Music and Lyrics

Today was a peaceful day. I felt surrounded again all day long. Sometimes I think the feelings are very overpowering and I tune them out. Today it was very helpful. Almost as if something happened that was pleasing to him. It was like I had said to God and Scott I needed some kind of reward for enduring all of this and taking care of things and here you go. I am so very grateful for the pleasure of the reward of today. I take nothing for granted.

I got things done. One of my new patients that has been there for about a week told me, along with his wife and my favorite repeat offender patient that I was great and could really help. That made me feel so good. His wife also told me there was not any chance I could be a Speech Therapist for almost 20 years because I only looked as if I was 30 myself. Boy did they boost my ego. She also asked me how I lost my husband and I was able to stand there with only my eyes tearing up but they were manageable. Now off and on I wanted to cry the rest of the afternoon but whenever I was near a radio the music spoke to me in volumes. Today was a serenade kind of day.

I wish I could explain it more in depth to each of you reading this. I can't even portray the powerful energy that surrounds me. The list of music and variety of artists that played today was too many that I stopped trying to track it after five songs on my way to work. The song that stuck was "My Valentine" by Martina McBride because it was new to the songs he has been sending my way. It was one of the first songs we listened to together and he always commented on how I new all of the words. I will always be his heart.

Now for a great rest tonight that will bring on another peaceful day! I don't think I'm asking for too much, since I can't have what I really want I will take the light and love that is given to me each day. Keep saying prayers for me. I'm not through all of this yet but I'm trying.

Pressure Cooker

"Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak
Whispers the oe'r fraught heart and bids it break." - William Shakespeare

Oh the days of studying good 'ol Will in High School. We read them all if that seems possible. Now hear I am putting meaning to his words in the worst time of my life. Really that is what he is saying. If you don't take the time to talk about all the grief then you really become a pressure cooker and explode. Sometimes I feel like I'm repeating myself all the time but this blog is all about me truly.

Hard to admit that because I'm always taking care of everyone else but if I don't take the time to express the random thoughts that can become lodged into my head and won't leave then the only way to get them out is a mental meltdown. I don't need that anymore then you need to pick me up off the floor. The quote is from a few days ago in of course my meditation for grief book. Reading and writing are my building blocks these days to keep my boosted off the floor. I need a rocket attached to my back some days but well amazingly I've made it to the end of the day without blasting off.

The mail attacked again today but I got to vent. Scott had one bill that arrived after he died but for some medical services way back in November. It was a measly $25 and the stupid hospital had sent it to a collection agency. I had sent the check a few weeks ago after getting the estate settled and Becki and I paid what we could with what little money he had. I got to tell the person on the other end of the phone at the collection agency when she asked if Mr. K was present that "NO he DIED in APRIL!" Well I must say that is one way to silence them. I then told her I sent the check a few weeks ago and otherwise that was it! That felt good. I've never had collections calling me but I've gotten lots of wrong numbers for people!

The best part was the looking forward into 10 months from now and the cruise brochure. There wasn't much in it. Not more then what was online but it was fun to look at the glossy photos and have an actual ship plan to study. Now what do I want to do when I'm there? Relax, Relax and maybe a wilderness hike to say I've done that. Or how about a helicopter ride over the glaciers? I'm planning and I can't believe that I am planning something again. It is who I am - the organizer. I miss Scott and his thousands of questions. He would be asking me things I don't know any more then he did. He did that with Fiji. Umm, Honey I've not been there! Then I think that he knows the answers and will be my guide through life. When I get there we will have so much to share.

So for now I continue to repeat myself to get the pressure lowered before I explode. I lived another day. In circles I lived another day. But as they sing in The Lion King - The Circle of Life. Ahh there goes another Scott memory. I've had lots of them this evening. Things I'd tucked away in the recesses of my mind came back to me. I'm lost within my own memories but it is an okay place for me to hang out. Now to start the circle again with the closed eyes and hopefully a dream visit from my Love.

Nut Job

Where's my repeat button for Sunday? I can sit here on my spot on the couch and work on keeping myself from crying and having a panic attack all day. I don't know how to make it through these times. Hannah has been here but I not worth anything today. We got up earlier and I did shower but leaving the house didn't happen. That would require more energy then I have. I can really see myself becoming a hermit if I didn't try so hard. Today I didn't try at all.

I have to try again tomorrow but here we are at almost five months and my world just gets smaller and smaller. I'm kind of lost at repeating myself. I don't know how to ask for help. I don't know how to explain that the feelings of pain and loneliness are even more intense now then they were. I don't like me, I don't like life. I'm living but I don't like it. I live for Hannah not myself. It is really hard to say but the very core of where I an and continue to be.

