The Holidays, Take 3

I can't sleep. It is not surprising. Sleep...the lack of, the inability to get to sleep, the exhaustion from not sleeping, insomnia, and then oversleeping, tiredness and so on that comes with trying to always play catch-up on sleep. It has been a normal part of my life for quite a while now. I have always been a night owl. But about a year before Brian's death, I started having sleep issues.  It is the getting to sleep part that is hard. It is the crawling into bed alone part that his heartbreaking. And so began a pattern that I have rarely snapped out of. Which is why I am writing this at 2:09 in the morning.

I know I have not been writing regularly. It isn't because I don't have anything to say. It is mostly because what I DO have to say is the same old story, even to me it is getting old, and I mostly don't know what else there is to say about it. Yet, I still felt like writing tonight of all nights.

I do not have my tree up. Yet. And I don't know when I am putting it up. Tomorrow probably. How awful am I that I don't even really want to put it up. I am really excited about how nice the outside of the house looks with all the lights and greenery. But that seems to be where my holiday spirit has stopped. I can't seem to get anything going in the Christmas present department. I listened to some Christmas music today and really enjoyed it. My head is all over the place, and ultimately I am coming to realize that I am not the person I used to be. Different things are important to me.

And here I am, approaching the THIRD Christmas without Brian. The 3rd round of being Santa alone. While I still consider the holidays of 2007 to have been a horrible experience with Brian's illness, he was still there to show the gifts to, to brainstorm and plan and sneak around, to laugh and get excited with. I remember that year how desperately I missed spending time with him, shopping for our children and other family members.

So how is the 3rd one? Well, I made it through the 1st one, numb with grief. Then last year was a harsh reality that life was continuing, regardless of what was going on with me.  This year, I'm not sure. It feels odd. I feel distanced from myself almost. I feel out of practice, like I need to rewrite the plan so I know what I am doing.

I have not talked extensively on this blog as to how I really feel. I don't know why. I have really put myself out there, having this blog and sharing our family's journey and heartache, yet I still felt like I needed to protect my feelings. I beat around the bush a lot about how I really feel. I also tried to sugarcoat things so no one thought I was going off the deep end. I have done the same thing in my everyday life. The downfall is that on my way over the edge, no one was there to catch me because no one really knew what was happening. I had a very difficult summer and fall. I have come to realize that from about last Christmas to about June, I checked out for a while. It wasn't intentional, I think the pain just got to be too much. Instead of dealing with it, I sat it aside. I put back on the game face. I let people make comments to me about how great I was doing, and I chose not to correct them for several reasons. It was easier not to explain the same thing over and over. It felt better to not be sad all the time. 

Then the summer came, and I had lots of emotional things going on in my life. Pushing out my feelings about losing my husband eventually caught up with me, and August, September and October were very difficult months. I could not explain it if I tried. The pain was raw and unbearable, and my breaking point was coming fast. I reached out to others, some who responded by ignoring my pain, others who were surprised to find I wasn't "over" it, and some who really listened. It was a very sad and lonely time for me in my grief, as I felt as if I was completely isolated and paralyzed by my grief.

Things are gradually changing. I found comfort through a retreat called Beginning Experience. It is designed for those who have lost a marriage to divorce or death. Sigh. Once again, I was the exception, I have been there in both situations. And while I am long past grieving over the loss of my first marriage, I continue to have to deal with issues involving my ex-husband and his wife on a daily basis, as we raise our children together. Even so, before I even met Brian I had come to the realization that Tim and I did not belong together, and that God had different plans for me. While I hate that divorce became a part of my life and the lives of my daughters, I long ago came to terms with that. I have come to realize, however, that being in a lousy marriage and then divorced previously has made grieving the loss of Brian and our wonderful life together all the more difficult. I DID indeed believe after my first marriage that there was more God had planned for me, that He had a different future in store for me, and that blessing came with Brian and our life together. So it doesn't take much of a jump to see that losing that marriage to cancer has left me in a very difficult place of understanding what my own purpose in life is.  And right now, the only purpose I am truly seeing is being Rachel, Amberlea and Tye's mom. I do believe God wanted me to be there for Brian, to care for him and love him and bring him happiness.  I am amazed that this wonderful man came into my life, and sometimes wonder if my purpose what to help him die. God only knows. But what I do know is that I have really found it difficult to find my way back to me, to what I personally am doing here in this existence.

