Dodging bullets

I've gotten good at pretending. 
Acting as if I'm not still broken inside. 
Walking around leaving tiny shards of myself, pieces of my heart. 

I hate feeling this way. I hate being okay and then completely shattered. I feel incomplete. As if a thief has come in the middle of the night and has taken everything, my safety, my heart, my life. 

Confliction.
Gnawing. 

There HAS to be something. Some reason. I can't accept that this it. That I'm only left with this inferno because Hell is real.

That means Heaven must be too. It has to be. 

I need to be loved. I need to feel it. I have all this love for Christopher, it's drowning me. 
No love will be the same. 

Brutal.
Reality.

Every day I wake up and am reminded of what is and what is not. I get out of bed and put on the mask, all while dodging the reminders and thoughts that fire off constantly in my head. 

Smiles and blank stares. It's much prettier than what's underneath. 

But still here....

All I want for Christmas

There's an elephant in the room and he looks a lot like Christopher. 

I get it.

Trust me. 

I get it. 

I wouldn't know how to act around someone going through what I'm going through either. It's difficult. It's messy. I'm all over the place. I may want to talk to you, I may not. I may smile, I may hide. It's awkward. You're uncomfortable. I'm uncomfortable (this elephant is heavy) and you don't know how to behave around all this uncertainty. 

I get it. 

Just stop ignoring me. Stop pretending my husband didn't die. He did. He's dead. Not your husband, mine. You get to go home, to your life. This one's mine, and I've accepted that. You need to accept it as well. 

Talk to me. Ask me more than "how are you?" and then just stare at me blankly, waiting to see if I'm going to break down. Tell me a joke. I can still laugh and rather enjoy it. Talk to me about my husband. 

Not his death.

Not the pain. 

Not the circumstances of our unfortunate events. 

Not all the bullshit you've told yourself I must be feeling because guess what? You have no idea how I'm feeling. This not being said as some "everyone grieves differently" mantra but because you don't. If you would take some time and reach out, then maybe? But everyone assumes and then... well, you know the joke. 

Be present. Quit pretending like you care if you don't. 

Sincerity, that's all I want. I want to be treated like I'm more than just my husband's death. It's not too much to ask for and you may be surprised at what you'd learn. 

I'm not as broken as you think. 

I'm more capable than you could ever imagine. 

I laugh, I dance, I sing, I cry, I cherish every moment. 

I'm creating a life that once put back together you'll wish you were a part of and I want you to be there. 

I'm human and I still need other human connections. 

It's why we're all here, right? 

Puddles or cliffs

There is a shift happening. An ebb and flow. I can feel myself working with my grief and not against it. This harmony transcends the pain. Knowing this has helped me to realize that this is what I'm here for. 
Accepting that we are here to love unconditionally, that our experiences and suffering is not to manipulate and torture us but to make our hearts expand. I am rejecting the negative and humbling myself, this has made me mindful. 
I'm aware. My eyes are wide open. My thoughts influence my words and my words influence my actions. I have the power to decide what will satisfy my soul. 

Just me. 

This is a huge step forward. A friend told me right after Christopher died that 

"I would be amazed at my capabilities. I am a butterfly bursting out of its cocoon." 

That's what this moment feels like. I was a caterpillar, slowly grazing the earth and then after some time passed I built my safe haven in my cocoon. After years of waiting to emerge, here it is. I'm not completely out but the tips of my wings can feel the sun's warmth. 
I know I'm ok.
I'm ok with where this journey is going. What has led me here has been painful and if I were not capable it would have destroyed me.  

It didn't.
It won't.


I love my husband, I always will. In our safe haven he taught me that I am worthy. I am a dreamer. I am strong enough to withstand any obstacle thrown my way. That I am loved, and love back with a fierce intensity. This is why I am where I am. Christopher gave me a life, a chance, an opportunity. I have to jump. 

Powdered sugar gravy

I miss him. I miss him so much and when I realize he isn't coming back it rips me apart all over again. 

I miss being goofy with him. I miss the happiness that we could create in each other with just a few words. I miss feeling joyful when he was excited about something or thought something was funny. 

Just smiling because he was. 

He had the best smile. 

It was genuine. You could feel the happiness radiating off of it. 

I miss rubbing the back of his neck while he drove to help soothe his nerves navigating through traffic. I miss him coming home and proclaiming "your new boyfriend is here" after getting a haircut. I knew the sound of the car driving up, and those boots walking to the front door. I miss feeling my heart flutter because of that sound.

I wish so badly that I could hear that again. 

I miss his atrocious sense of humor. I miss him chasing me around the house with Alexander trying to tickle me. I miss our long walks where we'd talk and dream about our future. 

We solved all the world's problems on those walks. 

I miss the obscene amount of soy sauce bottles in the pantry because he put it on everything. I miss him requesting his own pot of gravy for meals because he would need that much. 

Especially on Thanksgiving. 

I miss his warmth. He was hot natured and put off so much heat which was great for cold nights and so I called him the "furnace". I just want to feel that warmth again. 

I miss him. Every single moment. Every single one. 

I can feel myself getting better. The days keep passing and I'm still here. 

One small step, day after day.

But I miss him. I miss him so much. 

Day 88

The reality that Christopher is dead is weighing heavily on me now. I'm used to not talking to him but it's when I realize that it's been almost 3 months since I last spoke to him I feel that gut punch. I spent 5 hours yesterday in a conference room writing and signing my will. Discussing the most morbid scenarios so I know if something happens to me our kids will be taken care of. 5 hours of death drilling into your skull. 



