Vomit

Things are moving faster than I ever imagined. I might have to move sooner than I thought. I was worried and upset over the past few weeks, because I didn’t know when I was going to have to move. Now I almost know. Now I want to vomit more than I did yesterday.

I looked at an apartment today. It is maybe 15 houses from my home. Same block, same neighborhood. The same and yet very unbelievably different. I told them I would take it. I barely care. I should probably go look at lots of places. I don’t have the strength or the will to do so. This fell into my lap and I am just going with it. I actually just don’t care. All I know is it’s not my house and not my own. Nothing else seems to matter. I tried to picture us living there and wanted to vomit even more. I hate change. No I loathe change. Change seems to be the only constant there is in my life. This is too much. I can’t breathe. I must remind myself to take breaths, because otherwise I may just forget.

My friend came over today and helped me pack. She was amazing. I just sat there and watched. Now there are boxes everywhere and I am suffocating. I almost told the children we are moving. Maybe I will tell them tomorrow. Another miserable Saturday. Maybe tomorrow I will put on my game face and tell them the truth. We have to move because I see your dead father everywhere I look. This is partly true. I won’t actually say this. I promise.

I feel like telling them is a great hurdle I must face and I need to get it over with already. I lie in bed at night worrying about everything. Now I have new things to worry about. Because there just wasn’t enough to think about last night; now I will wonder how my furniture will fit. How will I take apart their bunk beds and will my son be allergic to the dog upstairs? I can’t breathe again.

I am not sure how I am supposed to do this all. There is no time in my life for everything as it is. How am I supposed to fit this major move in? I just don’t want to go and I want to leave tomorrow. This house is golden handcuffs. I see my dead husband everywhere and stay away from some rooms because I can’t bear it, yet this house is my foundation. The one constant I have had all these months. The house is my sanctuary where I can hide from the world. It is comforting to me and nothing else feels right. I am so tired of not being normal and the world is upside down and it is all out of my control.

I hate change and want everything to be the way it once was. But this is just not possible. Nothing will ever be the same again and it seems to be going on and on this way. Change and more change and I just want my life back. Please just let me have my life back!!!

To say that I am overwhelmed is almost funny. I just want to vomit. I just want to feel human again and wonder when this happens. I wonder how he thought we would be better off without him. How my husband thought his death was any kind of solution. I know I shouldn’t dwell on thoughts like these. I know that this thinking gets me nowhere. But I can’t help it. I just wish I could have done something different so life would not be what it is right now.

Change and chaos – that is all I am living in. I still feel like this is happening to someone else. That I am going through the motions but none of it is real. That I will wake tomorrow and all will be as it should. Everything is happening so fast and I can’t catch up. I am ten steps behind my life. I fall further behind every single day. This sucks.

I hope I am making the right decision. I hope my children can be happy in this new place. I hope that for once in my pathetic life change will be for the better. I hope I just don’t vomit.

Pinball Wizard

This is really funny. I am trying to pack. This is freaking hilarious. I am trying to get my house ready for other people to want it. I mean this is really the funniest thing I have said all month. If I didn’t think this was so funny, I would be crying too hard to type.

I drove to work this morning in the pouring rain and blasted “Black Dog” as loud as I could take it – hoping you could hear it in heaven. I was playing you a song to drown out the sobs and curses that were spewing from me the entire trip.

Please G-d - please don’t let this be real. I just don’t know how much I can take. This has been the most overwhelming few months and I can’t breath. The anxiety might actually have gotten the better of me. I am back to being a shell again. I am going to work and taking care of my children, but I am so numb and so stunned that I just don’t know. I just want this struggle to be over, but really I just want you to come home and tell me to stop packing.

Yesterday I tried to start. I felt like a pinball moving around to different points in the house for brief moments. I would get overwhelmed looking at something and move to a new spot, get upset again and move to a different spot. This went on for hours – I packed nothing. Sorry T.