I find myself doing things that are silly but I can't stop. My newest addition to my trouble sleeping is one of Scott's t-shirt hugged to me like a blankie. I walk past our pictures all over the house and blow him a kiss. I talk to him all the time. There are many more things but now I don't always realize I'm doing some of the things I do. I have some OCD and now it is all about Scott. Why can't I OCD my craft room? Maybe this will pass or maybe I will spend the rest of my life a lonely woman living with memories of the way my life should have really been. Scott is forever young. I just get to be older. Yuck. I don't want to grow old without him.

A part of the daily meditation book says, "I will step into the unknown dark, trusting I will be safe." I don't feel safe. I feel like I'm standing at the edge of a high spot and trying to find a safe path but I'm being pushed from someone behind me that I can't see. I guess I'm a little morbid tonight. I don't mean to be that way but I really hate Sunday.

So I work through this day which repeats once a week and marks time with the following quote from my meditation book.

"If God is, He is everywhere present. He is not an occasional visitor, nor ever more truly present than at this very instant. He is always ready to flow into our heart; indeed, He is there now - it is we who are absent." - Arthur Foote.

I'm not truly alone in my sorrow if I keep the presence of the love of God and the knowledge that Scott is part of that love. That I am part of his Heaven and one day we will truly be together again but it doesn't make it any easier to get through Sunday. Help me please keep me together and not a psycho nut job that I've never been until five months ago.

Lots of sleep

Last night was fun and sad at the same time. I'm getting there. Yes I am facing this process with as much bravery as I have but sometimes I'm a big 'ol chicken. Mike and Pamela picked me up and we drove south for an hour and half to meet my parents at Joe's Crab Shack. It was one of our favorite places to eat. I was the one who picked it. I was craving Great Balls of Fire. I felt so very odd man out. Sitting at dinner with four other people. At one point I had to get up and go to the restroom and cry my eyes out. I couldn't do it. Then I found my courage to go back to the table and finish my dinner.

We made it straight to the game. I hated watching the game without Scott filling me in on all the details. Questions were asked and I couldn't answer them but I knew Scott would be able to give me the details. I was surrounded by people and I've never felt so alone. I cheered in all the right spots. I loved watching Hannah participate in the marching band in the real moving formation. We got a great view of their backsides but they moved great and sounded good. I'm trying. I'm out there and trying.

We drove home and it seemed like no time at all and we were there. The kids weren't to far behind. At 1 am after being up since 6 a.m my head was hitting the pillow. Today I slept. I managed to get out of bed at 3 p.m. with much reluctance. I dreamed of Scott all night. It was an entire story line. He was alive (more like he felt like he should be alive) and I had tasks to do to be with him again. It really does sound like life or a novel. You pick! I guess for me I do have things I'm supposed to complete and be with my love, his heart. I'm not happy about being separated. Being together was important only behind our girls.

It is still my process that I don't want to be in but the only choices I have aren't choices I would be allowed to make. I keep getting out of bed and making the choices that others approve. I make the choices for my beautiful daughter. It is the only choice I have that fits into someday being with Scott again. Mike said last night that he felt like Scott was with us. The three of us talked about him and how he was in life. We knew the adult he had become, the person he was at his death was not the child, teen, college student but the formation from those points of life. Others can recall their times with him as he was. I got to know all of him. All of the stories and times of growth gave me the man I love. He used to say he wished he could have skipped some parts of his life and met me at 19. I used to tell him then he wouldn't be who he had become for us. My life will never be the same because he changed me for the GOOD!

Knowing What to Do

Are there days where you just don't know what to do with yourself? I have lots of those days. I do the routine stuff but then when I have to move on from there I get stuck. I guess that is why I'm so stuck when I get home. I have a bunch of stuff I should try to do but I still can't. Tonight Hannah was out at band practice and then some time with her Dad. I was home alone. It took me an hour to decide to actually take out the bag of spinach, wash the strawberries, open the bag of almonds and mix it all together with poppyseed dressing on top. Not to hard to do for most people but for me it is like taking the tweezers to my leg hair. I cringe at the thought.

I finally did it after much self prompting. Then it felt like I had months to kill before Hannah got home. So on goes the television to mind numbing programs again, House Hunters and Big Brother. I have other things I should try to do. The front lawn needed a haircut but I can't do that because I can't get on the lawnmower. I avoid all things that have the remote possibility of causing a panic attack. The things is all of these things I avoid I can give you very specific reasons why I can't do them. I won't bore you with the details and as irrational as I sound to myself I can't convince myself to do them.

