NEXT....

Well that was quite a wave I rode and I am finally at the other side of it I think. I suppose those idiot grief books have some wisdom to them although I must say, I do not agree with their timelines at all. I don’t want to wait so many years per year I was married to get over this. I want it all behind me now and I think I am doing great at it (today at least). I am dealing in spurts, as new experiences come up, I hit them head on, then I fall flat on my bottom dazed and confused yes birds floating about my head just like in the cartoons, but at least I am still conscious. TKO is the way to go, you look like you still are in the present but really you are in another world LA LA Land where the past is present and the present is present and it is hard pry them apart. It is where you see present circumstances but with distant eyes filled with what ifs and suppositions. Suppose Steve was still here how would things be? What if he was still alive and this was all a dream? Stupid ideas, I know, but it is all part of my brain, parceling out what I can handle in small amounts I guess.

I have just passed another big series of firsts and reality checks and am moving through the Game of Life yet again. Some days I feel like I am just a player on the board but other days I feel like the one playing the game.  I recently connected with an old friend from high school whom I hadn't seen since high school until I attended the funeral of her husband a few short months after moving back home. I offered her my shoulder and it wasn't until just recently when I needed her and she needed me that we saw each other again and decided we needed to form our own support group. It was so nice talking with her and spending time with someone who shares my heart. Most people only can offer a sympathetic ear or heartfelt hug, but we speak the same spoken and unspoken language and I perfectly understand her and the pain. It is such a God event in my life because one of my closest friends became my friend after she moved back home to Selma. I never knew her before, but we became connected through a mutual friend and we became fast friends. She had lost her husband only a few short months before I met her and although I felt her pain then I could never fully connect with her pain like I can now it is almost a different language because most of it is just a silent inner knowing. I bless God for giving her to me then because there are pains we can share with each other that are hard to share with others. So now I am now able to be that person in my high school friends’ life and I now have a Slidell connection and the widow circle grows. I am so glad God knows how to play it forward He goes before us to help us before we know we need it. I am so glad to have someone local to speak to since I have had to leave Selma to come back home. He knows.

I am amazed at how interconnected we are as the body of Christ and how complicated life is but I don’t have to worry so much about the details, God seems to go before me to work those out. For so many years I fought with Him about this, but now it is just easier on me to let Him work it out. I will always be obstinate and have my bullish moments, but He always wins. I sometimes wonder if I have given up on my own life and am just flowing along in denial and then I do something stupid and realize I am still in the struggle for control. My flesh just won’t die like I want it to and that is when I mourn the most and it is when I start to focus on my misery (yes I will say self pity) again, that is when I get new revelation to get out and focus on someone else. I am there again, anyone need help??? I am so available right now.

Anyway, I am confessing to myself with all two of you as my witnesses that I really am still mourning, but I can no longer allow it to consume my identity. I am not ready for a relationship, but I am ready to move on. Yes I know you have heard it, but it is like in church when you hear a reading over and over and you only get it when revelation hits you. Then it is like brand new to you? Well this is my recent revelation I don’t care what you think of me, I don’t care what I think of me, I am moving on physically and spiritually and my emotions will just have to play catch up. Sometimes they get in my way, but really I need to move to the next level because I am so bored with this one that I am no longer learning. It is another season. NEXT….

Chocolate, Peanut Butter, Sunflowers

You know Chocolate is my first true love when I am not at my best but I will tell you my next sinful comfort food is a big hunk of chunky peanut butter on a spoon affectionately called my Peanut Butter Spoon. Both Chocolate and Peanut butter go great together we all know that, but did you know they taste pretty good with a cold beer? Ha I bet you think I have gone to the dark side, no, it just surprised me how well they went together.

Now back to the main reason for my blogging today. I have a birthday coming up, and I have nothing special planned and really don’t care whether I do something or not. I am back to being numb again. Nothing seems to taste good, feel good or look good to me. Is it depression nagging me again? You bet it is, but I will deal again as I usually do. I mean no offense to my very married family, but I am used to being in a married state whether hanging with family or not. It never bothered me until now when I am feeling so alone again. My mind is adapting to being single and all that encompasses and I’m really bored, lonely and not ready for this. I am still fighting anger. I want to rage and hit something again so really I am not good company even for myself. However in the midst of all of this blah I planted sunflowers at various places throughout our yard. I don’t remember where I planted any of them; I just want to be surprised when they sprout up. I am fighting darkness with light the most fun way I know how. Sunflowers are my favorite flowers and I am waiting for my army to grow. I hope they grow quick and tall. I chose to plant the biggest ones I know the Mammoth’s I had grown once before. I need tall flowers because they will be much bigger than any of those small shadows chasing me.

