dead like me

i've heard and always known, "what you do matters.  what you don't do matters."  i try to make every moment count.  i work hard.  i keep a million things in my head.  multi-task.  i come back here to the apartment and i work.   and then i fall into the mattress on the floor. 

i think:  someday i'll save up and get a new mattress. 

i think:  someday i'll take a day or two and go over to the ocean.

i think:  someday i'll find a friend.

and then the pragmatic part of me reminds me that i need to make a car payment, car insurance payment, my lease will be up and my rent will be raised, and i need that surgery.  this isn't Canada and my insurance is only for 80%.  i hurt physically a lot. 

but i also hurt emotionally.  really wish i could find a friend, but when will i have the time?  or the balls to take the risk?  i'm a nothing little nobody and i am tired.

~~

my boss came into the store and was on a rampage.  "why did you put that double-sided tape under the velcro rolls?  we don't fucking use the velcro rolls as often as we use the fucking double-sided tape?" 
me:  sorry.  me in my head:  "are you fucking serious about being upset that you have to reach under something that weighs once ounce?"

she was pissed that i had put some bears on the counter while i cleaned the bin.  "why are all these fucking bears on the counter?  didn't i tell you to keep the counter clean?"
me:  sorry.  me in my head:  "are you fucking serious giving me shit about putting bears on the counter for less that 5 minutes while i clean a bin you told me to clean?  how the fuck do i clean the bin with the bears in there?  my levitation skills suck."

and more of the same.  i went to the bathroom and sobbed.  i put my head down on my hands on the sink and sobbed.

what we do matters.  what we don't do matters. 

i try so very hard.  i know i do good work.  i never am told though.  i do get shit for stuff like that up there.  and it's lame stuff.  just another way of doing the same thing.  it all comes out the same in the end.  i kept telling myself she was mad at someone else/something else that she couldn't yell out; so she gave me hell.

and the worst part is i expected it.  i expect to be treated like that because ........... it's all i know.  and i allow it.

yeah, Eleanor Roosevelt,  the whole people walk on your if you lie down, but i have to lie down.  i am only an assistant manager.  and shit rolls uphill.  if one of my part time managers makes a mistake, i get hell for it because they are my responsibility.  i can't just pass the blame.  "on, {insert name} did or didn't to that."  that's stupid to do and i refuse to be stupid.  i am, however, quite quick to lay down and get walked on, stomped on, if only to get it fucking over with.

i feel dead inside still and i don't know if that's a bad thing or normal, or just a me thing that will be from now on.  have i accepted that his death, the fact that i will never be loved again, never be seen as a real person with depth and feelings, accepted grief to the point that i am used to it and this is what acceptance feels like, or am i so fucked up from all the abuse over the course of my life that i have had my behavior and thought processes modified to the extent that i cringe when someone calls my name, or forgets i exist?  that i accept more abuse? 

i feel dead inside.  i was so excited to see my son in Florida.  and then i came back here.  reality sucks.  i was excited to start hitting golf balls at the driving range but i haven't had another day off since that one day and i won't have another day off until next Tuesday.  and that day i have to go to the doctor fasting for some more tests.  and to see about that damn surgery which i fucking refuse to have.

i do sometimes wonder if anyone else feels dead like me or if this is, like grief, my own personal, lonely journey.

what's crazy is that my daughter says i am a delightful person who has wonderful stories and a great sense of humor, if only someone would take the time to really get to know me.  i can be a fun girl.

i really can.

i can be interesting.  maybe it's revulsion at my physical appearance.  i've lost so much weight. i'm not slim but i'm better looking that i was a year and a half ago.  maybe contacts.  lose the specs.  makeup?  streak my hair? 

that would all be fake.  it wouldn't be me.  and it would take away from my new mattress fund.

my mother got mad at me once; she was always mad at me for something.  she pinched my throat and yelled at me that i was ugly and not a girly girl like guys like and that i would die alone.

as a child i was so afraid of her and i used to think she was a little crazy,

but i guess she was also a prophet.

what you do matters.  what you don't do matters.

i try to do the best i can.  i don't have a lot to offer anyone so i don't expect to have a friend during the rest of my life.

i miss you, Dragon.  more than you'll ever know.  i like to believe/remember that you liked me and that, to you, i wasn't ugly.  you're dead.  i'm dead inside.  i guess we still have a lot in common.  {pssst. Dragon.  am i depressed or is it normal to be this down?  are you there?  }

August ~ laying down and ending the struggle

i give up.

i am not going to fight this anymore.

i have tried to do what i was told;

how to live, how to be a good friend to other people {keep giving more and more,}

what's wrong with me {not giving enough and being too sensitive,}

but mostly,

how to grieve

i saw an article posted on Facebook.

what grievers cannot do.  i thought, "here i am."

