middle child has middle child problems the five year old is a wild uncontrollable spirit and the baby he smiles but is just a devious as his sister. And there goes my coffee, all over the kitchen table.

I’m trying to feed the baby and he squawking as usual then the dog barks and scares the baby and myself, I get up to investigate and I spill my coffee on the kitchen table among the papers, the baby’s food and clean laundry and what ever else is on the table. I sigh, I digress, these days are days I feel like throwing in the towel. I cry for a hot minute, get mad and take a picture because I see the blog post forming in my mess.

I walk in the house a few days later and I want to cry again and then get mad because I leave for a couple of hours and when I return the house is a messier than when I left it!!! How the fuck does that happen? I’m confused.  Its as if someone snaps their fingers and poof its Harry Potter gone all wrong.  Does anyone care at all? I again want to throw in the towel and all of the sudden I’m craving a cigarette worst then ever.  In a  year and a half I have not thought about smoking not till this moment. I sit outside on the steps and pretend I’m having one, because this is what I would have done anyway.  The two other children with 4 legs now come up to me with slobber, wagging tails and practically push me off the steps, they are just like the humans in the house; they require the same attention and make a mess just as bad as the kids do.  They nudge me right off the steps and I go pick up the random things around the lawn.   I figured out where all the missing socks, girls underwear and my own under garments end up.  No wonder I’m losing my mind.

I take a deep breath count backwards from 5 to try and change my perspective.  I walk back in the house and I find myself counting backwards from 5, five more times.  I am now just trying to go hide but every where I try to hide is a mountain of chores to be done.  The laundry has piled up again, the bedroom has become a collection point and it just seems that every space is taken up by more stuff.  Baby stuff, papers, kids toys, clothes, blankets, books, random “why am I choosing to keep this” shit.  I feel as if the whole house is falling down around me like a nightmare.  I finally count back one more time and holler at the kids… “it’s time for baths!”  I scoop up the baby and get him ready for a bath.  I must press on.

As I stare at the baby and smile and look at the collection of things along my Kitchen Window sill I think of her.  At the end of the day the only person I want to talk to is gone.  She always had such perspective, she always knew what to say, even if I didn’t like what she said, yet most importantly she always had a way of making light of the situation.  She always had a story or could completely relate and eventually she would laugh at me hysterically.

So Each day I return to the Kitchen Table, with the crumbs left behind, the infinite laundry piles, the papers I cannot seem to throw away and overwhelming feelings of nostalgia for her.  I think about what it means to have the kitchen table.  It means that its standing tall and straight, its holding all the things that I cannot, it can be wiped clean after each use and it can collect our tears when they fall.  It embraces the hot cup of coffee, its the glitter catch before recitals, its the base for when we pound out our anger, and its the trampoline for all the little Legos that go flying when they hit the solid surface and spring to life off the table. It’s the step ladder to curiosity about the light above and it’s the place we all commune about the day.  Even the dogs like the table they lay under it when they are tired and stand at attention when its dinner time.

I reflect back on the kitchen table it has always been the place where she and I would talk.  It is so much more than a place to gather, it gathers everything we give it.  It is after all, the kitchen table.

Mother’s Day Melt Down

I sit down after a long day at the table with my kiddos for a Cracker Barrel treat. We hiked a gorge earlier that day so some sit down time at one of Mary’s Favorite places seemed like a good Idea in tribute for Mother’s Day. After some debacle on seating 5 plus a baby equaled 3 regular chairs a high chair and Base for the car-seat, we continued to wait until they cleaned up a table that could hold all six of us.

I get seated after getting everyone else settled and start to feed the baby because he is yelling at me to feed him, mean while he just finished an 8 ounce bottle, and was being picky about the fruit selection I had offered. The waitress came over and we took drink orders and I look up at her and say “Coffee, hot please with cream and sugar.” She smiled and took the rest of the drink orders. Meanwhile the other three are keeping themselves occupied playing games and deciding on their meal of choice when I look at my youngest daughter who is 5. Her head is down and it seems as if the world was crashing in on her. I asked her if she was alright and she wouldn’t answer me. I had to throw in the bargaining chip which was “no toy if you don’t spill your guts to me right now” in the happiest voice I could muster all the while the baby is still squawking at the top of his lungs for me.  All of the sudden huge tears poured from her eyes and she all she could say was, “ I miss Grandma.” All of the sudden the waterfall of tears was unstoppable from my own eyes. My own emotions were in check all day…not my favorite day for so many other reasons, but her pain and missing grandma, did me right in.

In the middle of Cracker Barrel, I scoop her up, and hug her while she sobbed, I sobbed along with her, the boys on the other side of the table asking if we are alright and one look they knew. My eldest daughter looked over with sorrowful eyes and saw that the baby was screaming at me (not giving him the attention anymore) she got up and came over and resumed feeding him and cooing him. I sat and looked at the table and the place and all the memories of every time we ate there, that place is only connected to me through her. We loved to shop there and have biscuits and gravy, well she did. I liked the biscuits with apple butter and jam. But the last time we ate in a Cracker Barrel with her was last summer and it had been the last time we had all eaten there together. Almost a year.

