Ho Ho Ho!

Trying to keep the “happy face” on.

Trying to keep the house merry and bright.

Trying to not cry.

Trying to not miss Jeff too much.

Trying to establish a “new” normal.

Trying to focus on the good.

We got the stupid tree up, after two weeks of Sally begging.  I pretty much let the kids do it all.  It looks a little bit “odd”, but the munchkins are happy.  Every year I debate putting up the “memorial” ornaments.  Each year the girls want to place Jeff’s funeral program on the tree.  Ugh!  No fair!

but… I’m working on the happy face   8)  <—-see

I can do it!!

focus

I have decided to put my focus on a few things.

1.  Instead of focusing on what was taken from me, I will focus on what was/is given.

2.   I can not control my circumstances, but I can control my reactions to these circumstances.  I get to choose how I react.

3.  Stupid and cheerful is always a great plan B.

It’s been 3 years

ya know, I never thought I’d make it this far.  I never imagined I’d be saying “My husband died three years ago”  But here I am, saying it.  They (whomever “they” are) say time heals all wounds, but they are wrong.  Time doesn’t “heal”.  Time adds distance, but doesn’t magically make thing all better.  “Time” keeps moving forward…  Time is one of those things that doesn’t stop when I want it to, it doesn’t slow down and wait for me to catch up, it doesn’t pause when I want to stay in bed and cry.  It keeps going…putting distance between my old life with Jeff and this “now” life.  All I can do is try and keep up, try and stay in the “now”.  Live in the now and look to the future.  Oh, it’s fun to visit the past, but thats not where I live, and it seems like the more time  I spend visiting the past the harder it is to live in my “now”.  Kinda like when you go on vacation, the work doesn’t stop, you still have to do it all when you get back.  I’m not sure where I am going with this post. 

It’s the Saturday after Thanksgiving, 3years and 7 days since Jeff died.  The kids are…Hmm…where are they?  Juli, Sam and Sally are playing in the basement.  They have a “fort town” down there.  Ben spent the night at “naughty kid’s” house, and Joe is still sleeping.  This afternoon I will attempt to put up Christmas decorations.  I’ll put on my “everything is peachy” outfit, it goes well with my “everything is fine” smile and deck the halls.  Fa-la-la-la…  and I will once again wonder what to do with all the Jeff ornaments.  I will be sucked back into past Christmas’ some make me smile, but some make me cry. 

I hate this time of year, but I can do it

Weathering the storm

Ya know how when you are watching the weather channel and they predict storms you think “Yuck”.  You aren’t quite sure what to expect.  You tend to think back to the last storm and wonder if it will be that severe, or you may think back to the worst storm you ever experienced and wonder if it will be as horible.  You also may think back to the worst storm you ever heard about and hope it’s not nearly as tramatic.

One think I “like” about being a widow and having “weathered” the worst storm imagineable is that now I just think to myself… “Hmmm…it can’t be nearly as bad as losing my husband, so whatever it is will be okay”  Once you’ve made it through the worst everything else is a bump in the road.  Kind of odd, but yet also kind of comforting.

There is no real point to this post, just a random thought, maybe I’ll expand on later, but for now, I’ll simply ponder…

I hope this week brings you all great big belly laughs and quiet moments of contentment.

Fall

Fall is a hard time of year for me.  Jeff and i did so much fun stuff in the fall, sometimes it was just enjoying the fall colors.  Most years we would have a big pumpkin party, complete with a trip to the pumpkin patch.  I loved that, I enjoyed the prep work for the party and I enjoyed the fun time that we shared with friends. 

I know that I can still entertain on my own, but its not the same, at all.  There is no one to stay up late with frantically cleaning the house.  No one to help.  No one to share in that sense of satisfaction after all the guests leave.  I miss it.

I am content with my life now, but I still wish it was different.  I often say “I want my life back”  my life with Jeff.  I miss him.  The kids miss him. 

Since he died I have lived my life, I have tried to live life to the fullest.  Sometimes I succeed.  Sometimes I curl up in my nice warm bed and pull the covers over my head.  And sometimes I just want to scream “Why me??!!”

But still, everyday I wake up and wonder “what will today bring?”  I look at everyday as a gift, a gift from God.

-One way-

I was thinking, if all roads were one-way streets I wouldn’t get lost.  If there were no detours or rest stops, or cutesy little tourist traps I would be there already.

I want to be “there”.  I don’t know where there is, but I want to.  I want to know where I am going.  I want to be done “drifting”.  I want to be the one choosing my destination, or at least have some input.

Does the destination determine the journey?  Or is it the journey which determines the destination? 

When you wonder aimlessly, I think, you will end up at a random destination.  Maybe a good place, maybe not.  If not, then you need to begin another journey until you randomly end up at that happy place… You’ll need good shoes.

If you know where your destination is, then you have options.  You can pick the shortest journey, or the prettiest route, or the path that brings you the most peace.  You can go at your own pace, or you can rush.  You can choose to stop at only the rest stops that have vending mechines. 