I have a disc with pictures on it that I need to have printed for Laynie. I can't go into the craft room to get to the disc because my wedding dress is hanging on the door in front of where the pictures are sitting. The panic attack is still greater then doing something for a little girl I love very much. I can send Hannah in there but somehow that always ends up with me standing at the door sweating and Hannah has finally said to me, "It's okay Mom we will get to it, just not right now." My poor daughter takes care of me so very much. I want to get better! I just have to be gentle so I avoid right now and approach things slowly and conquer as I can. Not to bad for four and half months.

I often wonder how it feels to others? Time is so irrelevant for me because I can see him everywhere I go, except my brand new therapy gym because that was just a dream when he was still alive. We had forms and dirt moving and now it is four walls and a place to work. It's not finished yet but that is just cosmetics. For me it is still the week of his death, sometimes it is dreams of our last trip together. As I sit in my living room I can see him in his two favorite spots or I can hear him going in to take a bath. He is with me still. Not just in my memories or imagination I feel his presence.

So tonight Hannah finished mowing the front yard at 8:30 pm while I watched. I took out the trash and came up the front walk as I passed the mailbox I could feel him standing there watching her mow. The guilt of not being able to do somethings that I used to love doing was overwhelming. I went inside and started a load of laundry for her, sat at the table and talked to her a bit about her school day and put stuff together for Friday Night Football tomorrow. As I sorted her clothes I looked into her room and on her bed is the blanket we made for Scott for Christmas to surprise him. He found out because she didn't hide it well enough but he never said a word to her. She knows now and I knew because he told me. I think she misses him bunches to and not having him here is hard on her. She is stronger then I ever feel I will be again.

I'm working my way through stuff but without her here I'm lost. Okay I have to share that as I am typing this our oldest kitty gets off the couch walks to the door to the craft room which I can see from where I am sitting. Stands at the door and meows. I get up walk to her and she paws at the door wanting in. I open the door and turn on the light for her. She walks in stops, turns around and meows again. I step in and she meows in front of the pile of wedding reception things and stops at a bag from Disney World with the tiaras for the little girls that we bought in March and paws at it. I picked it up and she walks on meowing me along. She goes around my desk chair to the front of the closet door. She stops and meows. I sit down on the ground and start bawling my eyes out while she pats me and meows. I can see the dress and the basket of pictures. I am in there. Why do I have this strange sensation that Scott is right there with me guiding the cat? I will take care this. I'm am in overwhelming panic mode from being in there for two minutes, so I tell him I will keep working on this project. I have a new project. He has apparently told me I can do this and he will be right there with me.

I'm at my threshold for the night but for doing things I must overcome. He is here. When I need him the most he is here. When he wants something done he is here and sometimes he is here just because he loves me. I will never doubt our connection. It is beyond what I could ever dream of being. The things that happen I could never imagine. I accept and I love him to infinity and beyond.

Popping Bubble Wrap

So you see there are always kinks in the system. It can be any system and right now for me it is basically called life. There are things that have been achieved because I've been patient and known I needed to take care of them, even when other people have put rocks in the road. Of course, the ones that help me grade the road outweigh the ones who think stoning someone is fun so I'm good to go with that. I have developed a patience I didn't know I possessed in some aspects of my life.

Now if I can be more patient with myself I'd be sailing on the big fluffy white pillow cloud in Heaven with Scott. I'm learning I really must be learning. This morning was a rough start. I did get out of bed earlier then normal to do my Mom duties. Hannah made it to school for early band even after late band and homework last night. I'm very super duper proud of her. She is amazing and working hard. How many Freshman do you know come home and say, "This will look really good on my college applications!" So with that said she has worked her way from the "Z squad" into the actual marching group. I'm not taking credit because I voiced my opinion but she worked hard to get there. She comes by that ability honestly. If you know her please make sure she knows for the rest of her life, even when it is my time to go, how very much I love her and how very proud of her I am. I tell her everyday but I want her to know that I shared it with others.

I make it through days without patches of grief hitting me in the face but today wasn't one of them. Last night I picked up one of Scott's t-shirts and held it close like a child would a blanket. I am craving being held in his arms and smelling his scent. I can still smell him but that warmth and strength of being in his arms and being tucked in close is so very painfully missed. The immense loneliness and pain is so very hard to describe. It does make what I've worked hard to achieve hard to continue. This world is cruel and there are no guarantees but I have to be patient with myself. No one is pushing me to be more then I am except me. How do I explain the feeling that I will forever be stuck in this bubble on a teeter-tooter. Smiling for the cameras and crying alone.