I started with the books. I thought this will be easy I can get rid of his books. But then I thought, what if my children would someday want their father’s books, I can’t get rid of these. They are so personal and tell so much about his likes. So I moved on to the movies. I thought this will be easier. But I can’t give away his movies. In ten years when the children will be age appropriate to watch them, they will want to know their father’s favorite movies. I can’t get rid of them because what if in ten years I can’t remember what is favorite movies were and they will be so angry I don’t know these things. I left the movies alone. I went looking for his cd’s and remembered blissfully that I already gave everything to his eldest son. I found four cassette tapes. I threw out two.

I felt so much better after I threw out the two tapes I moved on to the filing cabinet. I found all my honeymoon photos and maps and receipts waiting to go into a scrapbook that is half done. I pondered what to even do with this stuff. I put everything back into the filing cabinet.

I read every single Birthday, Anniversary and Mother’s Day card my husband has ever given me. I saved them all over the years. They all have poems in them – most of the go like this:

Roses are red
Violet are blue
I love you
Even though you are covered in vomit and poo

I didn’t just cry when I read them – I wept for hours and hours. I put everything back in the filing cabinet exactly where I found them.

So I pretty much spent all day wandering around the house and threw out two cassette tapes.

Not a bad start.

All week I can feel the start of something. I can sense the Fab Five are going to soon take over. I can hear them somewhere out there arming themselves for battle. They will come quick and sure and get my butt in gear. I feel bad for them – I plan on putting up quite a fight.

Word of advice to my Fab Five – good luck and bring tissues. Oh and beer.

Freak Out Girl

You can’t possibly know the freak out occurring in my brain these days. I am trying to fight the freak out and some days calm me is able to rationally keep my other evil self at bay. But lately freak out girl – she is on a roll.

I am going to move. There I said it. I am going to leave my home for the last five years. The only home my children have ever known and the place where I see my dead husband wandering around daily.

This may not seem like such a big deal to some. Maybe someday I will read this blog and wonder why I was freaking out. But today, I have several hundred reasons why I find this acceptable fodder for freaking out.

I have moved 20 times in my life. Yes, 20 times I have packed up all my stuff and moved somewhere else. When my husband and I finally bought this house all I thought was - I will never have to move again. Since I am 7 years old and the constant exodus began, I have only wanted someplace to call my own. Moving to this house was my husband’s 21st move. He never wanted to move again either.

There are two things I never wanted my children to experience that I did as a child. Living in a house without a father and moving from place to place. I am officially two for two. I feel like I have failed my children on so many ridiculous levels it is mind blowing. I have now literally given them my horrible childhood and even gone above and beyond the horrors any child should know. I should get a trophy.

The worst part about having to move, well I am not sure yet, but I have a list. It starts with not being able to paint the walls black, worrying the children will break something that doesn’t belong to me, never feeling like we are really home and not ever wanting to put pictures on the wall; because when you start to move from rental to rental - you just never stop.

I wish I could ask my husband what to do. I wish I could cry to him and tell him what is happening to us. I wish he were here to help me pack. I hate packing and I hate looking around at all the objects I have accrued through this marriage and wonder what am I supposed to do now.

I have not told my children yet. My mother warned me not to say anything too soon. If I told them today they would be asking me for the next few months, “When are we moving? Are we moving tomorrow? Where are we going? How many more sleeps?” I have no answers for them.

My mother also told me to make the move sound exciting. Every time we moved she made it sound like we were going on an amazing new adventure and we couldn’t wait to move. I need to get rid of freak out girl before I tell the children. I need to keep a huge smile on my face and look excited. If am crying while I tell them, they are never going to believe me when I say this is going to be great. I certainly don’t believe this at all. So I will wait until I can control my emotions; until I have a clue as to the where and when.

The whole world is open to us now. I could close my eyes and point to a place on the map and say we are going there. I could really go anywhere at this point. But the truth is, I just want to stay in my neighborhood. I am surrounded by the familiar and friendly. I love this place. I love the people and I love the strangers. I love not having to explain my daily tears and the comfort my children have from living in a warm and friendly environment. I may be losing my house but I will not let us lose our home too.

So for now I will try and fight my misery. I will push the thought away that sometime soon I will have to hand my dream house over to another family; for their dreams to flourish while mine are crashing to pieces. I will try and not think about the wonderful times we had here and how much I love my house.

