The past couple of weeks have been interesting. In my previous post I mentioned that I had two funerals to attend, an interview, visiting my mother-in-law, Doug’s birthday, visiting family in Texas for Easter…there has been a lot on my plate. And all of it has made me compartmentalize my emotions even more so than I have before. I was asked this week the question of ‘how are you doing’…’no, how are you really doing’. I started really thinking about the answer to this. My answer – I haven’t the slightest idea – which got me to thinking how I survived these past 6 months and also how I made it through this past week with so many ’emotional’ things happening.
Imagine one of those watchmaker drawers – the kind with different size compartments. Little knobs on the front of the drawers. Some stick when you try to open them. Others slide open easily. It is all neat and tidy, until you get into the drawer and find a pile of parts. Even if they are the same parts there is a sense of chaos in those nice little organized, simple drawers. I feel that I am standing beside one each time I go out. To the grocer, to buy gas, to a friends house, to a birthday party, a funeral, a dinner, a walk. Each time I do something I put away a portion of my mind in one of these little drawers. Going to the grocer I open the drawer that holds memories of what Doug ate, what we typically made for breakfast, dinner, lunch on the weekends. I put the emotional tie to all of these things in that drawer so that I can go to the grocery store and not break down when a piece of food reminds me of the things that I cooked, made for him, what he made for me, the granola bars that he carried in his backpack. I push the drawer closed so that I can open the door to go to the grocery store. It’s like this with most everything. At times I worry that I’m not really feeling the loss. Acknowledging. I’m too busy shoving inside a drawer in order to function.
I think that this is partly what happened for Doug’s birthday. I was so afraid of feeling, especially since I was traveling, not around my own things, watching LiDo. I couldn’t grieve that day as I had too many things to take care of. Even though I cried for most of the way driving home…I had to keep that in check as well. It’s as if I’ve developed an on/off switch to my brain. If the tears start to come, I flip the switch to off. I feel like I am numb. That I am becoming a cold hearted person. But it is the only way I am surviving.
I’m down here in Austin right now visiting family. My un-family actually. I love them. I’ve grown up with Travo since we were kids and since both of us were ‘only’ children, well, we fight like brother and sister and he is the best thing I have for a brother. It has been nice to be around them. It is easy. Travo is LiDo’s godfather and is having fun playing with him, showing him video games…he’ll be a good Dad when he has kids. Travo’s wife and I went to a spa yesterday and got a massage and facial. The facial was excellent but the massage was pretty much moving oil around…she used so much oil. It was a funny distraction for the afternoon which we are still laughing about. Last night we had fun with the photo booth on my mac…I think we spent about 45 minutes playing around with it and laughing hysterically. This 45 minutes made me feel alive. I haven’t laughed that hard for a very long time. I think I was on the brink of peeing my pants.
LiDo has been having a lot of fun as well. I’ve been pretty frustrated with him as of late. He has been in a screaming, demanding, independent mode for weeks now. We haven’t really been getting along much. The flight was terrible down here. He didn’t sleep, refused to even be remotely interested in a video, didn’t want cheerios, raisins, nothing. Some old fart sitting behind me made a pretty loud comment to the effect that I needed to ‘whack him on the ass’. I got up from my seat, looked him in the eyes and told him to give me a break. I should have asked him if he meant that I should slap him on the ass. Even with not going ballistic on him, he shut up for the rest of the flight. I figured that LiDo has had approximately 18 flights in the past 18 months. This is the first one where I was really frustrated and he would not really calm down. But we are here now and he seems to be a different kid for the most part. He isn’t screaming as much. He is throwing fits. It is nothing like he has been doing the past several weeks. So maybe it is the company, the fact that I may be a little more relaxed around them…I’m not sure but I’ll take it.
Every day I just wish that Doug was here with us. I started thinking about everything the other day and I just can not allow myself to really accept that he is not here. Every time I do, my mind just races with the things that he is missing out on. The things that we are not able to do together. The dreams we had that will not come true. I just can’t do it right now. I can’t accept that he is not here. He was never to leave this world, leave me, until he was good and old and we would die within weeks of each other. Not like this. Not losing him and possibly living another 50 years without him. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. He was too good. He was my life. He should be living it with me. With us. I can’t accept this now.
Everything is hard.
Javagirl 
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