What is up with my biological clock? I am waking at odd hours, getting sleepy very early. This time change/grief thing is messing with my clock. I really don’t seem concerned with the time much either. I hardly look a clock right now. That is weird for me. I remember some of the stupid stuff Steve and I argued over. Early in our married life, he slept a lot. At the time I didn’t know it was a coping measure for depression. We argued about how much he slept. Here recently within the last few months, I have been staying up later and sleeping later and he would say I was in the bed too much. I always reminded him that it was I who was up with the kids early every morning to get them to school, and I got up when they were sick, etc. It seems to me that life was balancing out finally.
Since I was young, I remember just wanting to be a wife and mother when I grew up. Oh yes and once I wanted to be a forest ranger. Go figure. I had always wanted to travel so instead I joined the Navy and saw Guam and Japan, southern California and Alabama where I am now settled in. I became a wife and mother and took that job very seriously most of the time. It did not come without sacrifice. I always wanted to be available to my kids and Steve because this is what I knew I was supposed to do I wanted to do. I was a stay at home, close to the phone, ready to run errands at a moment’s notice mom/wife. Now, my kids were grown, my husband on the road I had been trying to find my new way in life. I find that discovery time now shortened.
The phone is still always by my side out of habit I guess waiting on Steve to call or one of the children. The phone was one of the many tools of my trade along with the vacuum, car, pots/pans and time. Steve and I talked through two phone batteries a day on many days since his first heart attack. I carried the phone from room to room doing everything but vacuuming while on the phone with him. We spent hours on the phone, I mostly listened because Steve was a talker and he had a lot to unload. I took pleasure in knowing he wanted to spend time with me even if it was only on the phone. I won’t deny it was annoying sometimes when I was out with my girlfriends and he wanted to talk for hours. I just couldn’t do it then, and I think he felt a sense of disconnect when we couldn’t talk. I know now that he knew he was on borrowed time.
Still, my time is busy time now. I got a text on my phone from face book showing me a message from my son. It can’t print the whole message, only small amounts at a time, and then I have to hit reply and enter the letter "n" for it to continue, so I can read more of the message. I did this about 3 times to read the whole message. As I was doing this I realized it was my life right now. I am pressing "n" on a daily basis because I truly have no idea what is coming. I am no longer a wife, I have lost that identity. I will always stay a mother, I pray, but my children are grown so I am not needed there like I used to be. So I am in a state of "n".
I find myself curious about "n" and even sometimes excited. It has been so long since I had a job I wonder what I will do. What can I do? My resume should say wife and mother since that is pretty much all I have been doing over these last 29 years. What is the "n" going to bring for me? Is my new identity mother and widow? I don’t know how to do the widow part and quite frankly I am rebelling against that term in my inner being. That was not the plan I planned for my life. I am not angry just not very accepting. Ok maybe denial, there I said it. Is that part of this process of grieving? I don’t want to be a widow. I loved being a wife and really want to be a wife to Steve. I can’t ever see being a wife to anyone else so that means accepting the widow part of my identity. I can be alone, but it gets lonely. I have my kids, but who will I call to talk about their lives on the personal level I did with Steve? I need to get a life and I just don’t know where it will be or how it will look and I don’t like pressing"n". I want to see the whole message please God. My trust in you is strong, but give me a hint please.
For everything there is a season, I am going through everything in our house right now sorting through the years we spent together. I will be selling most of the things in my house, except whatever I am keeping or the children are taking. Even some of my sentimentals will be memories now instead of tangibles I can flash on a memory while holding. How wierd is it to have an estate sale and still be living? God had told me to downsize before all of this, I guess He really meant it. It is time to leave this place and move on. My life is much smaller right now even though I still have too much of my stuff in boxes. I will downsize again probably. Lots of memory lane going on right now. Good and bad lanes, but the bad made our good much better and stronger.
So yes, it is true, you have to take the good with the bad sometimes. I hope moving back to my mom and dad’s house doesn’t strain my relationship with them. It is hard living with people, especially fighting over that thermostat level. I know they want me there to help me get back on track. I only pray I can be a blessing to them and not a burden on them. I hope I will be able to be a help to them too as they grow older. So I go back home to the place I ran from so many years ago, trying to find myself. I go back there looking to find myself again, but I go back a much different person with many experiences to share. So Lord, grab my hand and "Take me back to the start" to quote a Coldplay song, I'm ready to get going..."n"
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