It’s getting better everyday

A few weeks ago, I posted a video of me in the driveway of our old house.  I was pretty upset and wanted to share that.  I guess I felt like if I shared it, folks would understand a little more about grief and quite honestly, crying is something we all do from time to time and I wasn’t embarrassed about it (nor should you, if you need to do it!).

Anyway, perhaps because the house was finally sold and for the first time since Mark died, I didn’t have some big, not in my control, thing hovering over my head, I sort of hit bottom.  All of the things I had been holding inside me since June 2012 broke out.  I spent the whole of Easter Weekend either sleeping or crying.  That was not my plan for the weekend, I had intentions of tackling one of the spare bedrooms and getting it into shape.  When it played out like that though, I just let it roll.  As I have gone through this grieving process, I have learned to just roll with things and to not be hard on myself.  Beating myself up isn’t productive or in any way useful.

At the end of that weekend, I felt rested and cried out.  Don’t get me wrong, I still have a little cry most days, but the horrible, ugly sobbing sessions that happened over Easter feel like they are gone.  I’ve been reading a lot about how other people experience and live with their grief, also, I listen to my wise and wonderful friends when they give me advice.  I don’t always follow it but I always listen to it.  All along, I have known in my head that Mark would be super pissed at me if I just sat around at home crying and feeling sad and lonely because he’s not here anymore.  The reality is that he’s gone, he’s not coming back.  My heart though, that’s another story.  My heart keeps thinking that I might wake up some morning and it will all have been a bad joke.  Like the worst joke EVER.  My head and my heart are starting to sync up finally. 

Very consciously, I have decided to embrace happiness.  Fuck being sad.  I will always miss Mark and will love him until I draw my last breath but I need to have fun again, to be happy and to laugh more than I have been.  I need to honour his memory and what we had in a positive way.  I’m working on that every day.  I read on a Facebook post the other week that “happiness is a journey, not a destination” and that has stuck with me.   I can’t wait to be happy, waiting until I recover from Mark’s death would be silly, I may never recover from it.  Would that mean that I couldn’t be happy again ever?  Nope. Not happening.  The very worst thing that I could ever imagine happened to me last year and I’m still here.  I actually survived it somehow.  I’m battered and bruised but still here.  Fuck cancer and fuck sadness.   You both thought you had knocked me out but you didn’t.  We all know, life is too short to spend it being miserable.  I’m choosing happiness for myself.

April Fools

Happy April Fools to all of you lovely fools out there!!

Seven Months

I have been writing online/blogging since 2000. Videos and podcasts are not things I have a lot of experience with. Except for a review of a coffee maker I did over a year ago, I have never made a video of myself. I felt the urge to do this earlier this evening after I visited the other house for the last time (the sale closes tomorrow). I wasn't sure if I would share this or not. Mark would have encouraged me to post it so I will. It wasn't planned or edited so apologies in advance for the rambling. Thanks again to all of you for your patience, support, love and understanding over these past 7 months.

walloped

So far this winter, thank goodness, the weather has been good to us.  Before I moved back into the city, there was only one day that was a little scary as far as winter driving went.  One day between November and mid-January?  I can't complain, and I won't.  Prior to this year, I had almost no winter driving experience.  Mark always drove when the weather was crappy, I know, I was spoiled.

This weekend, we got all of the cold weather (-26 on Saturday and -30 on Sunday) at once.  I had frozen pipes in my en suite and a frozen solid van.  Fortunately, by Monday, both had thawed out (with some help from me).  I really was caught off guard by the cold.  I knew it was coming and I did manage to fill up the van with gas and get groceries but beyond that, I wasn't thinking about it, I was distracted.

Over the weekend, I kept thinking about how on the 16th (yesterday), it was 6 months since Mark had died.  On Saturday I thought, "wow, it's been 6 months since we had to drive to Brockville for Mark to get his PICC put in."  On Sunday I thought, "wow, it has been 6 months since we spent our last evening together..."  Yesterday, I woke up and started getting ready for work.  A head cold I'd been fighting all weekend had developed early on Sunday evening and yesterday morning, it was not letting me out of the house.  We also had the first (only please?) big snow storm of the season.  In between naps I had to pull on Mark's giant snow boots and shovel the porch/steps and the deck (for the doggies).  I think that the fresh air probably helped me clear out my sinuses a bit, it didn't do much for my back but my head seemed better.

Between the cold/flu and the snow, I was distracted enough to keep on going yesterday and not get bogged down by the fact that it's been half of one year since Mark died.  I've had to do a lot of things in the past 6 months which include moving and getting the house ready for sale.  I've also had to keep the dogs on their routine and me on mine, working, seeing family and friends, trying to get back to normal, or making a new normal I suppose.  I've learned a lot of stupid things that I should have known years ago, like topping up the window washer fluid for example.

As far as my grief goes, I think I feel a little worse now than I did those first few weeks after he died.  I was a zombie those first few weeks, I was numb and didn't feel much beyond a deep sadness. I know that emotionally, I feel very raw.  I feel things very differently now than I did before.   I care less about little things and am not bothered by them.  Whenever anyone I knows has a death in their family, I almost freak out.  I feel so badly that they are going to have to experience this horrible pain that I'm going through and I don't want anyone else to have to.  I know that's not practical or rational but it's what it is.  Also, whenever someone I care about gets good news, I am so excited, like really excited.  Any and all good news is amazing to me, after having had to deal with a lot of bad news.