I will try not to think about all that I have lost these past four months. My husband, my dreams, my joy and now my house. Everything I thought was important I have lost. All I am left with is my inner strength which is being taken over by freak out girl.

My children are the most important thing and I need to remember this when freak out girl is winning. I will remind myself over the next few weeks that this house is just four walls. All that matters is my healthy, amazing, happy family. What is in between the four walls is the only thing that is really important.

Tooth Fairy

I am so done with this all and am ready for you to come home now. The joke is over – it is not funny anymore. Please come home now.

This really cannot be possible. This cannot be true. You cannot be dead. It feels so terribly wrong and part of me is just unwilling to accept it. The longer time goes on the more unrealistic this all feels. I actually dug your note out today because I think this is all one big freaking joke and totally can’t be happening. But your note is a harsh reminder that this did happen. You are truly dead and not coming back ever. Somehow this happened without any warning and I feel very small and sad and the what if’s are just terrible these days. Just plain awful.

Yesterday I woke up in battle mode. I was ready to take this Saturday on and not let it get to me. I didn’t cry and I didn’t wallow in misery – at least not right away. I took the children to the earliest movie I could to battle some demons, “The Tooth Fairy”. There is no father in this movie, which I was kind of happy about. But the mother does have a boyfriend, who proposes at the end. So after the kids were done trying to pry their teeth out for money, they asked me when I was getting a boyfriend to marry. I suggested we go to the supermarket and buy apples to work on prying their teeth out. They left the boyfriend question unanswered. I am seriously done with the movies forever!

At the market this crazy old lady approached me to tell me how lucky I am to have a beautiful boy and girl. I smiled politely, thanked her and moved away. She proceeds to follow me saying again and again how lucky I am. I am nodding and smiling, but after ten minutes of her going on and on and on I just want to turn to her and say; “Lady, my husband killed himself 17 weeks ago – luck is for other people.” But I didn’t. I went to the next aisle and started looking at rat poisoning instead and she left me alone.

The rest of the day was fine. Just fine.

Today is another story. Today was a beautiful day and I stayed inside the whole day. I just did not want to see the sunshine. I did not want to feel warm air on my face. I keep thinking that come spring I will be better. Come spring when the icy world defrosts and everything will be reborn again, so will I. That come spring I will be in a better frame of mind. But what if I am not? What if I stay icy and frozen inside as the world blossoms? I couldn’t risk the world smelling like spring when I am still a total mess. So we just stayed inside and hid.

I can’t even write about what is really bothering me and keeping me up at nights. But soon I will have to get it out. I can’t freak out on my own without my blog. I may just need to vent big time – but not now.

Tonight I am just still bewildered. People I know don’t kill themselves. People I know don’t go through this. I feel like I am living in a bad Hallmark channel movie and am waiting for the director to come in and feed me my lines. I don’t know what to do next and I don’t know what the future holds. I hate this.

Maybe tomorrow I will buy the children caramel and we will really get those teeth out; anything to distract me from reality. I hope it snows tomorrow.

Dreams

Tuesday night you finally came back to me, if only for a moment. I dreamt of you, peacefully, for the first time ever. I believe I only remembered the dream, even partially because I woke myself up crying – thanking you for visiting me.

What I do remember is how good you looked. Healthy, handsome and happy; the way I really remember you and always will. We were standing in our bedroom and you were packing. I was not packing – just you. You were folding your clothes and putting them into a suitcase. I remember standing there watching you – not sad or remorse. Just truly happy to be in your presence. There was a scrapbook on the bed and I opened it. Inside was a single newspaper clipping about your suicide. I remember thinking I had so many questions to ask you. So much I wanted to know, but I never found my words.

All I did ask was, “Do you ever think about that day?”

You told me yes, everyday.

“Are you sorry?” I asked.

Yes, you said to me – everyday.

Then I woke up crying.

Do I feel better? No. Do I feel at peace? No. Maybe I will dream again and be better prepared.

I was away with my children for the last two nights on our first ever family vacation. It felt terribly odd to be going away to a family resort – with a piece of the family missing. I was determined not to feel sad and miserable. I was determined to have a good time. I was determined to just not be me for a few days.

