Bunny in a bad, bad place

very tough night for me tonight. so many thoughts vying for front and center. thinking about my life with my mother. thinking about my life with my first husband. with my Carl, and now that he's gone, with my two children. so hard to sit and type it when words just want to spill from my mouth. but this is all i am allowed. i read of so many who get grief counseling and i wish the person i am writing to who has offered to hear me but who lives 10's of thousands of miles away; i wish we could do this face-to-face.

i emailed the grief counselor who i do not think was vested in my well-being. i am still working on her quilt. it was part of the deal even though i no longer see her. she was just not really there for me. she kept changing appointments or i'd show up and she would have forgotten me. i apologized for the slowness of the quilt, but with work and not feeling well with this high blood pressure thing and diabetes, ...... anyway, she did not answer me. i think she is angry. i can't be a part of that. so many people lined up to be pissed at me for something. get in line. and i say that without really having any kind of a list other than first husband, his entire family, my brother who has disowned me......i am hurting so badly tonight. those "old sorrows that rise up to beset me. old doubts make my spirit their own."

i am lonely for him and yet i am in such darkness tonight that i wonder if his dying wasn't just a way to get away from me. my children are so busy with their lives. i get small parcels of their time, and you know, they ARE grown up and they ARE busy, but i gave up my whole life to move into the hospital when my mother was dying. i sat there for 6 months and took care of her until she died and she despised me. so i'm not dying. not that i know of yet. i just want my son to come visit. i want my daughter to make a little time for me in the physical sense of coming over rather than relying on the phone calls now. but she IS so busy and has moved 30 minutes in the complete other direction. i feel alone up here. i am anxious a lot of the time. i feel like i am in an airport terminal waiting on them to call my flight. "Bunny, board at Gate 2. Dragon is waiting." but Murphy's Law will dictate that that voice will say, "Bunny, why are you waiting. get to work. no one wants to spend time with you. you are only a commodity. not a real person."

but i am supposed to be doing better, right? at least better than i am. i am supposed to be working on my self-esteem and empowering myself. but it's hard to do that when someone tosses those platitudes off over their shoulder as they walk away, or hang up on you. i wish i could move to an island and never have to see anyone again. if i am on an island, no one CAN come to see me. it would be a great inconvenience. i am "patted" on the back via emails and phone calls from people i do all this stuff for and yet, no one really knows how much i hurt. no one. i cannot really tell anyone everything. there is so much. there would be that yawn and that lack of interest. or they would be appalled and not want to hear anymore, or not believe me. so many times doctors did not believe me. or lawyers. "go fix your marriage." "he makes this amount of money and you want to divorce him? can't you just take it?" it was my turn to be appalled.

i did try to talk to someone back in August in San Diego. she was horrified. she did not want to hear me at all. she wanted it all to be free and fun, to cut loose and get away from sorrow and trouble. i cannot risk being shut down like that again. i cannot risk opening my mouth and seeing that look on a person's face. widow or not, no one truly gets all of it, off of the individual. everyone has their secret darkness that haunts them. being with other widow's like that, it was the wrong time and place and people for trying to find someone to talk to like i need. 2 years, 3 months and i am still searching for someone to talk face-to-face to. there is something wrong about that. where is the empathy? where is the compassion?

i want to move away and become a hermit. if i become a hermit, there can be no expectation of company therefore no feelings of abandonment. me and Bunny on a small rock off the coast of somewhere. i am supposed to be thinking how wonderful i am and proud of the things i do for others but i don't. i have no good feelings for myself at all. i do for others what i'd like to have done for me. i do for others because it is the right thing to do. it doesn't make me special. i don't do anything for anyone that anyone else couldn't do. i write to other widows who rely on my honesty about grief via my hubpages that i write for. i have several people who write to me, lean on me. i have to give to them because it is what i have wanted, someone who answers their cries. someone who is not too busy. someone they can trust to be there for them. i cannot let them think that womanNshadows would be cavalier with their feelings and their pain. i have empathy for them all. i give them my words, my honest and soulful words but how can i see that as something of value when it is so obviously and simply the right thing to do? it is not about my self-worth. it is about being there in the dark with someone without thinking of yourself. no fanfare. no fireworks or speeches. it is not empowering to me. it is draining. see, i just need him back. i need Carl. i want to know if he left me because he was sick of me. like my kids who have so little time for me. i want to know if he still loves me. i want to know if i am still interesting to him. to someone. no, valuable. do i have value simply because i breathe. not for what i can write or make or do for someone. i need to know if he still loves me. would stay with me if he could.