Another thing I have noticed is that I am kinder and more patient (I think so anyway) with folks I deal with, store clerks, people you see in the line-ups in the shops, drivers on the road, neighbours, etc.  It makes me feel better to do this.  If folks think I'm a crazy lady because I chat with them in the store, I don't really care.  I hope they start doing it too, it feels a lot better than being sad and angry and irritated.

The biggest thing that I've discovered since Mark died is how strong I am.  I always considered myself to be a strong person but I never realized exactly how strong until recently.   I'm quite proud of the fact that for the last six months, despite the fact that I cry myself to sleep almost every night, I still get up in the morning, feed the dogs, make coffee and start my day.  I continue to take each moment as it comes.

Recently, since I moved, I'm feeling more peaceful.  Moving back into that house where we were so happy was a good thing to do.  I know that Mark would be really happy to see the dogs enjoying the deck he built for them.  He'd particularly be proud of Gracie, she runs up and down the steps and in and out of the doggie door, chasing the squirrels and bossing Sammy around.

I have no idea what the next six months will bring but looking back to what I've been able to accomplish since August 16, I am confident that the decisions I've made have been the right ones to make for me and that Mark would have supported each and every one of them.

Reflections on a shitty week

I shouldn’t say that the entire week is shitty because it’s not over yet.  This leads me to wonder what next?  What other horrible news can I wake up to, tomorrow morning?  Which of my favourite musicians or actors or writers have died?  Which of my friends or relatives has been given a diagnosis of some horrible physical affliction?  Which group of innocent people who are just out in the world, trying to live their lives, will be bombed or shot at just because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time?

This week should have been good for me.  I’m getting ready to move and, for the first time since Mark died, I am feeling excited about something.  I’m looking forward, working my plan, getting things in order.  The only fly in my personal buttermilk this week was a small flu/cold bug which has slowed me down a bit this week. Stuffy noses aside, physically, I feel pretty good.

Emotionally, I’ve been all over the place.  Monday, I woke up and read that David Bowie had died.  How could he be dead?  On Friday, his birthday, I saw that he (or whoever looks after his profile) was active on Spotify, playing his new record.  He was all over the media, Angie was in the Big Brother house in the UK.  Surely this is a joke, the Onion gone mad.  Alas, it was true.  Several reputable new sources confirmed it.  My heart, once again, felt smashed.  Not broken necessary, but very badly mangled.

On Tuesday, I read Stuart Murdoch’s reflections on the death of David Bowie.  You can read it here:

http://www.belleandsebastian.com/diary/january-12th-2016-the-next-day

I left the following comment (although it looks like they don’t publish them) in response to Stuart’s great post:

Thank you for this Stuart.  Too often we do forget to count our blessings.  After we suffer a loss, we frequently focus on what is missing from our lives rather than what we once had.  Yesterday, I walked around feeling like I had been kicked in the stomach.  I lost my husband suddenly in August and learning about David Bowie's death dragged me back to those first few days after my husband died.  On very bad days, I sit on my sofa and cry and stare at the box on the mantle that his ashes are kept in.  On good days, I remind myself of how lucky we were to have had 16 years together when there are some people who never get five minutes of what we shared.  The same can be said for David Bowie.  He was always in my life, in the soundtrack of it, making me feel like I too belonged, that I wasn't alone on the planet.  You and I were lucky to have shared a part of our lives with David Bowie and we need to celebrate that once we've finished mourning.

This morning, I arrived at work and discovered that Alan Rickman, lovely, talented, amazing, best actor of all time, Alan Rickman, had died.  I was alone in my office and said aloud, “NO!” when I read it.  Again, making sure I checked several sources before believing it.  How cynical we are now that we can’t just read something in one place and believe it.  We’ve been lied to online so many times that we need to fact check everything.  I do anyway, I’m sure if you are reading this, you do that too.

The New York Times posted their obituary for Alan Rickman here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/15/obituaries/alan-rickman-dies-at-69.html

Again, I left a comment on their post which I will share here:

In the last 5 months I have lost my husband, David Bowie and now Alan Rickman to cancer. It's SUCH a thief. I have said this a lot since my 63 year old husband died suddenly in August, cancer steals those people we love from our lives. Alan Rickman had an amazing talent. I was introduced to him via "Truly, Madly, Deeply" and have followed his film career ever since. One of my favourite Rickman roles was as Metatron, the voice of god, in Kevin Smith's Dogma. If god did exist, I would imagine that her/his voice would sound like Alan Rickman's. Oh that voice... cannot imagine that it's now silenced. What a loss, for all of us. My deep and sincere sympathies to his family and friends.

Add Lemmy to the list and it’s been a bad month to be an artist of a certain age who originated from the UK who I respected and admired.  Who is next? What horrible thing will slap us in our collective faces tomorrow morning?  I’m almost afraid to find out.  I will though, wake up tomorrow to find out what it is.  As I promised myself when Mark died, I’ll continue to get up each morning and keep moving forward.  It’s not always easy but it’s something that I have to do.  Unfortunately, it’s something that David Bowie’s widow, Iman and Alan Rickman’s widow, Rima Horton will have to do too.  They, like me, have lost their lovely husbands far too son and have joined a club, a sisterhood, that they would have preferred to have never joined.  Trust me, I know I can speak for them on that because I have yet to meet a widow who was happy about it.