Letters to Ryan: September 27th

Hey Sweetheart,

We miss you. I miss your hugs. I miss your confidence. I miss your support. I miss your smile. I miss your touch and your compliments. Liberty and Buddy miss Daddy. (The cranky cat does not miss getting roughed up)

Liberty went to her first group class yesterday: Confidence Building. I think it's more for me than her. She did great, of course. You picked the smartest (and most stubborn) of the litter. She's walking better on the harness and we're working on anxiety.

On Friday I was coming home and saw a dog get hit by a van. Back legs broken and possibly a pelvic fracture plus multiple abrasions and contusions obviously. Even in pain he was still more loyal than a most people. I sat in the rain with him trying to calm him and keep him from running into traffic. A few others stopped and got out to help me. We got him to a vet and when I finally got home I was cold and wet and I just wanted you there to tell you about it and get a hug. You were my calm and reassuring right hand in any scenario.

I've worked in the yard more and it's looking great. I've incorporated more blues in the yard because it reminds me of you. The rose bush you planted for me is beautiful. Thank you so much for doing that, darling.

Chargers lost to the Vikings today. Rivers. Oh Rivers. You would have yelled so many times. But the O-line is really where the problems lie right now. I know you're gone, obviously, but it's hard to believe some days. I just don't understand.

I miss your eyes. You know our babies would have had the prettiest eyes. I love you, Sweetie. You are not forgotten.

Wordless Wednesday: Protecting my Sanity

Planning for What You Can't Know

This morning I woke up and dragged myself out of bed, put on shorts and running shoes, and was downtown on the trail by 5:45am. Tonight I came home and ran hills for 40 minutes. I fucking hate hills. But the burn in my lungs and the vomit reflex in my gut dulled the pain in my heart and finally blurred a mind currently running low on glucose. It’s been a rough week. Yesterday I planned to run – I didn’t. Sunday I acted pretty normal up until I crashed out at 4pm and did nothing the rest of the day. Saturday I finished a 6 mile run before sunrise. That run is the only thing I remember about last week. The rest of what went on was just some chick taking up space on this planet and using oxygen…

Depression is one thing – there’s a uniquely abnormal normalcy to it. Nothing prepares you for cycles within grief. 

It’s fair to say that the last 8 months and 9 days have all been rough; but it’s impossible to plan on the week where you can’t get out of bed or where you crawl back into bed every day as soon as you’re home. When the week before you’d managed 30 miles but today opening your eyes is too much to handle. It’s impossible to plan for a morning which goes so well and something – who knows what – flips a switch in your mind and you zombie it through the rest of the day. When I spend hours fighting thoughts which attempt to intrude. It’s at those times I think: Who is this person? Don’t you want to try? Don’t you want to live?

Yes and No.

The strategy I’ve attempted is to simply back myself into a corner – pay for the sand volleyball league and you’ll be sure to go, buy the chair for reading so you can set it up in the corner and be productive in some way. Treat yourself to a new dress (one that actually fits) to push you to go out for dinner…

The techniques that used to work don’t anymore because the person they worked on is gone. And I have no idea who this new female is that stands in her place. Because the thing is, you can’t plan for literally nothing mattering. 

It’s so hard to decide a course of action when 5 minutes or 2 hours or 1 day or 2 weeks later your feeling will flip and overwhelm you. You can’t expect that even something as standard as feeding the dogs, feeding the cat, or feeding yourself will actually happen. Sometimes it’s because you literally cannot remember. Sometimes it’s because you don’t really care. I feel like I should care, but right now I don’t even feel.

The Questions

How was Ryan any different than the 400 others that he worked with?
Why do those that whine and complain, that are never satisfied, even those that are mean and cruel - why do they still financial stability, happiness, friends and parties, families that love and support them? Why do they get a husband or wife to spoon at the end of the night? Why has everyone forgotten about him? Why do I not matter anymore - why did you lie and tell me I did?

Where did everyone go? 

What did he do to not deserve peace? What did I do to not deserve happily ever after? 

Philosophy Friday: When We Are Fighting Our Hardest

I think it applies to anyone that kindness makes a much bigger difference when someone is at at their lowest -- and perhaps most unlovely -- versus when they're on top -- or easiest to love.

Alternately, on my "good" or "not bad" days, I'm still fighting. It's still exhausting.

I came home today

I came home today.

Traffic was light. I pulled up at 4:48. Turned into our neighborhood and realized

...I am early, but it doesn't matter.

Because he isn't there.

I have 7 hours and 12 minutes left in my day. And no one to spend it with. Because they all left. But even if they were here...the person that I could survive even alone with he isn't here.

I could have spent hours with him, snuggled into bed, made a meal, gone out for dinner or a drink.

Talked. Touched. Smiled.

I don't walk around expecting him to appear. I know that, I learned that, I've lived that for the last 8 months and 5 days. But I still get the heart pangs when something hits me unexpectedly and I realize - it can't go back to the way it was. It will never be the same.

I miss you Sweetheart

They Don't Want to Know

A lesson I was not ready to learn. For me, it was less than 3 months.
Whatever you do, release them from the obligation they so obviously don't want...
for it will protect you more than false promises and pain of secondary loss right at the
point that your shock begins to wear off and the initial fog breaks.