This Time Thing

So it's been a lot of days since I made time to sit down here and put my thoughts together. I think part of that was because I began to felt like over thinking was driving my depression. But the other part was I decided maybe I just needed to BE for awhile and not worry about some things. I got through a birthday and a lot of other days and I seem to have fallen into normalcy.

It's not that I'm all better and I've moved on and time has healed etc yadda yadda. It's just that every motion, every thought no longer resonates the words MOM IS DEAD into my brain. I've slowly moved into a place where I can function again and resemble a person not grieving, at least to the outside world.

I've realized over the past few days how much I did every day was for mom. Snapping pics of the kids and putting them on FACEBOOK or emailing them over to her. Sometimes maybe even what I wrote. My mom being apart from my kids is my greatest regret, because they won't ever know a fraction of how amazing she was. Their version of her is diminished because distance. I know I did my best, with phone calls every day and visits when we could get her here or we could go home, but that's my biggest regret. 

I had the luxury of being able to go to MY grandparents every day. I wish my kids had that. They aren't scarred or damaged because they didn't, but they missed something and now it's over.

Julia had soccer on Sunday and after her game we all went up to the lake for a hike. Everyone needed to stretch their legs and get some fresh air. I found myself again taking pictures for mom, only to realize she won't ever see them. I've got to stop doing that.

I've read a lot about grief over the past month. Basically what I've read has shown me that I'm not unusual, that what I'm struggling with is completely normal. Society puts too harsh of an expectation on us all to just get over it and move on. I feel some better realizing I'm not completely out of whack with how I feel.

I feel better, and I'm not going to push myself to pretend to be ok. I'm not ever going to be OK on this subject, but at least I'm not completely crippled emotionally. I'm tired of talking about it with my friends, and with my family. I'm tired of explaining sudden sobbing, or why the Polar Express broke my heart the other night, or why driving down the road and thinking of anything brings me to tears. It's a short answer, "Because Mom died."

It's a longer answer. "Because my best friend, the one person in the world who knew me inside and out, the one person I could always count on, the deepest love I ever knew, the first person I ever wanted to tell everything my entire life, the person I trusted infinitely, the best friend I will ever have, my PERSON....died."

I can't explain to anyone who died, not accurately. Saying "Because Mom died" is the shortest wrongest answer despite how right & concise it is. It does not even remotely cover my loss.

So I'll do life things with my four children and find my mom in each of them, and remember how she always told me that your children are your immortality.

That makes my children HER immortality. That's a pretty good thing, in my opinion.

We made our hike another opportunity to do my kids favorite activity - hunting mushrooms. Our finds this time were pretty good.

Time doesn't heal all, but distance seems to be building a barrier. I'll take it.
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This Time Thing

So it's been a lot of days since I made time to sit down here and put my thoughts together. I think part of that was because I began to felt like over thinking was driving my depression. But the other part was I decided maybe I just needed to BE for awhile and not worry about some things. I got through a birthday and a lot of other days and I seem to have fallen into normalcy.

It's not that I'm all better and I've moved on and time has healed etc yadda yadda. It's just that every motion, every thought no longer resonates the words MOM IS DEAD into my brain. I've slowly moved into a place where I can function again and resemble a person not grieving, at least to the outside world.

I've realized over the past few days how much I did every day was for mom. Snapping pics of the kids and putting them on FACEBOOK or emailing them over to her. Sometimes maybe even what I wrote. My mom being apart from my kids is my greatest regret, because they won't ever know a fraction of how amazing she was. Their version of her is diminished because distance. I know I did my best, with phone calls every day and visits when we could get her here or we could go home, but that's my biggest regret. 

I had the luxury of being able to go to MY grandparents every day. I wish my kids had that. They aren't scarred or damaged because they didn't, but they missed something and now it's over.

Julia had soccer on Sunday and after her game we all went up to the lake for a hike. Everyone needed to stretch their legs and get some fresh air. I found myself again taking pictures for mom, only to realize she won't ever see them. I've got to stop doing that.

I've read a lot about grief over the past month. Basically what I've read has shown me that I'm not unusual, that what I'm struggling with is completely normal. Society puts too harsh of an expectation on us all to just get over it and move on. I feel some better realizing I'm not completely out of whack with how I feel.

