Creating home...

One of the things I love about our house is that when people visit they stay longer than they intended.  Some days that is the exact thing I dislike about our house too.  Mostly, though, I love it.  I love that my house is homey and comfortable. That dinner around the table is always able to accommodate another plate or two and that everybody pitches in to clean up afterward.  I love the concept of family and I think it partially because of my experiences in the military.  We can disassemble and reassemble our house and have the same feeling because it's the people that make the home not the place. 

I was talking with my brother about what I hoped to impart/accomplish/teach/do for Sarah since she was living with us.  He talked about financial planning and money management. He talked about schooling and jobs.  I want to mentor her in all of those things but I realized during our conversation that the single most important thing to me is creating home.  I don't want to step into my moms shoes in her life, for the same reason that I want nobody else to step into them in my life.  They don't need to be filled.  What I do want for her is to create a place that is hers forever. A place that can hold her history and anchor her future.  When she is ready to go off to college I want her room to remain ready for her return.  When she is ready to step out on her own I want her wings to spread because her roots are safe.  I tend to over think, shocking I know, and I am probably putting too much energy into this whole thing but I am trying to pinpoint exactly what this new family dynamic will look and feel like. 

Today I sang....

sang a song.  Sang out loud, sang out long.  I didn't matter if wasn't good enough for anyone else to hear...  Top of my lungs in my van as I drove home from Mattoon.  It was sunny and bright outside.  It felt good.  It broke my heart and made it soar all at once.  I sang through the tears as they came.  I laughed through songs that reminded me of her.  I am so thankful for the joy that my mother left for us.  She sang and laughed, danced and joked.  She watched the schilldren like they were TV and then would recount their antics to me as if I'd not been in the same room. Joy is underrated and overlooked.  Thank you Momma for all the gifts you are still giving me!



written on 8/17/2012

Brave.

It's a simple word.  A word I sometimes take for granted.  Joshypot climbed a deer stand and I cheered and praised how 'brave' he was just a few days ago.  Kaity will try a new food and I let her know how brave she is to try something foreign.  Today I saw the definition of brave in my sweet Saracita Bonita.  She decided to move in with us and today we set out for home from Mattoon.  Mattoon was the only place Sarah has ever lived.  She loaded all her things into boxes last week and Jeremy brought them here.  She grew up going to school with the same set of friends and I think that as a military brat I discount the value and weight in that.  Today I watched her come 'home' to a place she had never even seen.  She wasn't coming to a place that she'd spent her weekends or holidays.  She'd spent them with the people living in the house but the house itself was totally new.  New state.  New house.  New town.  New normal.  She walked around and took it all in.  It wasn't what she expected, I don't know that anything would have been.  She is brave.  She is strong and smart and determined.  I am in awe of her guts. 

Wide awake at 430 am...

is  simply not cool.  It is made even less cool since at 1130 I took an ambien.  I've used ambien on occasion for years.  1 prescription would last about a year. I took them to break the cycle of a headache or the cycle of insomnia following a rash of headaches.  I called them my suspended animation pills, I would take them and then suddenly it was 8ish hours later and I felt amazing.  As of last night I have taken them for 23 days in a row.  I am typically pretty drug sensitive so for it to not work makes me feel totally uncomfortable.  I am done.  I will lay in bed awake.  I will let my mind race and my heart ache instead of copping out with my suspended animation.  I guess know I will have to learn to fall asleep w/o it and I am not looking forward to that AT ALL.  I am blessed with a fantastic husband who will rub my back or my feet until I fall asleep when I am having a rough go of life.  I am in Mattoon handling appointments and issues from my moms death so I have 1 more sleep w/o Capt Fantastic here to aid in the falling asleep process.  I will have to settle for a warm shower and a dark room.  I think the ambien allowed me a certain degree of numb.  It helped the nights be less lonely.  I would call my mom (or she would call me) at all hours of the night just because we remembered something we'd forgotten to tell the other in our last conversation.  I still have those "oh I need to call mom to..." moments.  I've even dialed her number a time or two.   Yesterday I drove from Janesville to Mattoon all alone.  That would have meant a 4 hr phone call to my mom just a few weeks ago.  This time it was a sharp reminder of the *why* for my trip to Mattoon.  I called a few people and talked for a few minutes.  I called a few others and talked a few more.  I spent the majority of the time in the silence.  Singing along to the radio.  Maneuvering in the periods of heavy rain.   Feeling the sadness of knowing I couldn't talk to her and hear her voice and know she had my back.  To be snarky and silly and just be raw.  I'd already started shopping for her for Christmas...that stings.  My faith is solid, I am sure she is with Jesus in heaven praising God and whole.  The part of me that hurts is the flesh of me.  The part of me that is sad is the selfish part of me that would rather her be her than there.  It's quite a conflict really.  To be content in spirit and tormented by emotion.  Even as I find myself crying I realize her position and tears slow.  It's when I think of all that I will miss, that my babies will miss, that my siblings will miss.  THAT is where my hurt is and my tears are torrential.  I know that I have busy-ed my way to a spot where I don't have to fully deal with the emotional part of her passing.  I am a little afraid of what happens when everything is settled.  When the boys are in Colorado.  When the hurry up and wait game of her death is finished and squared away.  When the only thing left is to acknowledge the lack of gingerbread and snowmen. Oh my momma I love you.  You were supposed to come and live with us, we made plans. We looked at houses.  I felt like it was my prize, I *got* you to live in our house and I wouldn't have to stuff all our fun into the weekend.  I love you I love you I love you I love you...how many times can I say it until I feel like I've said it enough? 

Sundowning....

I feel like I have the mourning version of Alzheimer's.  I am okay during the day, even happy on occasion.  We tease and joke and carry on like things are normal.  Like Mom is at work or in the other room.  Then all of the sudden it's evening.  Evening starts the ache in full force.  I long for her. her voice.  her laugh.  her smile.  just her.  It feels surreal, I can't believe it has happened.  I can't wrap my mind around the fact that she was alive and now she's not.  That she had a happily ever planned with us and now we are picking up pieces and trying to construct the puzzle of our future when all the edges are missing.  How do you do thanksgiving? Christmas? how do you just carry on? How can I celebrate when I can barely breathe.  I hate the sunset. I loathe the night.  The darkness makes it worse.  I don't want to revisit sad with people who are still processing.  I want to be irrationally angry and frustrated and kick things and tantrum.  I want to have an outlet that exhausts this sadness. I want to not feel panic as 5pm rolls around.  To dread laying in bed because there are no distractions.  Nothing to fill the time between my head hitting the pillow and actually falling asleep.  I always tell my babies to not 'borrow trouble' to deal with today today and let tomorrow handle itself.  I am trying to remember that. To just handle the waves of sadness and the loss one moment at a time. There are so many things looming.  So many details that need to be handled and issues to be dealt with.  What will I do when there isn't a list of to-do?  When there isn't something to manage or fix?  What will I do when it's just me alone with my sad?  She was everywhere....in every corner of my life.  I pray that eventually it comforts me.  Right now it just taunts me, reminding me of what is beyond my grasp.  I love her so much it hurts.  I mourn so deeply I am numb.  I am afraid of how comfortable the numbness is and how much I want to allow it to stay instead of fighting through to the hurt.