The children had a blast. They went swimming and ate ice cream at every meal. I taught them both how to ski and they were amazing. We stayed up late and jumped on the beds. I never said the word NO. Except when their independence got the better of me and they wanted to ski down the huge mountain from the very top without me.

It was very bizarre to be in a place where no one knows about me. Oddly comforting and yet difficult too. I was the only single parent that I could see and trust me; I was looking out for others like me. When the kids were swimming and I was sitting by myself surrounded by couples, I often wondered what they thought of me. I would chuckle to myself because I wanted to walk up to them and say, “Whatever you are thinking my story is – it is worse much worse than you can ever imagine”. But I didn’t. I didn’t have to explain my husband’s absence; I didn’t have to talk about death or suicide for three days. It left me feeling empty and longing for my computer so I could write about it.

I tried not to think about my dead husband while we were away. But there were moments I just couldn’t help it. I wanted him with me to share the experience. I wished he was there to witness the children coming down the mountain solo for the very first time. I saw him at every meal there was an all-you-can-eat buffet. He would have been thrilled. I saw him at night when couples were playing ping pong while their children played. I held a racket in my hand and tried not to cry. Envisioning how he and I would play ferociously both thinking we could out maneuver the other.

The only time I really cried was when I would watch children run away from their scolding mothers into the arms of their smiling fathers. That was so painful to witness I would have to look away in tears. I missed him so much this trip even though I tried very hard not to. I missed his sense of humor and just having him to rolls his eyes at me when someone said or did something ridiculous. I missed having him there when his daughter peed her pants as we were about to go skiing and was left on my own to deal with stressful parent stuff.

I guess deep down I didn’t do a great job at keeping the ghosts away. But like everything, I did the best I could.

I didn’t dream about him while we were away. I didn’t talk about him while we were away. I made new memories with the children and they only know what a wonderful vacation we had. They never said, I wish daddy was here – maybe they were just thinking it like me.

Google it

This is what I know. My life has forever been altered with an all consuming sadness that has engulfed my children and me. This is what I don’t know. Everything else.

Late at night when I can’t sleep I search the Internet for people like me. I hope sometimes I will stumble across a website that will have the answers I seek. Though to be honest, I seek without even knowing the questions.

Suicide websites are too much for me. There are so many of them and they all make me feel worse than I already am. I read the many stories of others who are dealing with this awful situation and none of them bring me any closer to understanding anything. The only connection I feel is their pain.

I Googled young widows thinking maybe that would help refine my search. The first site that comes up is a band. Who knew there was a band in New York City called Young Widows. I have no idea why they came up with that name or what their story is. All I know is that Googling did not help. Other widow sites that come up are about dating a widow and to watch out. Nausea creeps across my soul as the word dating goes into my mind and quickly exits. Not now, not ever I think.

The next site I come across is for windows. Apparently the genius who makes Google thought widows and windows are the same thing. Well I do feel made of glass sometimes and feel like everyone can see right through me – maybe not such a bad match after all. I am now an expert on windows – go ahead ask me anything.

I am thinking about not blogging any more. I can’t deal with the side issues that have erupted due to this blog. In other words my family. Maybe I need a secret blog so I can complain to myself about my family. Maybe they should all just stop reading it. This bog is all about me. ME! This is where I come to when I am feeling my worst. This is where I get to put down all the feelings inside of me so I don’t go crazy. This is my outlet for pain and misery. It makes me feel better to write that which I cannot say. It helps me process the feelings and emotions that I need to some how deal with.

Yet when I am upset on this blog, you are all worried. When I pour my heart out on-line you worry. You should worry when this blog stops because then I have truly lost myself. It has only been through writing again that I have found the me that I lost many years ago. I need this blog and I need you to stop focusing on everything I am not doing. I need everyone to leave me alone.

Apparently when I am sad and miserable I need more therapy and drugs. When I am not sad and miserable, I need to be doing more to fix my life. I am dealing with my dead husband after four months. I am trying to raise my children and figure out the rest of my life. Need I remind you that I see my dead husband everywhere and relive finding his body day in and day out? I am trying to do the best I know how. And if my best is horrible that is still the best I can do.

