melancholy Bunny

Bunny has a new shirt.  she made it for spring hoping it would make her feel pretty, and perky.  and it did for about a day.  maybe a day and a half.  people always think Bunny is cute.  what they actually think is that Bunny is creative.  but Bunny is still melancholy a lot of the time.  life has not turned out the way she had hoped.

not even close.

so she wears this little mask to protect herself.  the eyes are the mirrors to the soul so she hides her soul.

she works so hard and worries about money.   she goes back to her apartment and works on her sewing commissions.  she also works on things for herself and her family. here is a little lap quilt she is working on made out of parts of his jeans.  and hers.  the ones she can no longer wear because............

she has lost a grand total of 32 pounds.  yes, Bunny has been doing good on her diabetes stuff.  

she has been adding to her daughter's wedding runner that is turning into an embroidered visual of her married life.  here is their first little house.  Bunny needs to do a little bit more sky and then put in the stars.  she also has to put in the driveway and front walk.  but Bun is taking a break from this little project to work on a commission.  she moves back and forth from projects so that she doesn't lose her edge.

Bunny is melancholy most of the time.  she has this new position coming up.  she's supposed to start April 8th.  she's been training and studying and working hard to be able to step in without any hiccups. she's nervous.  she wants to be the best Bun they ever had.

which is silly because she will be the only Bun they ever had.  no one at the Bear has ever done it like Bunny.  but she wants to do the paperwork right.  a company is all about it's paperwork.

she misses her Dragon.  this being the year of the Dragon, she sees them everywhere.  it makes her misty.  with this latest car accident she just really needs him.  she's scared.  she's in a rental car that the insurance is costing her $20 a day.  Lordy, Lord Lord but she hopes they fix her car very, very soon.

she had planned on getting her eyes checked.  not sure when she's gonna do that.  she's waiting on them to process her health care paperwork.  hopefully, they will go it quickly.  she had wanted a new mattress.  the one she is sleeping on is very old and lumpy and hurts her back.

so many little things that Bunny needs.  so many projects Bunny wants to and needs to work on.  no money and no time.  hopefully life will get better with this new position in the company.

Bunny just wanted to show off some of her work.  and she wanted to put it all out there like she does.  she misses him still.  she is draggy from not sleeping well.  she has worries.  she gets teary when she's down.  and now she's rambling because she needs to get back to her commission work and she's really tired.

if you read and have nothing to say, Bunny understands.  if you read and respond, please be a sweetie pie.  if you're grieving, Bunny understands that, too, and she wishes you peace.

the important moments of life

"sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved.

the real milestones are less prepossessing. they come to the door of memory unannounced, stray dogs that amble in, sniff around a bit and simply never leave. our lives are measured by these." ~ Susan B. Anthony

bad news and good news

Bunny wasn't going to write again so soon but she has the day off from working in the store and she is eating her lunch. she has some bad news and some good news.

start with the bad news. end on a good note.

someone hit her car again. 3.5 weeks before, a fancy woman in her brand new big car {2 miles off the lot} rear-ended Bunny when her daughter was driving her car to get it inspected. a cop saw the whole thing and the woman's insurance took care of Bunny's car.

yesterday, Bunny had to go in for a conference call at work and when she came out, there was a woman taking pictures of Bunny's car and a cop filling out a report. the cop told Bunny that the woman had hit Bunny's car trying to go into the parking space next to her; that a witness had seen the whole thing and stopped her from driving away, and had called it in to him. by the time Bunny had gotten there, it was basically a done deal. now Bunny is waiting for the police report to pop up in the computer and for her insurance company to call her.
poor Bunny's poor little car. Midnight has had a rough couple of months. she is an outlaw at the moment since she cannot get inspected until the damage is repaired. Bunny cried a lot yesterday. off and on all day. she's crying still today. she is just weary with all of life's unexpected bumps and scrapes. and right in the middle of writing this, she gets called to come in to work from 4 until close. Bunny, of course, said yes because she needs the money. she doesn't know when the next bump and/or scrape will come rushing at her and bowl her over.

she needs her Dragon so badly these days, but one of the scrapes from life took him from her and now all she has is her memories of him.

oh, how Bunny hates that concept at times. "oh, my dear, but you have your wonderful memories of your husband to cling to." tell that to someone who's drowning in sorrow. 'oh, i don't need to call someone to talk to. let me cling to my memories.'

stupid heads. Bunny wants her Dragon, and she misses him more when something bad happens to her. calling up all her lovely memories hurts her. it reminds her of what she had with him and how alone she really is. and oh, Lordy Lord how she knows he isn't going to get to come back to her loving fuzzy arms. so she does a lot of talking to Heaven up there. she does a lot of praying, just talking really to God and Mary, and to her beloved Dragon.

