Hold onto the Joy

The past few days have been simply beautiful, the sky blue, the air warm and the sounds delightful.  This time of year brings me huge amounts of joy.

It is chilly in the house, so in the moments of down time and I can't stand the cold another minute I have been going outside to read, to warm up. Yesterday I was struck by the sounds of traffic, lawn equipment throughout the neighborhood, birds chirping, dogs barking and the voices of people I can't see from here. I felt JOY, plain and simple. Outside is where I am at my best, soaking in the heat of the sun and the sounds of life.  It was good.

I sat thinking of our many conversations of getting the kids graduated so we could finally move to an ocean paradise and live the rest of our days. The little beach side B & B we wanted to run with a tiki bar right on the sand. The excitement that would build the longer we talked, the plans and ideas that poured out. Yeah...the excitement, we were so ready for this next chapter, we had a ways to go, but we could see the light...

Sitting in the sun, soaking in the warmth, I look around and you are not here. I am alone in my memories and the joy trembles, it becomes blurry. I shake my head to dislodge from the past because I am not ready to visit there for long. It hurts too much. It just hurts too damn bad. I enter alone and I leave alone. Some day I will be able to go all the way in, but today isn't some day.

I once again hear the birds chirping and the dog barking and I reach back for that joy and hold on with all my might. I need this joy dammit!

I miss you my love, I miss you in a way that feels like every bone in my body is breaking from the power of it. 

Oh well, time for me to go back inside to the cold empty home we once shared.

The Dream - Jan 9th

I don't dream of you...everyone who knows me, knows that...you knew that.  I never was one to dream of my loves unless they were in the doghouse so to say.  I NEVER dream of you. The few times I have since you left you have come through as loving and supporting and helpful. You came through because I needed to see you.

I got up with the alarm to get GiGi off to school and I found her in a puddle of tears.  Apparently after I went to bed she bleached all the color out of her hair because now she wanted dark green...well, you can imagine how it turned out.  I called the school and said she wouldn't be in today as she was sick.  Not really a lie, she is sick over how badly things went.  LOL  Anyway, I went back to my room and jumped under the covers because it was freezing in here and well, I guess I fell asleep, because I dreamt of you.  

I don't know where I was, I didn't recognize my surroundings.  But I came into a room, well it had a floor and walls but there was no ceiling, anyway, you appeared to be going through a dresser or desk, looking for something.  I just stared at your back noticing that you were wearing the shorts and t-shirt you died in, you didn't know I was there until I whispered your name (in shock) and then you turned around.  You didn't smile, your demeanor was off, you didn't mad, just sort of robotic.  I ran, crying, into your arms and held you in utter desperation, but you held be me as though we had never met, as though it was very uncomfortable for you to have this woman running her hands all over your arms and back and head...hanging on to you for dear life.  I saw that you had no shoes on and I said "I need to see your feet, I miss your feet."   I got a brief glimpse before you pulled me back into a hug...but still no 'life' in you.

I was so confused.  Why are you here? What are you looking for? Why are you not happy to see me? You didn't seem to be speaking to me in words, it was more just a feeling that you were communicating with me, but I still don't know what was going on.  I remember turning my head to the left and seeing through the window a bus full of people.  It was an old hippie bus full of people and you said, without moving your lips, they were all like you and that you had to get back to the bus, you just needed something first.  I don't know if you found what you needed but you headed back to the bus saying you would see me soon.  I don't know how you got back to the bus, I didn't see a door or even you moving, I just sensed you went back to the bus.  I waved at one woman who was looking directly at me but she didn't smile or wave back.  Everyone, including you seemed pleasant but not happy.  No enthusiasm, no emotion, it was as though you all had been ordered to be reserved. 

Then the phone woke me up.

Startled awake, I laid there not answering the phone, I was too stunned by how very very real the dream was.  I had never had a dream like that before in my life and I was freaked out.  I must have dozed off again because I found myself back in the dream only this time the scene was different.  Again there were walls but no roof and everything was a kind of off white beige color just like earlier.  I felt that I was now outside but know that I saw a free standing door a little behind me on my right.  I didn't see anyone at first, but I sensed you were there along with everyone I saw on the bus.  I remember feeling that I just wanted to see you, be with you but I wasn't allowed to.  I sensed that I was only allowed to do or see whatever the little slip of folded paper I was holding said I could do. I had the overall feeling that my strong strong emotions and grief were not welcome here... had to behave in a certain manner.  I remember standing thinking that I didn't understand what was going on at all and how lonely I was for you when suddenly you pulled up in a really nice black Mustang car, a girl walked out of the door to my right saying (without speaking) that she was bored and didn't have anything to do so you said, or didn't, "you can come with me" and she got in the car and you drove off.  My loneliness and longing for you was so intense but I wasn't allowed to be with you.  I was so very confused.