I'm not asking for explanations. I know it is what it is but that doesn't keep the world at bay while I work through the most painful event in my life. I know I'm not alone. I know others are out there who go through these moments after loosing their spouse but I can only speak from the depths of my own heart. I can only hope that someone has taken the time to pad my teeter-totter with lots of cushions so I don't hurt myself. Or at the very least wrap my poor fragile soul and heart in bubble wrap. At least then I would have warning when something is not right because I could hear the POP.

My friends that truly know me understand the depth of the love Scott and I share. If you were around us for any length of time I've been told before and after his death that he only had eyes for me. I know the same is for me. No one knows this story but in Jan a former coworker texted me out of the blue on a cold rainy Saturday morning. Scott had gotten up to shower and I was still all snuggled into the covers. This person proceeded to ask me out. I started laughing and showed Scott the texts. His response was "he'd better think twice about that! You're mine!" I had to agree. There were very few secrets we kept from each other. His teaching Hannah to drive might be one of the very few he was successful at keeping from me. If there are others that I don't need to know please don't burst my bubble wrap right now around my heart. I know we had our ups and downs but we had a great ability to communicate that got us through any troubled waters.

So today I faced a slap of grief in the face and got up and made it to work. There I let the problems of others consume me until I was able to hide from the grief and bury my troubles. Now if someone knows why my hair is falling out in huge clumps and I'm covered in welts on my neck and chest please send me a remedy! If it is psychological I guess I will just have to keep my biweekly counseling sessions. Hey at least she tells me that knowing me before and after the tragedy she knows I have abilities to find my way one day but right now it is still okay if all I can do is get out of bed.

Tomorrow will be another day of life. I want to look forward to them not just looking forward to marking them off. I don't want to live the rest of my life this way but here I go again expecting myself to fix everything in one day. Not today. Maybe not ever but I will get to know the joy of Scott's love again one day when it is my time. I'm not asking when or why. I just know it will happen. We are given two things by God in this life that are promised, birth and death. The time that comes in between is a gift. I thank God daily for my gifts but I also have to recall that the difficulties are also gifts. Just like eating your spinach, they will make you stronger.

Horror or Romance

Today I don't know what to write about. I'm on a big roller coaster today. I have felt like I'm part of the story of the Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allen Poe. That would fit my life maybe even to the point of Stephen King. I feel some days like I'm in a horror story, a tormented prisoner not of my own choice. I prefer to read mystery romance novels with a happy ending. Nicholas Sparks, Danielle Steele maybe would be better then this. They have ups and down, happiness and tragedies but most often points that make life better.

I have almost an entire collection of Danielle Steele's works. It was my inheritance from my Grandmother. She made sure I got them long before she ever died and then continued to add to them over the years as gifts for all occasions. I feel like I should be writing a story of my life but that it should be a work of fiction. Then I realize I'm one of those tragic souls in her stories but now how to I recover? How do I make it from my pit of despair into the light and love that was my life with Scott. I look around and most times I am good to go and then suddenly I feel alone in my bubble.

I don't want to be bubble girl. I want to live forward but I don't get to live forward how I would choose to be. My rings are super lose on my left hand. I'm afraid they will fall off with as much weight as I continue to lose but I can't bring myself to remove them. They are my connection to Scott. My Magic, the magic he gave me with his love. I can look at them and know exactly how much that love really could not be measured in dollars and cents. To infinity and beyond is priceless. One day I will be buried next to him and I will be at his side in the light and love of God but for now I have lessons to continue learning here on Earth. The mortal world as we know it.

Now in this fictional book of mine I could make anything happen and it would all come true. It now sounds like the makings of a movie. I know nothing of formal writing other then taking the words that aren't really floating in my head and typing. I sit here and write out to you without thoughts floating in my head. I read what I'm writing as if I've never heard it before. I guess that means I have magic hands and fingers because I'm only performing the action. Maybe this means I know how to use more of my brain then I realize. I type and the words poor out onto the screen. If I stop to think my brain has nothing there, not a little voice planning ahead just a blank canvas.

I need to know how to take this and earn a living that provides for Hannah into college and beyond. If I felt like I was worthy them maybe I could make that happen. Someone give me the courage to move forward with a new dream in life beyond the dream of being Scott's partner to infinity and beyond. I have no doubts that is the truth! The other side of taking my self esteem to the next level from spilling words forth. Hmm maybe this will give me a place to think after my fingers are done with my brain. I wish I had all the answers but I guess tonight isn't the night to find world peace or to even know I will be cared for in my old age financially. Oh well I at least have a little bit better peace of mind then when I started this entry a few minutes ago.

With this I leave you with a thought from my Daily Meditation book:

"There is no way out, only a way forward." - Michael Hollings