So Long 2016

Hi babe-

I haven't come here to talk to you in a long long time.  October 14 was the last post...

I talk to you, all the time actually. I talk to you in my head, I talk to you through my tears, I talk to you out loud...I figure you must be laughing your butt off at all my talking. Do you hear me when I tell my self to 'please stop talking to yourself'. I do it to the point of ridiculous. They say smart people do it, talk to themselves, I only know that crazy people do it, so what does that make me? I think it's a thin wire I walk on, don't you.  haha

I feel like I'm a huge failure at grief, grieving. I don't think I'm doing it right.  Oh, I know, 'there is no right or wrong way to grieve', but that doesn't change the fact that I feel like I'm doing it wrong.

All the little idiosyncrasies that blossomed out of the ashes of this fucking nightmare never cease to amaze me, and boy do they mess with my head. What the hell is the deal with the phone and making calls that I need...what the hell is that? Huh? I needed to call and find out if my shop could do an oil change, scary I know, but it had to be done. For two days I thought about it to death until I drove myself crazy, day three I gave up, day four I finally called and they were closed due to the holiday. Nice, so instead of a $35. dollar oil change, I paid $72 plus all the crap they talked me into for a grand total of ONE HUNDRED TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS. Really?!?  Dammit, I hate that crap. Oh, I know I needed the air filter and probably the fuel treatment since I have a long commute, but the cost of upkeep on this damn car you had to have is killing me.  See how I did that, went from my fault to yours in one breath.  It's a thin wire, I'm tellin ya.

I've gotten all your signs, thank you. You have no idea (or maybe you do) how much I needed to see just one. It had been so so long since you spoke to me that way, Evelyn too. She talks to me with her name mostly. She is very frequently the name of the main character in the books I read, the free, no ones ever heard of books. The lead is always named Evelyn. It's bizarre.

Am I going to be this way forever David. Am I going to be alone for my forever? Will I ever be normal again? You have no idea how hard it is being me, getting through a day. These holidays have done me in. The get-together's are excruciating. I don't want to do them but I do. For me they are about being a part of something I no longer have. They are about family and I am without mine. Oh, I know I have GiGi, but barely.  For me, the holidays are a HUGE reminder that I am without my parents, without my children, without my husband. The working together to make holidays fun, the music and the cooking and the shopping and the wrapping and the decorating, all of it. It's gone for me. And it's hard. And I'm sad. And I'm lonely. Lonely as hell. And I miss you. God how I miss you David. Damn.

So, you've gotten so pretty awesome company lately, no?!? Down here, we've lost so many amazing actors and singers and protectors and everyone in between. It's gonna be a rockin New Years for you all up there. Enjoy...but keep your hands off Princess Leia man!  haha

I love you, as always. Help me be better, show me the way to do it. Love Evelyn, keep her safe, take good care of her, she died for you. She died for you.

It just dawned on me this very second...that you two were meant to go together. You two wanted to jump out of a plane together, I said not so much. You weren't supposed to come with me that day then I said okay. And in the end you two 'jumped' into the ocean together and were gone. Huh...I wonder...

Anyway, so long.

I cry

It astonishes me how quick I am to cry, how a simple thought can instantly seize my heart and bring it to unbearable pain. Why not take it to a place of happy memories, why does it have to be only to pain?  

Because I speak of crying so often..."I saw this saying, and I cried...I saw this commercial and I cried...", I think people believe that I sit around all day dwelling on the unfortunate events in my life.  That couldn't be further from the truth though...I do everything in my power to NOT think about it.  I try so hard to find the positive, remember the good times, smile through the hurt. But...this grief thing just doesn't work like that. Not for me it doesn't. 

I was driving home from the gym and an older model (antique) car passed and I thought to myself David would love that.  That's all, short, sweet, simple, right?!?  Not for me.  I think it and instantly I hear very loud waves crashing and have a vision of being under water with bubbles rising in front of my face.  Wait...what?  WTF is that, where did that even come from? I frantically shake my head to dislodge the sounds and images but the mood is ruined and tears are flooding my lap.  Again.

It happens ALL the time.  All. The. Time.  It's crazy and scary and exhausting. 

Feeling Crazy

There are so many poems and inspirational sayings on the Internet and so many of those get posted on Facebook.  While I understand they can have meaning for lots of people I tend to stay clear of the majority of them because they seem too rhyme-ey, and trite.  What I feel over the death of my husband and Evelyn is so much deeper and more intense than a cute-sie rhyme.  That being said, I will come across one from time to time that strikes a chord, like this one...

I was supposed to spend the rest 

of my life with you.

And then I realized...you spent the 

rest of your life with me.

I smile because I know that you loved me

till the day you went away.

And will keep loving me...

till the day we're together again.