I guess it was inevitable that as I tested the new waters of keeping company that I would be reeling again. I will do what I always do to test the water, dip my toes, recoil quickly, shiver, back up, suck it lots of air to nearly hyperventilate then I jump in. There is minimal pain in the recoil, mostly fear, but jumping requires overcoming the fear of the icy water and feeling the shock again of hitting that icy water after I jump in.  There are days when I want to feel pain, yes to feel anything is good.  I am also being bombarded by all those negative thoughts again, not that I will act on any of them. I am really becoming very empathetic towards people who succumb to these awful nagging voices in my head.

I am blogging it all out on paper and in public, but by tomorrow I will probably be ok again or maybe not until the day after. The shadows of darkness and depression buzz constantly throughout my brain but I don’t really see them until I slow down.  This depression is just something I have started to learn to live with over the last 18 months. I pray it doesn’t get bigger and am praying and trusting God will keep it from me. But just so others you all may know, I know God loves me, but it still doesn’t stop those voices. The big voice within me does only if I stop entertaining them. The fascination in picking a wound to feel the pain brings my back to childhood. I picked my scabs to see if my sore was healing but picking the scab made it hurt worse. Finally you stop the picking and reach for the antibiotic cream. I never said I was a very smart kid, very curious and didn’t like surprises.

So  right now, I am waiting for my sunflowers to shoot up and grow and keeping company with my chocolate and peanut butter. I am waiting for my joy to burst forth once again and what makes me ahead of the game is that I know it will happen again. The sun always burns the clouds away because it can’t always be rainy. But with all the rain those flowers will bloom and grow tall and this will bring my joy again. Once again I repeat my mantra that which doesn’t kill me makes me strong.

Stormy Weather

There are days you just feel stupid, alone and just plain naive. I thought naming something meant what I meant it to be and not anything deeper, but it didn't happen that way. I got tangled in my own miscommunication with my gentleman friend whom I was keeping company with. Yes that is what I called it but as it goes that was not the case. Things didn't go the way I had hoped and emotions got in the way and we have now parted ways. Hopefully we will remain friends, but I am too much of a hot mess to be able to be trying to have a relationship deeper than friendship right now. Heck I missed so many signals and I hurt him pretty bad and for that reason, I need to be alone. In my search for companionship I end up alone again. Funny thing is, I thought one way and he thought another. Heck it was so easy with Steve because he knew what I was thinking before I even knew and the same goes the other way. We knew each other and it was easier.
Back to the couch for me. I enjoyed the experience of getting out, getting to know someone and experiencing more firsts in my new life. It was an old, new experience. I am finding it harder to be upbeat these days though I get so down on myself for missing things I should know or learning new tricks or meeting new people even. I go to work, keep my head down and hope for the best. I am blessed to have my job and blessed to have my family to keep me busy because I am scared to admit this but I can see how a person could get so depressed and find other pursuits to dull the pain. I say this as I drink a beer alone and blog about my life today. How cliche is that.
I say pain, well it is probably more like a bad ache now, it is not as acute as at first, I live with it. There are days like when the weather in my life turns bad where the pain flares up and throbs and aches so deeply within and I can't really pin point a place of origin. The place of origin though is my heart so why does it feel as though my whole body aches. It sneaks up on you and you just never know how hard it will throb or for how long. Once the weather passes it abates, but never really goes away. I wonder if it ever does? It is just below the surface waiting to attack when I seem to be moving on. I guess I am in a stormy weather pattern right now looking for a sunny day again.
Does anyone out there in Blogville know if pain ever goes away for good? I know it will when I die (Yes I have had the thought a time or two), but is that the only way to kill the pain? If it is I guess I will have to live with it.I wish my kids lived closer to me, you would think spending time with them all looking so much like Steve that the pain you would be harder to deal with but actually it is comforting to be around them. We created a beautiful family together and their joy lifts my spirits so much.
 Right now I feel as though I am walking in a bubble again. I started to feel somethings not normal for me, and got scared so I am processing those feelings to discern if I am OK. I won't blog them out because they are personal, but they do have to do with the big Dating word I was so frightened of. I think I almost dated and got scared. A friend flat out told me I was dating and I really couldn't handle that. It made me feel so ashamed and unfaithful. I am positive when I say I am not ready, but I am closer than I was a few months ago, so that is progress. And I have my gentleman friend to thank for being so kind and patient. I hate that my craziness may have hurt him even though I gave him fair warning, it still feels bad.
So I am spinning my wheels again, same situation, learning slowly, going in and out of waves. Learning about being alone again and trying to find the benefits of it. God is still in control even though I am now trying to take the reigns again, I found out that is not a smart idea. Drive on Lord, where we going now. Steer me free of the stormy weather and into the sunny days again.