*Bunny looks up at the sky and waves hi to her sweetie.*

so she is dealing with this; this new car accident. she is dealing with life. and sometimes it sucks. she wants to move. she wants to be on the move. maybe get a camper and just drive around taking pictures and uploading, making millions that way; money she can survive on. she could be a little gypsy Bunny with Scotty dogs off in a cool camper off seeing places and avoiding people when she wants to. people hit Bunny's car wayyyy too much for her to want to be close to them.

now for the good news. Bunny has been asked to take over assistant managing a store of her own. she said yeah she would. it is more money. health care. and a lot more hours.

so that's it. the bad news and the good news. that's Bunny's life thus far.

missing her Dragon, getting smacked a bit by life's down, and getting lifted a tiny bit by life's ups.

"we are the music makers,

and we are the dreamers of dreams,

wandering by lone sea-breakers,

and sitting by desolate streams; -

world-losers and world-forsakers,

on whom the pale moon gleams;

yet we are the movers and shakers

of the world for ever, it seems."

~ Arthur O'Shaughnessy

Bunny, Bunny, Bunny....girl? what's going on?

spring is coming, or here, something. it's warm. trees are flowering. it's pretty out there.

Bunny is working very hard at the store and at her apartment.

days are passing. months. season after season, holiday after holiday. Bunny is getting older.

see that fuzzy, old face up there? stuff's happening. people are getting married. people are having babies. people are living.

is Bunny living?

she still takes pictures. see the pretty tree flowers?
Bun thinks their very nice. they don't smell though.

Bunny's like looks sort of like that. her life looks sort of settled; well, she's got a routine. she pays her bills after much nail biting. she cuts out the luxury stuff like meat and stuff. but she is getting by. she laughs at work. she smiles on cue. she is sewing up a storm. she works very hard. but her life doesn't smell. it's like a pretty flower that draws you in but when you sniff it, there's no smell. there's no perfume.

is Bunny living a faux life?

she doesn't know and she doesn't care. oh, stop. she does sort of care. otherwise she wouldn't be writing about it. it's a question that doesn't have a smell. if someone were to tell her that still missing her Dragon as she does makes her life worthless, she'd shrug and say, "so."

nothing makes Bunny feel. she is just floating along on her little boat on the seemingly endless sea of her lifetime. she's doing what she has to. she's doing what's expected. she has opinions. Lordly, Lord, Lord, does Bunny have opinions, she just doesn't really care what happens out there.

the election? Bunny would write in Cthulhu which is the lesser evil.

dating? phew.

just putting one fuzzy little foot in front of the other.

you know, Bunny doesn't really have a lot to say. she just wanted to reach out to see if anyone was still out there.

*Bunny waves hi*

take care everyone. it's a wild world out there. Bunny knows. today she had a grandmother yell out in the store after her grandson who was racing off to dress his bear, "DON'T YOU WANT TO GIVE YOUR BEAR THAT AIR BATH THING THAT BLOWS OUT AIR ON HIM?! DON'T YOU WANT TO GIVE HIM A BLOW JOB?!"

Bunny didn't laugh until she got to the back room.

a rumor of angels

in 1832, five years after Beethoven's death, a German critic compared the sonata to the effect on Lake Lucerne, and the interpretation became so popular that, by the end of the century, the piece was universally known as the "Moonlight Sonata." Beethoven himself had attributed the emotion of the piece to sitting at the bedside of a dear friend who had suffered an untimely death.

my beloved Dragon died on the full moon. widely known if you've read my missives before.

i had yesterday off from work and today. miraculous as i have been working week after week straight through with maybe one or two days off a month. the moon is coming full. that's it tonight up there in the big photo. the last two days i've been cleaning out files. i deleted my Dragon's email account, personal and business. there just is no need to keep them up anymore. it's not a step forward. it's just a step. maintenance of my life. i also wrote out everything my children will need to know for when i die. more maintenance of my life. making it easier to clean up after me.