I look down at the hot coffee that has now gone cold, the half eaten baby food, and my daughters sprite, and it makes me sad, the emotion I was trying to escape all day, there it was, in my face. I had to come to grips with this reality. I avoided Facebook, Instagram, texts, and voicemail’s till later in the day because I could not accept that none of those messages would be from her. She always in the last 8 years has called me first. She always had a card ready for me, she always told me what an amazing mother I was. She loved that I had this crazy bunch of kids, a wild husband and would have loved that I took all them to a hike a gorge and see waterfalls, she would have thought that amazing and there would be no way she could have done that with all those kids.

After a good cry  there in the busy restaurant surrounded my children, my mothers day was not about gifts, breakfast, and attention, it was about love. The love she gave, the love I give and the all the love I can give and receive from all those involved in my life. I’ve said this before I have lots of woman in my life that contributes to being a mother figure for me and for my children even my own mother who is on the west coast does all that she can. It does take a village.

We both wiped the tears, and the universe seemed to come back to us, the hustle and bustle loud again and she and I in our moment, just as it should be, was a true mothers day filled with love.

I will cry for your darkness…

I sit inside my tired skin and ache from head to toe. My emotions spill out, over flowing beyond my control.  I want so bad for happiness to rain down upon us all, but without grief, the unhappy woes of this life, we cannot know the warmth of the light.  Embracing this darkness is so hard to do, hugging blindly, holding on too, the dear in you.  Blindness making our selves open up to the all the other senses we keep locked down.  Fighting every last tear, every last emotion till we hear the words that work against us.  Fighting harder everyday to ignore whats going on, that we are fighting losing battles, so as to keep our souls distracted, to not get bogged down.  I dare you to cry for all you see that makes your soul squeeze.  I dare you to open up and grieve for all you see.  I dare you to not apologize and to stop others for doing the same.  I encourage hugs, touches and smiles to help someone fight their battles and let them weep away.  You don’t need to know what to say or how to fix it, sometimes saying nothing at all and gentle touch will say it all the same.  So grieve it all out and do as you need.  Give it all the world, grieve as you would be happier in all the same.  So for all of you that are battling today, I will cry for your darkness all the tears, in all the ways I will cry and grieve for all of these in this year.

Could it be already?

Six months ago today my world changed.  Mary Died.  She died from a Aortic .  I just found out that many people believed that she died of Cancer.  I found that one hard to believe,  but then I realized that all her behavior would lead anyone to believe that.  She closed her self off from everyone dropped a ton of weight and stopped being social all together.  I am sure that store clerks had more interaction with her because all she seemed  to do in her last year on earth was to shop.  But could it be already that six months has passed?

In six months life has been the same but different.  My dad seems to be getting along alright.  He is being a total rock star and short of doing yoga is physically in the best shape of his life.  Mean while I have  donuts for breakfast and I can barley keep up with my trainer.  Anyway I digress.

My children are happy, they seemingly drive me crazy but what is love for???? It drives you crazy.  I could say I am happy and life is the bomb, but its not all explosions of colors or the rainbow I would love, I am having to put up with a whole lot of rain in order to get it…and literally we have had a lot of rain so far this month.

I think my happy pills are wearing off or not strong enough because all the things I want to do never seem to get done.  Not even one task can be accomplished as of late.  Tried so very hard to get out of town and go see my best friend to get a little R &R but that was short lived too.

I guess trying to fight for joy is becoming harder everyday.  I don’t understand it.  I am making the choices. Doing what is right, praying, living.  But the daily grind is bottomless.  Reading this book and that book seems to be useless and maybe filling my head with more junk concidering I cannot sort out the junk that’s already in it.  I look at the junk in my house and my garage and in my kids room and there it is staring me in the face as if taunting me.  The dumpster urge is still there.  Throw it all out, everything.

So what does this post have to with Mary??? everything I guess.  I cannot talk to her about any of it.  I cannot call her and ask advice on what to do about shaving my daughters arm pits, or what do do about my older skin, and should I wax my face or shave it?  Or why does going to Home Depot makes me cry when I go down the lighting aisle? Why is my period lasting more than five days?  Or when I see thistle in a shop and its not antique and I wanted to buy it for her and surprise her with it.  I cannot call her and tell her dad is acting like a teenager and help me with him!  Why now, he has decided that being older is not as cool as being younger.

I think the biggest thing is I cannot call and ask her to take the kids or her call me and offer.  Or tell her how mad I am about stupid things the men in my life do.  I cannot tell her all the special things that the baby is doing and how wicked smart he is and how I am still holding my breath with him as he makes my hair turn grey because I don’t feel ready to have a baby this smart.  How I get disappointed in my kids over the little things and she would remind me that they are kids.   Then I would get mad at her because I was looking for her to agree with me and she didn’t.  I cannot tell her how I worry if I am doing something right in regards to the kids or my husband.  I genuinely worry about all of it.

So could it be already? Its been this long, this short, this day?  Six months ago it all changed.