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.

hey, where are my ice cubes?

hey, where are my ice cubes?
Originally uploaded by Julep67

I just read a story about a lovely old gent in the UK who won a massive lottery. He plans to spend part of the money on his allotment (apparently he's had no luck growing carrots). I thought that this was unbelievably cute.

I would probably think a little bigger and buy a house that had a garden but hey, to each his own, right?

Simple is definitely the way to go I think. We're trying to simplify our lives a bit at home. Clearing out stuff we don't need, feeling more organized overall and less stressed generally. Also trying to focus on stuff that makes us happy, time with the dogs and each other, puttering in the yard. Summer flies by so fast 'round here that I really want to enjoy it this year, rain or shine.