i am so tired and hungry and not sure what i can and cannot eat. the diet needs of high blood pressure and diabetes is like a venn diagram. yes for this but oh, no for that. i need that small arc of space where there is overlap to become clear. what is in there that i can eat without fear of coma or stroke?

i want to leave this cold, uncaring concrete place and go back to the ocean. maybe like Henry Beston did in when he moved to the Cape and wrote the Outermost House. but i need money for that and i will never have that. i will never have all my things back from storage. i will never have a life, only an existence.

posting all this, this is a shot in the dark to see if anyone is really listening; see if anyone has this depth of pain, too. {{hugs}} or "thinking of you" is sweet but it comes from a place of not knowing what else to say. but in their defense, how can they know what to say to someone who is sobbing so hard they are silent. raw, overwhelming, powerful grief racks the body and cannot all come out. no sound can issue forth because it is too loud to be heard. how can anyone know what to say to someone whose darkness is so vile that they can never tell anyone everything.

i want him back. or at least to call me. tell me why you left me alone down here. tell me that it was the worst thing that could ever have happened to us. tell me that you miss me. tell me that you ...................... are still capable of loving me?

i want to eat with you. i want you to cook something for me that i can eat that won't kill me. please just come back and have dinner with me. and then just tuck me into bed and stay with me until i fall asleep. just one more night together. please. i promise i won't ask for another thing.

i wish for peace to all who read this whether the overwhelming sadness of it renders you speechless or not. i am glad i have sent the Traveling Ambassador out into the world. i want her to help others as my own dear Bunny helps me get through the days and nights. i love all the photos of Bunny, all the places she has gone. the snow in Canada, the crazy fun times in London, the peace of Wales. i love her Aussie thongs, as Boo called them. her Australia pin. i am going to cherish this journey of hers for all my days.

and the ocean. my Bunny got to go to the ocean. when she comes back to me i am going to smell her, to see if there are any leftover smells of the ocean. and i will close my eyes and fantasize. that's all i have left. fantasy and nightmares. i try to make the fantasies push the nightmares away.

daydreams and remembrances of the Beach Bunny that was and who she is trying to breathe life back into

i spend a lot of time alone. utterly and completely alone. i fill my own time with my work. i fill the air with movies, tv, or music. i do, upon occasion, speak out loud - to God - to my Dragon - but i am very aware that my voice is the only one in the room and more, the only one that will ever be in the room.

i remember who i once was. i was a wild and crazy Bunny who wasn't afraid of, okay, i was a afraid of a few things. i do not like mice that run at you like some crazy Hessian. i do not like jumping spiders. i am frenzied in front of a cockroach. but in the face of adventure, the wild and crazy Bunny that i was was curious, investigative, and good to go.

after my mother died and my father told me he did not want me around much, i took a trip to Cancun with a girl i worked with at the ad. agency. i was still only a designer and "wrist" - i went to those expensive lunches, said nothing, and drew up the ideas bandied about.

when we landed in Cancun, it looked like they were still clearing the runway. men were out there with machetes wacking away at the jungle that, if you stood still and watched, was actually re-growing across the hard-packed dirt of the airport. there was no customs beyond, "hi," "hola," "welcome Norte Americanos." the bus that took us to the fancy new hotels that were still being built had locals climbing up on top to make room for us. tourists with American dollars road inside the bus on seats. the locals sat on top so we would be more inclined to spend those dollars.