I am not going to a one on one therapist. I don’t need someone to tell me this was not my fault. I don’t need someone to tell me I am strong and someday I will get past this. I don’t need someone to tell me that my husband made his own choice when he took his life and that I need to carry on living. I know this is all true. It doesn’t make the here and now any easier – even if the person saying it has a P.H.D.

I don’t want to take anti-anxiety drugs. I am sorry if you think drugs are the answer. I am sorry if you think I yell at my children too much. I am sorry if you think I loose my temper and am too stressed out. What if I take drugs and still act this way – are you going to suggest electro shock therapy?

This is also all I know. I am doing the best I can. I am trying to not be miserable all the time. But all I want to do is be miserable and maybe I deserve to be this way right now.

Maybe I will give the children guitar lessons and we will start our own band. We will sound so horribly depressed we will make Morrissey look like Elmo. Just Google it.

Four Months

Wow – has it really been four months. It sounds like such a long time. But then I think that it has only been 16 weeks, 112 days; it doesn’t sound like such a long time anymore. It certainly doesn’t feel like you have been dead very long. It feels like you died today. I continue to feel raw and horrible inside and am still amazed that this is real - that you are actually gone. It feels like no amount of time is ever going to make me feel any different.

My children wake up every Saturday way too early. Like 5 am too early. Of course yesterday I was dragging everyone out of bed to get ready for school. But today when we can all sleep in, they are up at 5 am. It seems to make the start of every Saturday that much worse.

We drove to a birthday party this morning. On the way we passed a cemetery. For the first time in his life my son noticed a cemetery. He pointed to it and asked me if daddy is buried there. I said no, that daddy is buried in a different place. That was as far as the conversation went. We went to the party, which incidentally is five minute from “the” cemetery, and I thought maybe after the party I would take the children there. I figured it is four months, tomorrow is Valentine’s Day - maybe we would be ready for this.

The party was fun – the kids had blast and then we left the party with three heart shaped balloons. I had this image in my mind that we would go to your grave and tie the balloons to your sign and the kids could see where you are. I got them into the car and said, “We need to go to Trader Joe’s, but what if we go to the cemetery first?”

My son looked at me and asked, “Will there be games and rides there?”

I felt like someone had slapped me across the face. What was I thinking even contemplating taking them there? Why did I have this imagine in my mind that we would get there and everyone would be cool with it? That leaving their balloons would somehow make the moment not so awful and they wouldn’t be horrified by the idea that your body is buried deep in the earth under rocks and snow.

How did I even think I could go without hysteria taking over every ounce of my being? How did I even entertain this notion for longer than a second? Maybe I just miss you and want to see you so badly that I was willing to risk my children’s sadness and my own mental health for just a brief moment in your presence.

Going to the cemetery this early on with the children - bad idea. Just bad. Maybe the worst I have had in a while. Why did I want to go? Because every time I visit I think maybe you will be standing there waiting for me, to tell me it has all been a horrible mistake and you are alive. This is probably what my children would be thinking too especially if I said – “Let’s go see daddy!” They don’t understand fully where you are - I certainly don’t either. It may be four months but this is all still too new, too soon, too unbelievably painful to think about. They cannot go to the cemetery yet - I can’t take them – not yet – just not yet.

This all went through my head in about two seconds – then I looked at my children and without a moment’s hesitation said, “Hey, let’s go to Trader Joe's and buy lots of snacks!” And that is what we did.

They never realized how awful a mistake I almost made. They never asked again about the cemetery. I never even answered him about the rides and games – thank you awesome goody bag for that distraction.

We got home and I opened the mail – just love opening the mail. There was a letter from a monument company stating they heard I might need their assistance. I started to laugh. What kind of a letter is this, I am thinking. What kind of sick stupid person sends out these letters. Then I stopped myself; maybe it was a sign from G-d, my husband or even the universe – who knows. Telling me that at the right time I will have an unveiling of your tombstone and that is when your children will visit your grave.

Definitely not after four months with some red hearts balloons – sometimes I think I am going crazy. Sometimes I am thankful I catch these crazy moments before they go into action.