Circus Freak

Grief is a funhouse full of distorted mirrors.  Most days I feel like a circus freak, still.  It's in my emotions, my reactions and the way people look at me.  Not the center attraction in the circus but certainly a curiosity in the side show tent.

I feel a bit steadier than I did nine months ago when Norm died.  Steadier but  I cannot say I have found my feet yet.  I have searched my soul for a good analogy but I just do not have one.  There is really nothing to describe it:  one day you have the person who made your life.  The next you do not.  It is not having the rug pulled out from under you- then you would just get back up and everything would resume as normal.  Nothing is normal now and I am continually off kilter.

The things I think about have changed.  Mentally I am always making a list.  No matter what happens in a day it ticks immediately over to the "Norm will not experience this with me" list.  Whether it is a change at work, a milestone for one of the kids, a rainstorm, just another lunch hour when he would have been with me,  a new neighbour or a more difficult challenge I immediately feel that ping of it adding to the list of things I cannot share with him.  Other lists fill my head too.  The list of our plans we cannot finish.  The lengthy list of things I need to talk to him about, but once again, I cannot.

It has changed the things I wish for people too.  I used to wish everyone could find what I had.  A person who just got them, did not judge them and who always had their back.  A person who loved them fiercely and wholly.  Someone who knew how much to push and when they had had enough.  Who could pull a smile out of awfulness and weep with them when necessary. Not sure I would wish that for everyone anymore.  At very least, it might be easier to go through life not realizing that truly having "another half" is possible.  Being in it: wondrous and enchanted.  Being left behind by it:  excruciating. So perhaps I would wish that  death was not a thing at all.  That those of us who love should be exempt.

So my emotions run a weird confusing maze now.  Yes, I think sweet older couples are adorable.  At the same time part of me deep in my brain is screaming that that could have been us and should have been.  Sure, I am excited for my kids when they learn something new.  Learn to drive, make new friends, try to cook something all on their own, make plans to move or to go to school.  On the other side of excitement is just so much pain.  He should be here, he would be so pumped up.  How is it right or possible that he cannot be here to share this with us?  My emotions look like that kid's attraction at the Fall Fair.  The one with the crazy tippy floors and spinning rooms.  Glass walls I run into at a moment's notice.

I miss things that I shouldn't miss.  I miss being cuddled.  I miss body heat.  I miss having another human care if I am upset.  I miss him fighting with me over who should pay for things. Him teasing me about getting old.  Him calling me Puddles.  The late night calls that used to drive me crazy. His snoring and his crankiness and the overly manly way he stepped in and defended me if anyone dared say a negative thing about me or anyone he loved. Having someone to talk to who listened and didn't make it about him.  Who didn't have to compare what was happening to his life because I was his life.  Someone who just got it: even the my stupid sense of humour.  I miss all these things and more but I have no way to regain them.  The source of these things is gone.  These precious things.

Often since "it" happened I have wished that no one else knew.  Impossible.  Life doesn't allow for that.  Just desire a moment when I could be alone in my grief.  Where I did not have to deal with the sad looks, stories from others, platitudes.  The assumption from some that every reaction I have or action I take is a result of grief.  The sad head tilts in moments when I am doing okay that set me right back.  The need some people seem to have to share all the negative past moments he had.  Like, really.  Not my experience.  Go talk to someone else.  I cringe inside and resist the urge to kick in some teeth.  I walk away and feel that somehow I have caved just by listening.  Diminished somehow.  I hope those people have enough conscience to feel embarrassed by those statements and especially embarrassed to have shared them with me....or my children. I am pretty sure they don't. At least not as horribly bad as they should.   Other people are the Roller coaster of grief.  There's great heights and huge drops.  Unexpected turns.  It can leave you feeling exhilarated for a minute.  It can also leave you feeling violently nauseous.

Very early on I said to someone, somewhere that I wished I was about six months in so that I was past the worst of  the uncertainty, the misery.  Well, here I am. Nine months.  Not much better. Not much stronger.  A little more worried about a few things.  A lot more lonely.   Full of  a void that only my Gnomie can fill.  My estimate was profoundly off.  My hope I guess, a little too optimistic.

Eden

Quarter past five.  Deep in the most private part of your soul you smile.  Your heart knows that anything useful you have been inclined to do at work today is done.  There is only one persistent drive left in you today.  The drive to punch out, say a pleasant goodbye and rush home.

The travel time is not enjoyable but  worth it.  In twenty minutes your key turns in the lock.  It is an amazing sound that key makes.  You open the door and are greeted with open affection.  You set down your bag and spend the next 40 minutes hearing amazing stories.  "Do you know what ?  Manda was in art and she was laughing 'cause Issac burped and it was soooooo funny, and the teacher said "That is enough" and we tr-i-e-d not to laugh but we couldn't and Manda had milk come out her nose!"   I bet that was pretty funny. "And guess what else, we only have four more days of school, and then next year, we might get this teacher and he's a really nice teacher, and if we get him he  has ipods in his class and if we get him, know what else?  We get to use them when we are done our stuff and I really, really really hope I get him."  That just might happen, kiddo.  I am pretty glad that you are already excited about next year.

You smile inside and it hits you.  There has not been one single development at work today that can hold a candle to the conversation you just had.  This moment right here was the most important meeting on your schedule.   So, you make dinner and check for homework while your gorgeous husband shows the munchkin how much the cucumber plant has grown.  You thank your lucky stars that he is home tonight with you. It means  there may just be a long walk in the country or a drive out to the lake for all of you, together.  You hear them giggle.  It is not the kind of giggle you hear at work where you wonder; What has happened now?   Just innocent bell-like laughter and with it the tension in your neck begins to melt away.

It is good to be home.  It is magical.

Glowing Earth

It is full of this indefinable thing we choose to call love.  A sometimes chaotic fusion of baking, WII games, guinea pigs and back rubs. Of wall hangings handmade just because He thinks you might like them. A quick nibble on the back of your neck while you fold socks. Snapshots and portraits and preschool art frames glimmering in the background.  A list of chores of  Sisyphean proportion to keep it all running in some predictable order.  As much a thinking game as it is slugging to get it done.  A constant series of questions we ask ourselves:  How do I make it better?  Make them happier?  Guide them in the right direction?  Keep it positive and inspiring?

 Outside these walls the world can knock you out repeatedly whether you are four or forty.  Bullies. Irate customers. Idiot drivers. The just plain rude.  Disappointment can reign sometimes out there- but at home it has no hold.   We plot against it here.  Fortify against frustrations.  Actively build each other up in a cocoon of safety, strength and respect.  The next time we head out the door we each take a little bit of home as the courage that beats within us.

Yet, it is only four walls and a roof.  It is pleasant, organized and comfortable.  It could

Summer Fun

use a new coat of paint.  No one is knocking from Architectural Digest to say, "Hey, can we do a photo shoot?"  Yet, it somehow, in it's simplicity, is an oasis. There is so much good here in this one small place on a very big planet that I bet it glows on google earth at night.   Like a star doused in fairy dust.