in going through files, tossing things out, i found his EKG strip from the night he died. i didn't know i had it. i don't know why they thought i would want it. the strip no more verifies his death to me than the death certificate. his absence alone is enough for me.

i love him. i thought about it again when someone came into the store and casually asked when i would ever take off my rings. this man's sister had taken hers off 3 months after her husband died. she put herself on the dating websites at 6 months. she has been married and divorced twice since her husband died. it will be two years for her April 1. his off-the-cuff casual remark was, "i mean, God bless her, at least she's trying to move on." he was a customer and i had to treat this forced upon me conversation with care, but i did manage to say, "maybe the reason she's had two divorces is she is looking for her husband in every man she meets. it is possible that she is moving on in the wrong direction, or too fast."

it never ceases to amaze me how people feel they can impose their judgments upon strangers. now it has become water off a duck's back. i let it slide off me without leaving a dent. after 3 years of this, of failing at every attempt at grief groups and talking to people, i just let it go and go my own way. there's no one to really sit and talk this out with, not for any long kind of conversation, or frequent one where the whole story gets told in confidence.

parts of it are floating around out there in places where it will never come together in any significant way to help me get past it faster. so i am taking this journey sort of on my own.

"lead, kindly light, amid th'encircling gloom,

lead thou me on;

the night is dark, and i am far from home;

lead thou me on;

keep thou my feet; i do not ask to see

the distant scene - one step enough for me." ~ John Henry Neuman

i do sort of look for signs that i have help. angels. i have two cameras at my ready hand because of two angels. Sandy and Dan. i have a job i work hard at and am recognized as "Bunny" by my co-workers who have given me positive reinforcement. angels all.

i have my two fuzzy puppies who love me and need me. i am needed. two fuzzy angels.

i work very hard at my sewing. i have talent with a needle that is not common. it is appreciated by those who have asked for my work. they are angels for giving me something else to work on.

i do not worry anymore about living up to the expectations of others. i will never meet it. i need to feel comfortable. i need to feel safe. i. me. i do not have the strength to make legions happy. i do not have the desire. my strength is saved to fight the spiritual battles of my nights. and the nights that hit me during the day. i am older now and physical strength is allocated for stamina at work.

"one aspect of deep grief is loss of imagination. one cannot imagine a time when one is not in pain.

how many times have i sabotaged myself by leaping ahead of my own healing process, trying so desperately to 'feel better' that i make myself feel even worse because i have added to my primary pain the new complication of failure. in cheating myself of the necessary time to feel bad i have cheated myself of the only process that could really heal me. ultimately, the only way to get through something is to get through it - not over, under, or around it, but al the way through it. an it takes as long as it takes." ~ Alla Bozarth-Campbell, Ph.D
"not a day passes over the earth, but men and women of no note do great deeds, speak great words, and suffer noble sorrows." ~ Charles Reade

my Dragon was a great man. no one could take note of his deeds for they were done in secret. his patriotism left no mark that anyone can point to and say, "he fixed that," "he saved them," and "he helped the world." all secrets. all being pushed into a file to be forgotten forever.

he spoke great words ~ of love to me, of dreams he wanted to see fulfilled, of sweet nothings that mean everything to a woman like me.

he suffered in silence the pains in his body from living a lifetime as a warrior. his death was a sneak attack.

have there been signs from him? i don't know and i do let myself think maybe, just maybe. it could also be my guardian angel. maybe there is something else for me to do. some lasting legacy i need to finish. more quilts. more sewing. more heart ceremonies. more growing up to do. more penance for a misspent life, or.....

maybe there is more beauty for me to see: clouds, moons, grandchildren ~ graces all.

i still miss him. i still love him. i still wear my rings. i still talk to him every day. i still talk about him if someone asks, only if someone asks. my life is a lonely one without him here at night, in the dark, in bed.

i know humans can never become angels, but maybe there is an angel who represents my husband who comes in during the night to sit and watch over me. maybe that angel was the one who gave me the strength to slowly move my hand over the can, slowly open my fingers holding that strip of paper, that EKG with the little flat line all the way across it, and then turn away and not watch it fall into the trash.

"the sight of stars always sets me dreaming just as naively as those black dots on a map set me dreaming of towns and villages. why should those points of light in the firmament, i wonder, be less accessible than the dark ones on a map of France? we take a train to go to Tarascon or Rouen and we take death to go to a star." ~ Vincent Van Gogh referring to his painting, "Starry Night."