so the adventure starts when my friend and i wanted to eat "in town." at that time, the town was strictly for the locals but we did not know that. no one at the hotel thought we'd venture into town. no busses ran at night. way out on the peninsula where the hotels had all that the tourists could want. but we wanted "real Mexican food." we walked the beach all the way down to the road that took us to town. we should have turned around when the jungle blocked out the sky but we were committed and stupid.

we got to town. 17 buildings. the only restaurant was open and we were grateful for the open doors and lights, and the wonderful smell of food. we were the only ones in there. the people who worked there were eating. everyone froze. us. them. oh, God. when i think back on it.

let me preference this part of the story with this. my friend said the only language she took in high school and college was English. i had taken Latin. we were in Mexico. M-E-X-I-C-O.

i, of course, brought out my book of English to Spanish translations. the people were incredibly nice if somewhat confused. one of the waiters kept coming over and touching my hair. i am a blonde and when i was 21, i was still closer to the towhead of my childhood than i am now. finally the elder man whose restaurant it obviously was smacked the boy on the back and sent him to the kitchen. "Lo siento." it was his son. i took my book back out and he leaned over me as i tried to say we were sorry to interrupt. we had just wanted to be part of the local community, to see the people of Cancun. he spoke little English but got it across that he was pleased with our intent, however, his place was not an actual restaurant. he served food but it was essentially a bar and that he would be more than happy to feed us but that we needed to leave very soon as the prostitutes would come in and right behind them, the men.

we inhaled our food and got out of there as the first groups of men showed up. we held hands as we tried to find our way back. we saw what we thought was a taxi and quickly went to hire him to take us back to the hotel. neither of us wanted to walk down that dark jungle road again.

it was a barn that had been turned into the police station and, all dressed up as we were, we looked like prostitutes. when i again pulled out that magic book one of the officers realized what had happened. he spoke English. i almost fell to my knees. he kept us segregated until he could explain to his captain what we had done.

visualize this. two white girls in their early 20s, all dressed up in a barn that the horse stalls were the cells. about 5 Mexican cops were laughing their heads off at us. the English-speaking cop took us back to the hotel in the only cop car they had. his own personal pickup. he put a blanket down for us because there was drying blood in the seat from a man who was jailed and waiting for the local doctor to take the bullet out of his arm.

see? Bunny had wild adventures.

and then she met her Dragon and the best adventure of her life started.

who could resist that face? that beard? if you're a beard person, his was gorgeous. he could shave it completely off and it would be back in full in two days. his eyes danced. his arms hugged. his fingers laced so nicely into mine. such a studmuffin. there. i said it. i am 52 and i said studmuffin. to me he is. was. still is. i see men. in stores. when i am out with my daughter. nothing. not a twinge of anything. dead battery. i look at his picture and i sigh. i swoon. i smile like a teenager in love. still. right now. today.
"if two were one then surely we." see his foot? i set that up. he would lean his foot against mine under tables. we would intertwine our legs and feet when we were on the sofa together and in bed. the only time his foot wasn't touching mine was when we walked or he was driving the car. i mean, we'd trip and the car, that would be dangerous.

but then my Dragon died and all the adventure went out of me. all my joys turned to such sorrow that, even in the Spring and i put on my Bunny flower clothes, i cannot find that wild Bunny in me who thought she could solve all her adventure problems with a translation book and an innocent smile.
she is what i want to bring back to life. that girl. that person i know i am. if my Dragon gets to look down from Heaven, i want him to smile. i want him to shake his head like he did so many times when i got into a predicament. like the time the tides cut me off from shore and i was stuck out on a rock. and he had to come through the rising water and save me.

he thought i was the funniest person he'd ever met. funny in word and deed.
that is the bunny i want to find through my daydreams and recollections. i will keep my Dragon close. some of him is in that little pendant around my neck. it has the moon and stars on it. Heaven. where my Dragon is. *sob sob wail sniffle* okay, back to work.

i see the moon and the moon sees me. God bless the moon and God bless me.