Just when you think....

it's just getting too hard and enough is enough and that it might be time to give up some seemingly little thing happens and you come back to the fight.


I haven't written there in a long time. I've been in a hard place for the last week or so... the anniv. of Mandy's death was the 8th just two days ago. It hit me harder than I expected. I've had a sort of bend in the road this past winter. A relapse of sorts. Not sure what that means exactly except that's what it feels like.

I've started back into therapy. I've only had a couple sessions but it has got me thinking about writing again. It's so hard. I remember when I loved to write when it comforted and strengthened me. When it kept me calm and sane, but after Mandy died it stopped doing that for me.

but I'm feeling driven to write so yesterday I tried again. I had some success. I'm going to post it in a separate post titled: Story 01... if I am able to continue with that format I'll post them Story 02 and so on...  

Dancing as fast as I can

Well it's March, alright. It's been nearly a month since I've written here. Sometimes I think I avoid it at all costs. Other times I think I just run out of time or don't have enough time. I especially don't know why I haven't written because I've been struggling for quite a while now and that's the time when I used to write daily for hours sometimes, but since Mandy died I really rarely write at all.

I'm much more likely to craft or sleep or sometimes play computer games, especially face book games. Writing things down make them more real, too real sometimes...

At any rate on top of my obsession with crafting and my usual struggles with this time of year as it pertains to Mandy's death I'm suddenly feeling noticeable low self esteem. I suppose it's possible that I always suffer from a certain amount of it, but I don't usually notice it. I don't feel it, but lately I do feel it.

I feel like I can't do anything right, like I'm not right about anything, like I don't count and I don't matter....

It's odd and it's bothersome. The more I feel like I'm failing the less I want to try. I'm pretty tired of not being able to cook a pork roast no matter what directions I follow.

I'm tired of disappointing people and saying things the wrong way so they get upset and can't seem to give me any slack. I feel like I just need to crawl in a hole somewhere and sleep for a generation or two.

Have I discussed how much I miss Mandy loving me? It's selfish I guess, but then grief feels selfish, like since it's my daughter who died I'm entitled to the grief and no one can take that away from me. It's real and it's mine and no one can really know or understand it the same as I do. In this way I am alone. I stand apart and alone no matter how many other parents share this kind of loss it is just that... sharing a type of loss, the death of a child... however:

I believe that for all the ways grieving a child is similar each is also very unique. Our relationships with our children, with our parenthood is vastly different. The circumstances of our becoming mothers and our feelings about that are also unique. The way we view/ed our place in the world of motherhood - how we say our child and how our child saw us - it's all unique to our individual stories.

All I really know for right now, for tonight is that I'm dancing as fast as I can. I'm spinning and hooking and crafting as if there is a fire chasing me. I feel as if I'm trying to stay ahead of it, trying not to look back but afraid that it's making ground and that it will not only catch me but overwhelm me and I will be rendered useless even to myself...

Easing Pain

It's been an odd few days. I've been working like a mad woman on my art and my crafts. I love it, the creating, the swapping the business of it. I'm never without doing something. Never just sitting...

I've recently become aware that I do this because it's too painful to sit quietly, sit without my hands, my eyes, my mind being busy with counting or focusing on color or pattern or stitch.

I do it to ease the pain that I feel whenever I really 'think' about Mandy and sometimes Danny. It's easy to speak about them, to relate stories about them, but when it's quiet and I sit with nothing in my hands to keep my attention I still imagine her alive... then in an instant I know she isn't and the pain returns.

Maybe it's not that it eases the pain but rather that it denies the pain.

Missing things...

It's snowing this morning, it hasn't snowed much this year at all so far. Although I really don't like the snow and I have an out of town hook in tomorrow that I'm afraid I won't be able to get to, I do have to admit that watching the snow drift down onto the driveway calms me in a way.

I hope Cheryl-Kay is still coming, but probably not. I really want to work in the studio with another person. I miss that.

I miss so many things that sometimes I have to yell at myself for missing things, living in the past, wishing for things that are gone. Instead I should be living in the moment, in the present and allowing myself to feel the joys of what the present has to offer. I've gotten better at it. I have been looking forward to today... maybe it's just a little flurry?

Coldest Weekend...

It's Friday on the eve of the coldest weekend we've had so far this year. It's been warmer than usual this year. I've been able to get out more, which is good for me, for my health and my state of mind. It's not that my grief isn't still close with me or that I don't hurt every time I think about Mandy in any serious manner, but I have not fallen into the dark pit of winter like I sometimes do.

I've been doing a lot on swap-bot. I love having my rug hooking and now I've started a little needle felting. Always something new with me. It's in my nature I suppose. It's the thing that has always kept me going and made me feel alive - the learning - the new experiences... it's all part of who I am and what makes me tick.

As I write this night I ache inside... Salina is in the hospital - there is deep rooted trouble with Brittany and Marlene. I am acutely aware that there is more than one way to lose a child.

It's so cold tonight that I can't get warm no matter how many clothes I put on or how close I sit to the kitchen. But this too shall pass.. the earth will warm again and spring will arrive in all her glory.. summer will follow in lush greens and deep blue waters...

Still Broken

It's been a bit of a hard day. I woke up feeling lost and sad. An old photo of me with the twins was in my feed from four years ago. I never feel the loss of them without feeling the loss of Mandy. Seems like so much reminds me of the loss of Mandy and although I don't cry and weep and lie in my bed staring into space anymore (or rarely I should say) I still feel the aching loss like a subtle backdrop to my life.

It doesn't interfere with my life in some dramatic way, this more subtle aching. Most days I barely notice it at all and when I do I don't pay it much attention. I'm rather used to it, but the times I do pay attention and really look at it in a way that makes me feel it I find that it still crushes me.

In an odd way I continue to feel broken even though I feel that I am healed. Perhaps I am as healed as healed is going to get and perhaps that healing isn't complete. Perhaps it will never be complete and I will always feel a certain level of broken-ness - perhaps in the background similar to the sense of loss that never goes completely away.

Beginning 2016

Guess it's been awhile since I wrote here. Guess it's been awhile since I've written anywhere. I write everyday all day long inside my head, but for some reason never get it down on paper. Afraid, I suppose... afraid that I'll write something that hurts or offends someone, afraid that I'll write stuff that others disagree with, more fearful that they will disagree with me out loud. I don't want to have to further explain or defend what being me in like.

I'm struggling again. I hadn't been so much last spring and summer, but I am again... I'm tired... tired of being stronger than I really feel. Tired of not feeling like its correct or safe to express how hard this really is... this time since Mandy died.

I don't even know what I've posted already and since I doubt this will be read it doesn't matter. Maybe it's okay if I repeat myself a dozen times. Maybe it's okay if I say the same thing a dozen different ways or if sometimes I even contradict myself. Yeah, maybe it's all okay. Well, it won't be by everyone, but not everyone cares to read this crap so it won't matter now will it?

I got in trouble with my Dr. last week. My beloved Dr. B. My legs are really bad. My A1C was 8.0 and I was at my heaviest weight. she want's me to have by-pass. That's a long and painful thought process for me. It's so simple for her. It's simple for those who just want to lose weight - a means to an end. but for me, it means losing... more loss... and more and more losses...

I don't want to lose food and in particular I don't want to lose soda... I have switched over to diet coke. I don't like the after taste, but I'll get used to it rather than go without soda again... that is a huge part of why all my plans fail... because I can only go so long without soda. Maybe many weeks or even a few months, but eventually, it's a deal breaker and I end up back in trouble over and over!

the other day Marlene pointed out that maybe it was just too much to lose and sometimes it does feel that way, like how much am I supposed to lose in this lifetime?

I know I can't do anything about the people I already love and care about. I know that I might lose them and I can't do anything about that, but I don't have to form all kinds of new attachments. Brigid and Onyx died a couple years after Mandy - Brigid first in the back bedroom. I heard her fall and got there just in time to watch her take three last breaths, then silence... death. Less than two weeks later Onyx had to be taken to the vets... something was wrong, horribly wrong. Sure enough Ted had to leave him there and at seven that evening I got the call... "Massive tumor in his stomach area, did  I want xrays and blood tests even though he was sure it was cancer. He had lost half his body weight in less than three weeks - cancer is the thing that does that."

So I said, "is it time to let him go?"

He replied, "I believe so."

I said, "Go ahead."

"I can put him on an IV and try to keep him alive until morning so you can be with him."

I cried, "Goodness no! Why would I want him stuck with needles and left in a cage all night. No, just do it and I'll have Ted pick him up in the morning and pay the bill."

And so, both of them died in November... just a few days before Marlene dying of cancer moved into the back bedroom.

It's been three years and I still don't want any pets. I don't want a cat or a dog or even a goldfish. there are different reasons depending on the day you ask me, but really the deeper truth is that I just don't want to face any more losses right now.

I know I can't help that I still have parents and siblings and a husband and a son and that I could lose any one of them anytime, but I'm not setting myself up to lose another pet.

I don't even know how to think about the twins. The loss of them. I'm angry about that. I'm angry because they don't deserve anything that has happened to them including being taken from me/us without notice or closure or care for what is in their best interest. It hurts. It hurts like loss does. It sucks the air right out of me if I think about it for more than a second at a time.

I don't feel like I can talk about these things to the people in my life. I think they just don't know how to listen and be okay with how I am.