fear

"no one told me that grief is a lot like fear." ~ C. S. Lewis.

i have both this morning. grief and fear. mine are exclusive from each other. Jan. 1 is my deadline now. he is through and there is nothing i can do. do not tell me what i could do. there are things behind closed doors that i am afraid to make public. accept that i am between a rock and a hard place.

i need the VA to come through. i need a full time job in a city that has closed 16 libraries and are working on a plan to close 12 schools and consolidating others affecting the teachers and staff of 37 schools. how do i find a job when i did not graduate college? i left to care give to my mother who died. then i needed a job first, and one thing followed another.

i am nothing. i have not amounted to anything other than what you see here. i am a mom. i create. i sew. i am tired. i am getting older. i have nothing. i am nothing. i have been betrayed in business dealings and most definitely in my personal life. what is left? nothing. that would be me.

i had so many dreams when i was small. and my dreams were small. i wanted a home and a family. i thought i would be safe married. my husband would protect me from my parents. i would be able to take care of my family and my home. i would have a garden. i would be an artist in and around being a wife and mother. 1950's style dream world that blew up in my face on my wedding night. i was alone with fear and worry and stress and self-worthlessness such as i had not previously known even during my childhood with a volatile mother.

i met a Dragon and we took care of my children and were so poor in the process. we love each other so much. he is everything to me, including protection and another person to help shoulder the pain of merely living. i miss him. i need him more now than i ever have. but he died and i am left alone again with fear and worry and stress and self-worthlessness only i am old and tired and have too many decades built up of feeling like this. my shoulders hurt. my eyes are tired. i sometimes find it hard to get a breath. and what's the point? it hurts anyway.

i need the VA to come through. i call. i write. they say they are working on it. now i have to call them to say, "please, hurry. please. hurry."

i am embroidering a beach on a Memory quilt. i am keeping the young man in my thoughts as my needle goes through the fabric. it must be colorful. it must be peaceful. i want him to look at it, his eyes drawn to the vivid sunset behind the palm trees and be soothed that maybe his dad is there, hanging out, biding his time until the family is reunited; however they believe, however they dream and wish. always how the family wants it.

all i will ever have are the dreams i protect. i am getting far too tired to protect myself anymore. the waves will come and roll me over and over and there is nothing i can do but try to swim to the surface.

what is this anyway? is this life? scratching out an existence in the dirt? i am not alive anymore. there is not even meager happiness. my children are grown. i see my son when he can. i see my daughter once a week. we talk on the phone but i am not involved in their every moment like i was when they were young and still in my care every moment of every day. what kind of life is left for me without him being here to help me, protect me, share with me, keep me warm, listen to me, make me laugh, let me listen to his beautiful voice, hold my hand, touch my hair, love me. i am still so wrapped up in him. and i am so afraid of what is going to happen to me now that he is no longer here to help advocate for me. to help me try to have a life instead of the existence of something akin to a dermestid beetle. i preform a service, like said beetle, but no one wants to take one home and have it sitting on the sofa, or hold a conversation with it. just let it do its job and walk away.

i want to feel safe like i felt when i was in his arms. and since i can never, ever, ever again be in his arms, i just need what most people take for granted. a place to live. food to eat. forget health care. forget the pursuit of happiness. i had it with him and i am not greedy asking for more when i need to make sure i have a place to live and food to eat.

see what i mean about fear? terror? gut-churning panic?

Dragon, where are you now that i need you so?

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addendum ~

i just got off the phone with the VA. they are in the "final stages" of processing. i told her my situation. she was very sympathetic and put me on hold to try and give me a ballpark on timing. 10 - 40 days i will hear. it is in the "checking to make sure the information is correct and approval" stage.

please, pray for me, even if you do not believe it in. i do. i need a miracle, a very, small miracle. and i will not ask for anything else. i just want to survive. no big dreams anymore. no goals. i just want to survive.