And then the scene changed, suddenly I was seeing the outside of a house, a rustic but modern log style home with a beautiful full length front porch.  I sensed that it was my new house and I was moving in with my parents.  Now I'm inside the house leaning against a counter of this very open concept home talking with my Mom and Dad saying 'well, this is it, our new home...isn't it beautiful?"

Then the phone rang again.

I have no idea what the hell that dream was all about.  It didn't feel like a dream, it felt very real.  I feel I was supposed to learn something from it but I have no idea what, I am as confused as ever.   It was definitely not the warm and fuzzy kind of dream I would hope to have. I've been so weirded out by it I haven't even posted this, it's been sitting in drafts waiting to see if there was anything else I could remember.  Other than I DIDN'T LIKE IT, there's nothing though.

Hmmm...WHAT THE HELL?

50 (or not)

She knew he was awake, the soft sound of his breathing told her so.  She opened her eyes and watched him.  Arms bent with his hands behind his head on the pillow, staring at the ceiling...thinking.  Always thinking, sometimes a good thing, other times not.  Today though she saw peace on his face, today she was looking at the young boy she fell in love with 33 years ago.  Not the 50 year old man he was today...

We made it she thought, we are here...really here.  All the hard work and saving has finally paid off. The foregone honeymoon, extravagant gifts, vacations...everything. We wanted to escape to a tropical paradise, just the two of us, and we set the goal as his 50th birthday.  A number he had started dreading way back when.  "Let's turn that milestone into the best experience you've ever had, let's create a memory that is just for us in a place neither of us has ever been."  "Let's take the honeymoon we never had and then you will always have that as your 50th birthday present."  And so the plan was set...

I opened my eyes and reality hit, yet again.  The sight before me was an empty bed and empty pillows.  And cold.  Cold all around me, no tropical paradise for this gal.  Another milestone faced without you David.  "Happy Birthday my lover" I said to no one as a tear rolled down my cheek.  "Happy freaking birthday"!

I so had wanted this day to be one of the best of your life, a day for you to carry with you forever. There was so much I always wanted for you, so much I wanted to give you.  I'm sorry I will never get that chance and can only hope that while you were here with me I gave you everything you needed.  I hope that you knew, really knew just how much I adored you.  God how I still do.

Happy would be 50th my love.  I hope you are free and happy and spending time with Evelyn, she will have you doing tequila shots and whooping it up.  Hug her for me and when you feel her arms around you...know that they are mine.

I love you my husband, my David.

A Dream

This morning I dreamt of you...second time ever and first time that you were a main character.

The tone of the dream seemed rushed.  I was frantically walking all over the place looking for something and you were helping me I guess.  I know you were dead, yet I could see you with me.  I could touch you and kiss you and talk to you.

At one point I was standing among some people outside an old abandoned hospital and a woman said we're going to turn it into an apartment building, I remember saying 'wow, that's gonna be a shitload of apartments'. Writing this now I am thinking that the hospital is the last place all of us last saw our loved ones and now it is like a ghost town and being turned into apartments for all of us to live in.  Strange.

We were walking with a group down a road, I think we were looking for Evelyn because I remember telling the people that it wasn't only you I watched disappear but Evelyn too, and stopped to go into a store, you held the door open for us and I noticed you were wearing your Vans but there was a hole in the right one and your toe was poking through, you weren't wearing socks.  That wasn't like you at all.  Inside you were showing me something on a laptop, I remember seeing your hand, your finger touched a spot on the laptop screen and I realized you were teaching me something and I was amazed that I was still learning things from you even though you were dead.   I felt so much crushing and overwhelming love for you. 