1. greivers cannot get over it.  "grief has no closure.  it is lifelong."

thank you.  thank you for that.

2. grievers cannot move on.  "they can move forward but they will never forget their loved on."

thank you.  thank you for re-terming the moving on/continuing life thing.

3. grievers cannot be their old self again.  we are irrevocably changed. forever.

thank you.  {on my knees saying...} thank you for saying that.

4. grievers cannot stop hurting.  "the hard truth is that painful feelings of grief will arise again and again over the years."

coming up only <~~ see that?  ONLY 3 and a half years, and i hurt, i HURT.

i miss him.  i want him here with me.

Bunny/me finished painting Bunny's car.  the passenger side is the night of a full moon.

it has Dickinson's quote about death on it.

"Death is a wild night and a new road."

my new life here without him is a wild night every day and always a new road.

different things happen everyday that i want to talk to him about.

i was sick this week.  i worked but i was sick.  before my shift yesterday i went to the doctor.

he ran a liver test to see if the medicine was making me sick.

i have been waiting here, my day off, all day, to see if he would have to call me with bad results.

he said he would get the results today and call me if there was a problem.

it is not 10 minutes to 7 PM and i have not heard from him so i am guessing i am okay.

just a virus.

but i needed him.  i needed him and he couldn't be there for me like he always was.

i hope he wasn't looking down at me and worrying about me worrying myself to death here about

something i cannot, canNOT control.

i need him but he cannot come help me, be with me, hold me, comfort me,

sleep with me, live the rest of our lives together.

after reading that article i am laying myself down in that crevasse i have fallen into.

there is a kind of comfort is laying down with your grief.  i accept that he has died.

he died under my hands as i failed in the CPR.

i saw the light, the life leave his eyes and i had to control the screams in my head and heart.

i had to stop myself from begging him not to go.

so i told him over and over that it was okay.  that i love him.  that i always will love him.

and he died before the paramedics got there.

 when we walked all over the island, he never went that far ahead of me that he didn't keep me in sight.  he would say, "i knew you weren't close."

i asked him once how he knew.  the wind in the leaves, the sounds of the surf, whatever noise masked our footfalls, how did he know i had stopped to take a photograph.

"i couldn't feel you.  you are part of me.  you are my heartbeat, my little Beach Bunny.  i'll always know if you're not close to me."

{for a big tough Marine he could be poetic.}

his heart stopped under my hands.  not only could i not feel it, i could not get it started again.

no one could.

he left our life together on a cold, wild night of a full moon.

fourteen below.  5 feet of snow on the ground.

after reading that article i realize it's okay to be me.  a few people have told me it's okay to be
like i am, missing him as i do,
but i've never heard it expressed like this, exactly like this from an expert?

so i am going to lay down and let go of the struggle to "move on,", "get over it," "stop hurting so much," and "stop living in the past."
i am going to keep the photos up.  keep the urn on the mantle with his medals and the folded flag.
i am going to lay down in the soft grass of my grief and stare at the sky.
i am ending my struggle to conform.

here is my little manifesto

i am a widow and i am grieving.  i will grieve for a long time.
i will do it my way.
i will do whatever brings me solace and comfort in a world that no longer has either.
i will think of him, talk about him, and talk to him.
i will love him forever.
i will probably, most likely, most assuredly never date.
i will always be in love with my husband.

i am a widow of 3 and a half years and i am going to go lay down now.

i will face August ~ his birthday, the 3 and a half year mark, and our wedding anniversary
laying down.

i am through with the books and the guides and the steps and the ladders to happiness.
i had happiness.
i had him.

and if that photo of him up there is any sign,
he is waiting around for me,
because, i know for a fact
that he doesn't sense me as being too near him physically right now,
or too far away since i carry him in my soul.

please, God, let him come find me when it's my time to go.
if he can't be there to see me go as i did for him,
let him be standing there with open arms to see me coming towards him.
please.