Fifth Nite

Tonight is our fifth night in the house. It has been a heck of a week. Littered with good and bad and has been such a whirlwind I almost don’t know where to begin.

The move went well. The birthday was the most un-birthday day I ever had. I can’t complain, I did it on purpose. I didn’t want to have any time on my birthday to think about my dead husband. To feel sad that he wasn’t here to wake me up singing, have the kids make me a card or just make me feel special all day long. As it was, I was so unbelievably busy moving and stressing that at times I totally forgot what day it was.

I want to complain about how hard the last five days were, but I feel like it would be selfish to do so. My family and friends have gone above and beyond what any one person deserves. From the first break of dawn on moving day I had more help than I knew what to do with. My friends came in and took over. They cleaned the new place, organized and went food shopping. They laid down a new floor while the movers worked around them. They came everyday after the move and just unpacked for me. They walked around me or over me as I sat in a daze unable to comprehend anything. It felt like the week after the funeral. So many people around to help it made me feel helpless. I couldn’t focus on anything as my brain just tried to remember how to breathe.

Friends took my children home from school and kept them so I could unpack. A friend hauled my garbage into the street and never stopped smiling. A friend took my mom and the kids to the movies so I could have a moment of peace. They sent their husbands over to put up shelves and mirrors, hooked up my TV and bought tables, just to get my life back together. My sister came and put my entire kitchen in order in three hours. My mother stayed longer than she ever would and put up with my screaming and crying because she knew, despite the words I said, that I needed her. My friends took me out to dinner and then out for drinks and dancing. They bought me birthday presents and came over to make my children pancakes. There is more – so much, much more.

So I can’t complain about a single thing. I am back in the position of never being able to repay anyone for the enormous amount of love and support I have received. I feel undeserving of it all. Mostly I wish there was someway to let them all know how much they have done for me and how I will never, ever forget any of this.

I won’t complain about the last few days. I will just comment. Everything feels wrong. That is all I can come up with now. Everything is different and feels wrong. I don’t where anything is and feel like I am living in some furnished hotel where you can’t find the forks or the bathroom and don’t know how to turn on the heat. Every noise startles me and none of my things look in the right place to me.

Tonight as I sit here, the first quiet night alone since I moved in – all I feel is that I just want to go home. I want to walk back down the street with my children and go home. There is nothing wrong with where I live now, except there just isn’t anything right.

Like everything, I know this is just another adjustment in my life that needs time to make it better. My children are amazing and love the new place and have not once mentioned our old house. As if the moment we moved there was nothing before. I on the other hand have the walked the empty house a few times until the tears came. Then I realized I am just torturing myself and have not gone back.

I know that time will make this house a home and it will somehow be great and better than before. I just have to think about the wonderful people who keep me sane and whole and I can get though this as well.