Quicksand

My grandmother told me life is all about survival of the fittest. She would know as she is almost ninety and has survived quite a bit in her long life. Her life is filled with stories of good times, sad times and everything in between. My life is one of her sad times. I think it pains her to see me struggling and she only wants the problems to go away – like yesterday. But of course, it doesn’t work that way.

I am sure my mother is expecting me to blog about her – as we have had a horrid few days together. I am going to try and not bash her and blame anything on her. But then again – this is my blog for me to vent and she doesn’t have to read it! My mom thinks she is giving me good advice. She thinks she is trying to save my children from a horrible childhood. She thinks she is protecting them and helping me. She thinks she is right – how can I tell her I disagree. It wouldn’t matter anyway.

My mother has never “gotten” me and I don’t think she ever will. My relationship with her feels like quicksand sometimes. She does or says something that makes me angry so I say something, then she says something, then I say something worse. Before I know it I am sinking into a pit of anger and despair only to have her look at me and say – you really should be on drugs that calm you – your anger is out of control.

She doesn’t understand that my anger comes out in its worst form around her. No one else criticizes me as much as her, but she calls it advice. I always react badly when she is telling me something I didn’t ask to hear. She thinks I am a terrible mother sometimes and am too harsh with the children. She thinks I don’t go to therapy enough. She thinks a lot of things about me that I just don’t want to hear. Maybe she is right, but the fact is that she doesn’t stop - ever. She says anything and everything about every little thing and I can’t deal with it. I couldn’t deal with it before suicide and I surely can’t deal with it now.

Sometimes I don’t care my husband is dead. Doesn’t that just sound so awful? I don’t care because what is done is done and I can’t undo a single thing. All that is left is this life I am struggling to live. To deal with the after effects of how suicide lives in my soul. How a dead daddy affects my children and how the rest of our lives will unfold. My relationship with everyone I know has suffered this year. I am sure I have lost friends these past nine months as I don’t call or want to see anyone. I am sure I have yelled and screamed and blew up at everyone in my family. I am sorry but my heart is broken – my husband is dead and my dreams are shattered – everything else just falls by the wayside.

I don’t care that my husband is dead until mail comes with his name on it – bills I have made a thousand calls to change the name. I don’t care that he is dead until the phone rings and someone is looking for him – or when I walk past our old house and think about how nothing is settled there either. I don’t care he is dead until my children are crying for him. Or when my daughter learns to ride a bike without training wheels and your son learns to dive into the water and you are no where to be found to share these trivial joys only a parent can appreciate.

Maybe I should just go back to crying day in and day out. Then everyone will remember what I am dealing with. Remember that every new day is a day without my husband. Every new day I think about the day he died and the awful look on his face. Every new day I think about dragging his lifeless body from the garage. If I am not crying and am not acting sad I am just asking for someone to judge me incorrectly.

My mother asked me – if everyone thinks one way and you think another – who do you think is wrong? I don’t know how to respond to this question. I am just trying to get through each new day and try not to look too far back because it is devastating and try not to look too far ahead because it is terrifying. What everyone thinks about me and how I act is not even on my very long list of things bothering me.

I can’t possibly justify my actions to anyone. All I know is that I am trying to do my best and yet it seems to never be enough. I would like to one day think that I am like my grandmother and that the survival of the fittest will prevail. These days I don’t feel that way about myself at all. Maybe I should look to my children for some courage, as they have much more than me.

My six year old son looked at me the other day and said – well, I guess we are just going to have to live the rest of our lives without daddy – survival of the fittest indeed!