I feel better, and I'm not going to push myself to pretend to be ok. I'm not ever going to be OK on this subject, but at least I'm not completely crippled emotionally. I'm tired of talking about it with my friends, and with my family. I'm tired of explaining sudden sobbing, or why the Polar Express broke my heart the other night, or why driving down the road and thinking of anything brings me to tears. It's a short answer, "Because Mom died."

It's a longer answer. "Because my best friend, the one person in the world who knew me inside and out, the one person I could always count on, the deepest love I ever knew, the first person I ever wanted to tell everything my entire life, the person I trusted infinitely, the best friend I will ever have, my PERSON....died."

I can't explain to anyone who died, not accurately. Saying "Because Mom died" is the shortest wrongest answer despite how right & concise it is. It does not even remotely cover my loss.

So I'll do life things with my four children and find my mom in each of them, and remember how she always told me that your children are your immortality.

That makes my children HER immortality. That's a pretty good thing, in my opinion.

We made our hike another opportunity to do my kids favorite activity - hunting mushrooms. Our finds this time were pretty good.

Time doesn't heal all, but distance seems to be building a barrier. I'll take it.
Tweet

The Days of Christmas

If you are a traditionalist you  know that there are 12 days of Christmas - yes just like the song. I'm a firm believer that if on the 26th you say "ok that's over" that you don't actually enjoy the season properly.

We are deeply immersed in the days and are doing our best to do the holiday fun things that we love before everyone has to head back to school and get back to real life. We went to Lake Lanier Magical Nights of Lights which is one of those things where you drive through the Christmas lights set up in vignettes while listening to music and then at the end there is a Christmas village with carnival for you to give them all of your money.

This included displays of Christmas trees - this one was my favorite. It has mirrors sticking out of it horizontally. I believe that in a packed holiday shop full of treats and magic and CHILDREN this is the best possible idea ever. Nothing could ever EVER go wrong with shards of glass sticking out from your Christmas tree - right?

We spent more of our time outside roasting marshmallows while the sounds of Wizards in Winter blasted loudly over the speakers.

Obviously, roasting marshmallows is awesome. Julia was very upset with us for burning the marshmallows and then even more upset that we suggest that she then eat them. So, she chose to have regular untoasted marshmallows.

There was however, a sweets shop that made her forgive us everything.

I have to confess, the red velvet cake fudge looked good. There were samples of it on the counter and they tasted like chocolate - PERFECT so we got a slice to share.

It was so vile. It tasted like we were eating hardened butter cream icing. This might be good for a taste but it was just, OMG no horrible. I don't even know what went wrong, unless they actually made it out of butter cream icing and are passing it off as fudge. THAT ISN'T FUDGE FOLKS.

Also, I am just going to leave this here. I don't even know.

Is this a gift meant to terrify?

Who needs an elf on the shelf when you have this thing?
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The Days of Christmas

If you are a traditionalist you  know that there are 12 days of Christmas - yes just like the song. I'm a firm believer that if on the 26th you say "ok that's over" that you don't actually enjoy the season properly.

We are deeply immersed in the days and are doing our best to do the holiday fun things that we love before everyone has to head back to school and get back to real life. We went to Lake Lanier Magical Nights of Lights which is one of those things where you drive through the Christmas lights set up in vignettes while listening to music and then at the end there is a Christmas village with carnival for you to give them all of your money.

This included displays of Christmas trees - this one was my favorite. It has mirrors sticking out of it horizontally. I believe that in a packed holiday shop full of treats and magic and CHILDREN this is the best possible idea ever. Nothing could ever EVER go wrong with shards of glass sticking out from your Christmas tree - right?

We spent more of our time outside roasting marshmallows while the sounds of Wizards in Winter blasted loudly over the speakers.

Obviously, roasting marshmallows is awesome. Julia was very upset with us for burning the marshmallows and then even more upset that we suggest that she then eat them. So, she chose to have regular untoasted marshmallows.

There was however, a sweets shop that made her forgive us everything.

I have to confess, the red velvet cake fudge looked good. There were samples of it on the counter and they tasted like chocolate - PERFECT so we got a slice to share.

It was so vile. It tasted like we were eating hardened butter cream icing. This might be good for a taste but it was just, OMG no horrible. I don't even know what went wrong, unless they actually made it out of butter cream icing and are passing it off as fudge. THAT ISN'T FUDGE FOLKS.

Also, I am just going to leave this here. I don't even know.

Is this a gift meant to terrify?

Who needs an elf on the shelf when you have this thing?
Tweet