Sometimes you were with me, and sometimes you weren't.  I was so messed up because I knew you were dead but I could still see you.  I was in the building that was being converted into apartments and there was a woman in one of the rooms, I think she had lost her son, I think we had been searching for him too now that I write this.  I told her I lost someone too, two someones to be exact...she said she could tell because I was so miserable and sad and my pain was written all over my face.  I asked her if she could tell when sometimes I was kind of okay.  She said yes.  I told her that was because it was then that you were with me and I could see you and talk to you and touch you.  It was all wrong though...I was still heartbroken because you were dead.

Just as I'm writing this, trying to figure out what it all means...I am remembering that last night I was thinking about how I miss our time together so desperately. That I have sat on this couch and eaten dinner by myself most every night for seven months.  How much I loved to massage your hands and feet at night.   How freaking lonely I am and that I have moved into such a deep dark place of sadness.  How long it has been since I have any big sign from you.  How I was thinking to myself that all I really want is to be with you.

I guess not understanding what the dream meant isn't the important part...what is important is that I recognize parts of my real life inside the dream.  I guess that means you are with me and you can hear my thoughts...and that is pretty extraordinary.

Thank you David.  Thank you for coming to me when I'm needing you most.  I'm not doing well and knowing you are here helping me as best you can means a lot to me.  I miss you so very much love...so very much.

See you in my dreams...

I had a dream and you were there.  

I was sitting on a bar stool in a house...bad vibes everywhere.  

You walked through the door, came to me, looked me directly in the face and into my eyes and very strongly and determinedly said "I love you baby."  My first thought was that you stood out clearly and vividly  while the rest of the picture looked as though seeing it through a filter. My response to you was..."then why the rest of this scenario?  This is all wrong, this is not you, what is happening here, why is this all playing out like this?"  The rest was not good for me, it was not real, and I believe it was more a riddle or a skit playing out some of my feelings from when I'm awake.

Since you've been gone I have gone through every imaginable emotion, none sits with me long...an hour tops.  But they have come,  and there are a few that come by a lot...defensiveness, betrayal and manipulation.  Sounds weird, I know, especially under the circumstances but they come on with a vengeance at times and eat at my psyche.  I know our truth though, only we do.  Anyone else that believes they have you, me or us figured out is wrong...they were not here, they are not us, they were not involved in our GREAT MANY conversations...they do not know.  We do and that is all that matters here.

The underlying feeling of the dream was none of this is real it is some kind of riddle and the rest of my time inside this altered state was spent connecting the dots and cracking the code.  I believe it all was your way of showing me you can hear me, you know what is on my mind and you are letting me know that we are together in my thinking.  That is why you approached me 'clearly' at the onset with such determination, to say 'I love you'.  To give me the power to get through the rest knowing full well it was not real, obviously, but a message.

Well I figured out the context and confirmed my thoughts with dream interpretations...long story short...the meaning in a nutshell: 

• To dream of love or being in love suggests intense feelings carried over from a waking relationship. It refers to your contentment with what you already have and where you are in life. 
• To dream of your lost love represents an idealistic relationship. 
• To dream that you are abandoned suggests that it is time to leave behind past feelings and characteristics that are hindering your growth. Let go of your old attitudes. A more direct and literal interpretation of this dream indicates you have a fear of being deserted, abandoned, or even betrayed. It may stem from a  recent loss or a fear of losing a loved one. The fear of abandonment may manifest itself into your dream as part of the healing process and dealing with losing a loved one. It may also stem from unresolved feelings or problems from childhood. Alternatively, the dream indicates that you are feeling neglected or that your feelings are being overlooked.
• To dream that you have been betrayed represents your suspicions about a particular person, relationship or situation.  This dream often occurs when you are having feelings of insecurity and are faced with major commitments in your life at the same time.
• To dream that someone has betrayed you indicates self-pity. You are feeling sorry for yourself

So, there it is I guess.  Even though the betrayal and abandonment was more on your behalf, meaning you've been betrayed, abandoned, it has had a HUGE affect on me and it is something I have been struggling with since your funeral service.  The effects of which I still feel to this day, every day.  

I suppose all of this was your way of telling me it is time for me to put on my big girl panties, put past feelings behind me, let old attitudes go and stop feeling sorry for myself and get on with the healing.  Well shit David a simple 'I love you...now get over yourself' would have sufficed!  

Anyways, thank you for such a clear pronouncement.  Message received.

And babe...I love you too.