I never pay attention to who writes them or what website they are from, I just read them and move on.  This one I liked though because we used to say it to each other all the time "I will love you for the rest of your forever".  So, this one I did see who wrote it, and the site it came from...It's from Wake Me Up! Love and The Afterlife...A true story by Lyn Ragan.  I have other books about Love After Loss, I haven't read them yet though...I am so not at that point, but something strong made me go to that website and buy the book.  What? Wait, I am NEVER that impulsive, if I was I would have rooms full of odd crap I saw and had to have.  It is just not like me to do something like that, it is David though, so I did, I bought it on January 5th.  Now that I have the book I surely won't read it. Especially since reading through the website and seeing it is not about love after loss...it is about THE Afterlife, as in spirit world stuff.  It sat in my Kindle for two weeks while I read another book, still confused about the draw to buy it in the first place. 

A few days ago I started the book...It was slow going and I was thinking of quitting it as the first few chapters were pretty amateurish and didn't capture my interest.  It's not until Lyn starts writing of her dreams that I decide to stick with it, I mean, how bad can it be, right?!  It's actually getting interesting. So I'm reading, and I'm reading, and I'm reading and then last night I sit bolt upright in bed.  I felt as though I was hit square in the back of the head and I couldn't catch my breath. The dream sequence I just read about knocked me on my ass.  Did I have the same dream? Not exactly. So why was I so taken by it then, what made me KNOW I was meant to see this, what made me know this is why I was drawn to buy this book...of all books out there. The answer was clear as glass...it is like explanation to the dream that didn't feel like a dream. The one I had four days after I bought the book. Clearly I have lost my freaking mind.  I laid back down and just stared at the ceiling, unable to read further.  My thoughts were rocketing around like a pinball inside of my head and I couldn't keep up.  When I read the words I instinctively knew the meaning behind my dream and it shook me to my core.  I am totally and completely nuts, right? 

All of this new year I have been in a deep state of sorrow.  The knowledge that you will never come back in the physical is trying to break through my carefully built wall of defense.  My sadness that the once so often signs are now few and far between is leaving me lonelier than normal.  Of course I haven't asked for any, and when I do you come, but why haven't you felt to just do them on your own?  Why do I have to be alone until I call you?  I know...'shut up Kristen.' I'm sorry love, sometimes I'm needy I guess.  I just miss you so desperately and need to feel you with me always, it's all I have left.

Anyways what I just read, on page 115 of this book goes like this

 "why are all these people here?"  

 "These are souls waiting to pass over." the voice said

 "...my attention was redirected...to observe my surroundings. There were no walls and I wasn't in a room of sorts.  There wasn't a floor.  There wasn't a ceiling." 

 "There were so many people in line,waiting their turn.  They each had an unusual look about them--a blank stare."

Do you see?  Do you see why I'm freaked out?  Her dream was just like my dream only decorated a little differently...the people in my dream were on a bus as well as the ceiling-less room of sorts, that was also outside because you drove a car in it.  Holy shit, as my thoughts are flowing right now I'm even more freaked and can't even say inside my head what I know to be the meaning.  I have obviously fallen off the deep end.  Crap!

My new found interpretation of my dream from the 9th...

I cry long and deep and hard, still.  I scream, inside my head, that I just want to be with you, I don't want to be here living (barely) this life without you...We had so many plans...You never give me signs anymore and Mr. C being the brightest one is never here anymore.  I sob over a missing bird all the time.  I am a mess.  

So I dream that dream and I don't get it AT ALL.  I read that part of that book and it leads me to believe that you were telling me the only way you know how, that I am where I am supposed to be, it is not my time to be with you in the life you now have.  You live in a world where there are many many souls waiting to be delivered to the other side and you help do that.  I am not meant to be there now, I have family that needs me here, like my aging parents. They will need me more than we needing to be together.  I felt no emotion from you because you can't get through to me because my grief is too big and only when my mind and my heart are calm (when I sleep) can you come through.  That was the part where you didn't seem happy to see me, it's not that you weren't, you just couldn't project through my pain and sorrow.  And the part I didn't write about in my dream post is that when I came out of my room that morning after the dream,  and turned my head to the right I saw through the window Mr. C sitting there eating the seed I had put out the day before, like always.  I am lead to believe that was you verifying that dream was indeed a message from you...I just didn't get it, until now.

That dream and finding the book, as obscure as it is, has put a lot of meaning behind SO many things that have happened to me since you left.  SO many things I have never even told anyone about.  It's incredible really. All the signs of the first several months, the few dreams I have had, the waking hearing lyrics of a song in my head (not just me humming a tune, really hearing as though a radio is on) and so much more.  I tell ya babe, you start to go a little mad with it all.  I am in such a state as never before and all the words in the world can never truly explain what it is like...it's just, it's just unimaginable and unexplainable that's all.  As removed from life and reality as I have felt, everything that has happened only works to push me further away.  It's a lonely lonely world I live in.

Anyways, so am I right?  Or am I nuts?  God I think I'm nuts. It's all so nuts.

Oh well...live another day!