I read an email last week and was asked to write down a list of my attributes. Reminding myself of the person I was before all of this, and what still remains after. I haven't done it yet.
I'm not good at loving myself. I have always felt like I lacked something that everyone else had. That I was different. I know I'm not a bad person, that I'm actually a pretty damn good one, but the self doubt always finds a way to creep in. 

I've been in therapy for years, my father is/was not the best. He is a narcissist and has been this way since way before I was born. Unable to love anyone beside himself, unable to give to others what has been generously given to him, unable to be the father that I needed. 
In therapy, I discovered that my drive to please others, to do whatever it took to make them happy was because of the relationship I had with him. He holds his love over my head, teasing and toying with me. Giving hope that if I do this, or that, then he would love me. It has always been a conditional love. This lead me to believe that all love was conditional, even the love I have for myself.

It's bogus. It makes no sense. It's a behavior pattern that I have been doing my entire life. 
When you feel like you've been abandoned in your life, repeatedly, it's natural to only want to shun away from connecting with someone. I constantly feel like I have to be in control to keep me from relying on others because I fear they will disappoint me or if I begin to rely on them too much they will disappear. Knowing this has not kept me from doing it to other people though. 
I've caused pain and hurt in people, said things that were vile and rotten just because I knew it would hurt them. I've left relationships, pushed people away, vanished. I've also tried to learn from my mistakes, make amends for my actions, apologize for the pain I caused because I know what that suffering feels like. I know the pain of being rejected. 

Cut out.


Deleted.

Like you never existed at all.

I've made drastic efforts to change this. I owe a lot of that to Christopher, Alexander and Happy. Their unconditional love for me is a constant reminder that I'm worthy of being loved. 
I mess up though. I slip. I fall. I tend to my wounds and get back up. It's survival. I can't fall down the rabbit hole although there are many days I want to. I have more good left inside to give. I remain mindful of that. Mindful that everything is connected. My actions and reactions have a cause and effect.

And affect.

Be thankful for the good. For the moments that are pure joy. 
Use it as a force against my fear of being abandoned by those I let in. Or befriend the monster and accept that it's not going anywhere.  

We need some Kraggle

Quieting the mind is no easy task. The whys, what ifs, hows, should haves they are trying their best to drive me insane. The only solace I can find is while running and the few precious hours I sleep. 
The three of us are no longer sleeping in the same bed, separate rooms even but Happy wakes up screaming and crying, yelling for mommy. 

EVERY MORNING. 

I lost it this morning. I'm not pleasant when I wake up, Christopher was always the cheerful riser. Even after only a few hours of sleep or years of having to wake up at 3 and 4 in the morning, he was always in a good mood. He made waking up easier for me, so I wasn't a grump for long. He would bring me coffee and his first random thoughts of the day. There would be many more to follow.

God.
I miss him.

But this morning after only getting to sleep for 4 hours, I blew up. It hasn't happened often, I would love to scream and hit and be vicious enough to make someone feel this way too. I just can't. I'm not wired that way. I want to be better. 
I want to thrive. I don't want to hate the world. But I don't know how to stop wanting that. 
I'm doing everything I'm supposed to. Therapy, praying, exercising, eating right, trying not to isolate myself, reading, but it doesn't feel like it's doing any damn good. Alexander and I pray at night to find the broken pieces of our hearts so we can start super glueing them back together. 

This is rough. We are in a tough spot, pushing and dragging ourselves along because none of us want to feel this way. 

Christopher. 

He wouldn't want us to feel this way. We have to live up to his legacy. It's our only option, nothing else will do. 




This weekend is our wedding anniversary. I've booked a hotel out of town for my sister and I. Forcing myself to go have some fun. Feeling anxious and guilty about leaving my kids, even if I know they will be fine. Worried about breaking down, not knowing how to cope with the fact that he isn't here with me and we won't be able to celebrate together ever again. But I'm going. I have to. 
And then I'll get to sleep and that may be all that I do. 

Christopher

I went to a grief seminar this past weekend and one of her suggestions was to write you a letter, so here it is. 

I bought a puzzle yesterday. I guess I need to feel like I can put something tangible together because what I'm left with now, this life without you, I can't. 
I despise this. I don't want to live this life without you. I haven't heard your voice in 70 days, until yesterday. I found this old video of you and even though it's 30 seconds long, the kids and I have listened to it over and over and over and over. 

We miss you. Alexander is in so much pain, he's trying to sort all of this out in his 6 year old brain but it's too much. I can't even make sense of it. Happy sees you, and I am fairly certain you two play together daily. Our life wasn't supposed to be like this. We had fought so hard to get to where we were and now I don't know if I have any fight left in me. I feel so defeated. 

What did I do? 
How can I fix this? 
I need to fix this. 

We should be preparing for you coming home. Thrilled that we are going to see you soon.

Go on adventures. Snuggle in the cloud. Be US again. 

This is not us. 
This is not our family. 
We are not a family without you. 

I don't understand and every day my heart breaks.
Over and over and over and over.

I'm scared that I'm going to fail and you'll be disappointed. How fucked up is that? I'm scared of what a dead man is going to think about how I'm living. 
I sob every single night. The memories are torture and all I want is to go back. I want to feel you next to me. I want to hear you and Alexander giggling together. I want you to be here to see them grow up. You'd be so proud of Alexander. Happy is a breath of fresh air.
They keep me sane. They are the greatest gift you could have ever given me. 
I wonder how you'd handle this if it were me that died. Would you be ok or would you be a puddle of despair like me? Tell me what to do. I need you to tell me how I'm going to get through this. Help me get through this.

I love you. I just wish it were enough to bring you back.