Once you know where you are going, know where you want to be, it’s easier to get there.  When you don’t, it’s alot of steps in many directions.  Oh, there may be cool suprises, and there might be really neat things to see along the way, but…

It really boils down to is:  What is most important, the journey, or the destination?

Right now I’m sick of the journey.  I want to be “there”.  When Jeff was alive I knew where I was going, I knew what destination I was working towards.  When he died, that destination was scratched off my map.  It no longer existed.  The last almost 14 months I have spent wondering, aimlessly, not knowing, and not feeling, just being.  I’m done. 

I now know where I want to be, I can look at my map and say “here, here is where I am going”.  I can ask for directions, I can track my progress.  I now can choose the path I want to be on, I can take the shortest, the longest, the prettiest or the fun-est. 

No matter what, I know now where I am going.

when bad things happen…

My cousin was killed in a car accident on Sunday.  Why do these things keep happening?  It’s not fair.  He left behind a wife and two little kids, he was only 27.  I spent yesterday in a daze.  I KNOW what his wife is going through, I KNOW how she is feeling, I KNOW how bad it sucks.  I just want to wrap her up in a warm, fuzzy blanket and protect her.  I want to save her from all the yucky stuff, and I don’t even know her that well.  In fact, if I came at her with a blanket she would probably call the cops….

I want to let her know that things get better, but do they?  Not really, they just get different.  Sometimes different is good, sometimes different is bad, but most of the time different is just that: Different. 

Knowing what she is going through has brought me back, back to those first few mind-numbing weeks.  The weeks I don’t really remember much.  The “fog”.  That haze that is so hard to fight through, the haze that keeps the sun from shining.  The haze that pushes down on you and keeps you from feeling.  Oh, how I hated that. 

Luckily, the haze does lift, little, by little.  Small smiles come back.  Little giggles.  Moments of self-confidence, and success.  Surviving each day is success.  Heck, showering is a success.  They return. 

I would love to say that one year is a magic mark.  It’s not, I am discovering.  The one year mark is just a mark of progress, not completion.  I wish I knew when I could be done, I wish I knew when this could be over, but I don’t. 

I don’t think grief is a fixable problem.  Grief is just a process, a process that you can’t avoid.

I know….

I know it’s been a while, but to my credit I have actually written a few things and the deleted them.  So I have written, just not shared.

Being a single parent SUCKS!  I get soo busy trying to keep up with the kids, the house and everything else.  I sometimes think I am insane (maybe I am)  I have no time to just be, which I need so much now.  I’ve been trying to sneak away a couple weekends a month, but that is getting difficult.  No one wants to babysit FIVE kids.  Really, I can’t blame them.  It seems like I miss Jeff more on a practical level now.  I miss him being with us, I miss the help.  I miss his rules, I miss the way the kids listened to him.  I miss the structure he provided our family with.

Ben, Joe and I spent the last 4 days backpacking and camping.  Brr… sleeping in a tent when it’s below freezing is COLD.  Hauling a backpack that weighs more than one-third your body weight is HARD.  I am still sore.  Jeff was always a big outdoors fan, me, not so much.  He used to take the kids hiking and camping all the time.  I was thinking this would be a good way to spend some guy time with the big boys, and honor Jeff’s memory.  I succeeded at both.  Jeff would be soo proud of me.  I did it.  We backpacked 7.6 miles total.  It was fun!! 

I’m not working anymore, I think that is a good thing.  I’ll miss the social time, and the money, but the kids need me more.

Sam and Sally have been sick lately, hacky yucky cough that keeps us all awake at night.  Hopefully that will end soon.

School is going well for all involved.  I went to Ben and Joe’s conferances, and came home mostly pleased.  Juli is doing wonderfully.

We aquired a puppy, she is 8 weeks old and cute.  I’ll post her pic soon.

I guess thats all for now.  I will update on a more regular basis now, I promise.

Positives!

Here we go:

I have managed to NOT lose any kids in the last 10 months!

All the children have grown, even without me cooking for them!

The swingset in the back is almost completed!

I enjoy working 2 days a week for my aunt!

When I finally get the boxes in the garage unpacked it’ll be just like Christmas!

Shopping makes me feel better, you should see all my shoes!

I love my camera!

Last time I took the kids out to eat we paid a strangers’ bill.  The kids learned “Random acts of Kindness”

Sally Anne will stay in the bath tub for hours!

I have successfully avoided cooking for 10 months!

Visiting dogs make good vacuums!

Feeling Bi-Polar isn’t so bad…wait… Yes it is!

sad

Sometimes I just feel so sad.  I don’t know why, it’s just all of the sudden, nothing really triggers it, it just happens.  Okay, maybe PMS has something to do with it.  I really just want my old life back, my life with Jeff.  My family life.  I still feel so incomplete.  He is missing.  I’m sick of this, I want him back.

Here are some pics from the first day of school: