I guess we live at the zoo now April 2, 2011

For the second time in five days, off we went to the zoo. Nathan was the organizer of this trip, and reminded me that he’s the only teacher I know who WANTS to hang out with a very select few of his students on Spring Break. We had a fun time (NO GIANT PLAYGROUND) catching up, handling the various tantrums, watching Whitney text 2,000 words per minute, and racing the strollers to the zoo exit (Nathan and I will NOT be participating in any 5Ks anytime soon–it was pretty pitiful how out of breath we were, but it got Baby Girl to stop screaming, which was the point).

 

This is Micah’s birthday week (which will be celebrated this year at Bounce U, the scene of all my sensory nightmares–thank you very much Nathan), which means it’s been three years since Kathy died. I hate to sound like a broken record, but sometimes I just don’t believe it really actually happened. I just don’t. These are always hard weeks for Nathan, and this time is no different. I just hate it. If there was ever anything I wish I could fix, wish I could undo, this would be one of those things. I keep having these awful dreams that take days to shake. I have a few images that I can’t get rid of, and I know Nathan and Kathy’s family have thousands more that are even worse. Two Sundays ago, someone was wearing this certain T-shirt that I associate with that day, and I thought I was going to have a panic attack. I simply don’t get it. Nathan is exactly the father he should be–I just always see someone missing. I know he does, too. I won’t tell his story here (and obviously his grief trumps mine by 1000%), but I am still really processing this. And not well much of the time.

But, every so often, her son snatches a humongous buttered breadstick from my plate like a feral animal and shoves the entire thing in his mouth before I can blink, and I just have to laugh. Come to think of it, he snatches food off my plate a lot. And he calls me ‘Nessa.

That helps a lot.

What happened here? December 10, 2010

 ETA: I posted this, deleted it pretty much immediately, and now I’m putting it back up. You know what? That’s where I was that day, healthy or not. It’s not where I am today, and the thing is whiny and self-serving, but that’s the purpose of a vent in the first place, right? It may come back down, but for right now it stays.

 

I’m sorry–this is going to be one of those cryptic vents. Do they still have those places where you can pay to go and smash a few boxes full of dishes? THAT SOUNDS FABULOUS right about now. It was a rough night.

I had this conversation just yesterday with two empathetic friends, so at least I know other people lose it sometimes, too. We even laughed about it. Maybe my memory and perceptions are skewed on this, but I’ve always seen myself as someone who is (most of the time) even and collected. When I would see other people flip out, even if I was right there in the middle of it and involved, seeing someone totally lose their cool and throw what amounted to an adult temper tantrum always made me just “click off” any frustrations I was feeling and let me find the ability to pull it together enough to just handle the situation and get on with it. Practical to a fault.

I don’t think I’m that person anymore. When I’m frustated, I feel like a ticking time bomb. I feel selfish and unreasonable; I feel like my emotions are not in sync with what’s going on and they’re often just firing randomly. I’m anxious in the face of nothing in particular, and completely ice-cold calm when I should probably be doing a good amount of justified freaking out. I haven’t figured out how to reset myself and start acting like I know I should when I should.

I know none of this makes any sense. It sounds about the same in my head, believe me, like white noise.

There. I feel better.

Now, I’m going to schedule this for later so I can decide if I should even post it or not. It helps to get it out, even just a little bit of it.

Being real, or not June 26, 2010

Today, I was reading just a few of the 981 unread entries in my Google Reader and came across this post by Kelly.  I feel a lot of the same things she mentions. This concept of “being real” here is something I wrestle with from time to time. I write many, many posts that never see the light of day because, well, the PEOPLE WHO KNOW ME read this, and sometimes I just need to vent and not publish for the world. Later, I go back and scroll through the entries, and all I can think is:

That? That is SO not what my life is really like.

And I wonder if I’m pretending to be something I’m not.

I want what I put out there to be the truth. I don’t think I’ve ever written anything on this blog that is actually untrue, per se. However (and this is a big HOWEVER), I certainly don’t share everything that I think, feel, or experience. I often present a highly edited version of my real life, with all the dirty laundry hidden away. Things around here, generally, look pretty happy and shiny. In reality, it can be a roller coaster of crazy.  I am impatient and selfish, I make poor choices, I fight with the ones I love, I take out my frustrations on the wrong people, I doubt every single thing about myself and the decisions I make. Often, I even doubt that I feel what I think I feel and wish someone would sort it out for me. I complain, I whine, I blame others for my unhappiness when I am responsible. I have days that I want to do nothing but lay in bed and lament my inability to manage the chaos that swirls around me, my inability to make things better when they are JUST NOT OKAY. There are lots of reasons I conveniently delete those days from my running monologue here–vanity, a desire for privacy (despite my natural tendency to overshare), embarrassment, my sometimes astounding lack of attention to details…and, if I’m being honest, I’d much rather be viewed as sarcastic and witty than the mess that I really am much of the time.

Among many other excellent points, Kelly says, “But at the end of the day – my blog is something I do for myself more than anything and I want to remember the good things.”

I guess it comes down to this: I basically use this space as a scrapbook of my life. Years from now, I don’t WANT to be reminded of the hard things, the things that scar. Those things are real and there and will be remembered without any effort on my part to memorialize them. Believe me, I have a memory like an elephant and can give a run-down of pretty much anything any person has done to hurt me without even taking a deep breath, no matter how many years have passed. It’s a problem for me, actually. I want to remember the sunshine, the smiles, the funny things my child says. I want to remember getting caught in a rainstorm and laughing so hard I thought I might die (that’d be today at Chik-Fil-A after playing a sweltering game of cornhole).

So, I guess I’m saying that I’m willing to be truthful and real…to a point. Maybe that’s selective memory, but I’m okay with that for now. It will just have to do.

a serious one today–hang on September 14, 2008

I have been writing this post on my head for about three days. I think about this all the time, but mostly in quiet moments in the car (50-minute commute, not a friend to the distracted brain). Even as I write it, I’m not sure if it should be posted or if I should just type it to get it out of my head and delete it. Even in my head, it doesn’t make much sense, and I’m confident it won’t come out the way I intend. That frustrates me, so I tend to write and delete a lot when it comes to the serious stuff. Witty banter? Potty pictures of Baby Girl? Much easier for me than this. I call it sarcasm as a defense mechanism. Handy, but not always real.

I am still grieving for my friend. I hesitate to say even that, because my next immediate thought is this: …and a mother is grieving for her daughter, a sister is grieving for her only sibling, a husband is grieving for his wife, and a little boy will someday grieve for the mother he didn’t get to meet. I’ve always thought of friendship as such a strong concept, but it pretty much pales in comparison to all that. Not that loss is any kind of a competition; it just feels strange and somehow wrong to talk about my grief when what others have lost is so much greater.

It is so painful to see my friend hurting and be able to do nothing meaningful about it. I am hurting for the pain and confusion that a precious baby boy will someday feel when he learns how much his mother loved him, but that she didn’t get the opportunity to raise him. I am hurting for a husband who is trying to grieve in the tiny in-between moments crammed between 3 am feedings and a full-time job. I am hurting for the adults that will need all the wisdom they can muster to help that little boy understand when he’s ready to learn about his mother. I am hurting that my faith doesn’t seem to be strong enough to handle something like this. If I can be really honest, I am pretty much in the same place I was when Kathy died five months ago. I am shocked, angry, bitter, and disappointed. I can laugh and tell funny stories and love on baby Micah with abandon, but all that gross emotion is right below the surface. I am not able to say with any conviction that it was God’s will, that God will be glorified through this, that God will take care of Kathy’s family. I believe it (way, way, way deep down), but I can’t bring myself to say it out loud–because I still don’t. get. it. My brain refuses to understand, and a part of my heart is still very hard. I am thankful for good and honest friends who are able to admit they are feeling some of these same things–because I feel like I’m not progressing very well with it. A gurgling baby boy is a good distraction, I must say. I’m lucky enough to get to see him pretty often.

Raw grief is messy and real. It makes me uncomfortable. It makes me terrified of saying something offensive or hurtful (I tend to put my foot in my mouth, even in the best of times), and I’m also afraid of hanging back and not helping when I’m needed because I’m trying to be polite and respectful (again, not something that comes naturally to me). I will admit that most of the time I have no idea where that line between supportive and intrusive is. It probably changes from day to day, I imagine. Unfortunately, my default is to do nothing (not a very good strategy–that helps no one and just buries the hurt). I am constantly reminded that this kind of grief is both overwhelmingly public and excruciatingly private. None us can really “get it.” In some ways, I think what should be private is made public (because people far and wide know details, etc.), and what should be acceptable and public (the simple fact that it hurts and will for a long time) is sometimes swept under the rug and not discussed.

I am learning that all kinds of things can bond people. Some of my closest relationships have come from the best of times, but the worst of times are just as bonding. I guess you just have to dive in and do the best you can. I am newly and painfully aware that I am not guaranteed forever, especially with my husband and daughter. That is a paralyzing, awful, sobering truth. The thought makes my mouth go dry and my heart pound. It gives me a lump in my throat and a weight in my chest that takes a long time to go away.

See? I still haven’t said what I’m trying to say. I just hope it makes sense to those to read it. File this under “work in progress.”

In order to relieve the tension (and keep you actually reading this blog), frosting-covered 2-year-old birthday photos and witty captions to come, I promise.