Another number away

Another calendar to take down, one in which you did not live.  Another number away from the one you left from.

I spent 2014 trying to make the world stop spinning but it never did.  I trudged my way through the fog of what was left of 2013 like a slug moving through molasses, only to fall into 2014 feeling like I had the worst bed spins known to man.  I tried putting one foot on the floor to make it stop, but it just never did.  The fog had lifted giving me a clear view of what was ahead and it was then the pain I thought I had known tripled in size.  This clarity was like being struck by lightning all those months before but not feeling, really feeling, the pain until now.

I don't know how I got here, the beginning of 2015, I think I am missing great bunches of time. It is the strangest thing to me that a year full of days have ended yet I feel as though I am tied to the beginning.  I have never known the passing of time to be this way, or maybe that isn't it. Maybe it is just me, obviously. Something is very very wrong with me.  I mean, here I am saying how fast time has moved forward, at the same time I'm saying I have not.  See, I can't even get that right.  Just wow.

I hear so often, "Life is what you make it".  I've always been a happy positive person, a glass half full kind of girl.  And I'm trying still to be that, I am.  I sing and I dance, I laugh and I smile.  I say hello to everyone and do random acts of kindness.  I gather with friends and feel moments of joy.  I collect all those moments as fast and as often as I can but they won't stick.  I don't seem to connect emotionally to any of my joy.  I feel it then it's gone, lickity split.  My heart has been ripped and torn apart, now nothing will stay inside.  So tell me, what life do I make with that? How do I make that glass half full when there is no bottom to the glass?   Hmm?

So this is how it is, jumping into a new calendar, the fog is gone, the world still spins most days and the searing pain follows me everywhere.  I don't know what this year will bring exactly, but I know some big things are ahead.  GiGi will graduate in June and, God willing, start college in September.  For me, well, I'll still be here searching.  Searching for answers, searching for joy, searching for you.  Searching for peace within my soul.

I love you David.  I will always love you.  I hope that you are well, and that you have found the peace in your soul that you could not find here.  Be near me baby...I need you to be near me.

Welcome to 2015!

Merry Christmas

And in the end I couldn't go. 

Instead I woke up early and gathered all the things I had bought to make at Thanksgiving but never did, and started to cook for GiGi and I.  The sun was shining and with no need to hurry and get ready to be somewhere it was relaxing and it was easy.  I cooked all day while GiGi rearranged her bedroom (what a nightmare).  Dust was flying, posters were ripped down and furniture was moved all around.  Now to put it back...ugh!  Swear words were flying, posters were ripped in half when tacks wouldn't stick in the walls and daggers were shot at me any time I asked if she wanted help.  I loved it!  It has been so long since she has been around, what with her 15 hour days.  She quit one job, did you know?  Do you see her?  Yeah, it was too much and she hit that proverbial wall hard.  It's good though, she needs a little down time and I need her home more.  Yeah...it's good.

When we finally sat to eat we both just looked at each other, exhausted,  and said 'this just all feels so wrong, so weird.' And it's true, while I am thankful for so many things, life for me, for us, right now is just 'flavorless'.  We ate in silence, lost in our own heads.  We have not come to terms with our new world.  Time has moved forward far faster than we have.  All we can do is hold on and try our best to keep up.  We think of how we left our family behind to become a new family here, and now that family is gone too.  We are sad and lonely for our loved ones and on a day when families everywhere are huddled close, making memories and breaking bread together it hits us hard just how deeply we feel our losses.  Just how deeply we miss you my love.  We never even finished our plates.

We miss you David, we struggle with life without you in it, but we want you to know that we had a very good day.  We are thankful for our memories and all that we have.  We love you dearly and you will always be with us.  We are so thankful that you were in our lives and that you loved us in such a big way.  

Merry Christmas my love, I hope your day was a great one.

Isn't it ironic

I was thinking about you today, about both of you. 

I was thinking about how when I was 15 you were both a part of my life at the exact same time, and the everlasting effect each of you made.  Of course you didn't know each other...but I knew both of you, and the outcome of both of those relationships, however big or small, made a lasting mark on my psyche.

I was thinking that my connection to each of you came to an end at the exact same time. Graduating high school ended one and timing ended the other.  I never forgot about either of you though and from time to time your faces would come to my mind.

I was thinking that, fast forward 27 years, once again you both came into my life at the exact same time.  Only this time you would meet and you would form an instant bond...both silly and full of life.  This time the connection would be for life...full of love and laughter and tears.  The friendship we three had was fun and special and priceless made even more so by the reminiscing of long ago shared memories.  How awesome is that.

I was thinking that only 3 short years later our connection would, once again, be broken never ever to happen again...at the exact same time.

How ironic.