Beginning Experience has given me a chance to really focus on those feelings. I came to realize I have not really dealt with Brian dying. I have dealt with the consequences of it, the aftermath. But I have not really faced head on that he is dead and gone. That he slipped away right in front of me, that he no longer exists but in the memories and in our hearts.

So THAT is where I am. Trying to really face that he is dead. If you are confused, then you probably haven't lost your spouse or a very close loved one. Otherwise, you would probably GET what it is I am saying. I am definitely NOT saying that I have been pretending he isn't dead, or that I have been in denial. But I realized I never told him good-bye. He was sick, and then he was dead. There was nothing in between. I know there were missed conversations between us that should have happened and they did not. I admit that I have resentment towards him for not helping me face him dying. I also admit that I feel very guilty for being resentful to him, when he himself had such terrible things to deal with. Even so, the feelings are there. I also realize that I do not think Brian really came to terms with the fact that he was dying. I think he got to a certain level of acceptance that he was sick, and a certain level of understanding that this story was not going to end well. But he himself told me several times that he could not face knowing he wasn't a part of our future. This was why he turned down the chances to leave videos for us, and for Tye. I repeatedly tell myself that this was not selfish on his part, that is was how his heart and mind dealt with his own impending death. Dying isn't as glamorous as Hollywood makes it, people often can't muster up the ability to do these amazing things like you see in movies like My Life with Michael Keaton. God how I would give anything for Tye to have those kinds of videos of Brian. And I know I have said that before, and for some reason it keeps coming up and resurfacing. So I am trying now to figure out how to deal with those feelings and move past them.  And I am trying to figure out how to deal with the realization that Brian is dead. I know it seems logical, maybe even out of sequence, that I feel like I've come to understand that this life is what I was dealt. I don't have a terrible life by any means. My blessings are great. None of that matters when my heart aches to feel Brian's love.

I hope to be able to use my experiences to help others. I plan to stay involved with the Beginning Experience so I can continue to heal. It is a process, one that doesn't end when others judge me that it should end. It also comes and goes. Surprisingly, I maybe could admit that I felt better last spring than I do now. But again, I am an emotional person, and each moment of the fall brings back memories that are not so good. November was such a difficult time in 2007, and my mind was locked on the fact that we spent 10 very difficult days in the hospital then, and that was when I thought he was going to die right then. That was my first real understanding that he was dying. I knew already, but after that I really KNEW. So November is a rough time. Yet I met Brian in November, on the 10th. And I freaking forgot. A few days later I was thinking, oh my gosh, my grief overshadowed my joy of the moments this man came into my life.

I am better than I was a month ago. Interestingly, I still have a lot to deal with, but it doesn't feel quite as stressful. The thoughts of Brian being gone are always on my mind, and I wonder seriously what it is I need to do to have that not haunt me day in and day out. I told my sister Erin, I might know how I want to feel, or how I should feel (which is an arguement anyway, as to WHO exactly dictates that), but that doesn't make me feel that way.

My sadness is controlling my life. I can't sleep (did I mention that), and I know it is also affecting my health. I'm overweight, and I want to change that, but everything seems so overwhelming. I am looking forward to Christmas break and maybe getting the chance to regroup and try to get in some exercising a few days a week, as a starter. 

Oh, and I am not sleeping. Oops...said that. But what I meant was, when I do sleep, I am not sleeping in my room. In my bed where Brian died. In the room where my mom died. Nope. Haven't since July. Which must have been a turning point of some sort in my head. A few days turned into weeks, and now several months later, I am trying to muster up the strength to face the pain of crawling back into our bed without him. How odd, in my own opinion, that this did not concern me in the first 2 years following his death. I think it was definitely the combination of being where my mom died also.  My brain took over and decided how to solve the problem, and that has been the easy way out. My room is a disaster, lots of things piled on my bed, which makes it super easy NOT to crawl back into bed.

Well, maybe I will try to post again in the next few days because I am literally forcing myself to get it cleaned up. The problem is that I was trying to sort some things, things that involve Brian, things that I have not wanted to do, and I think maybe I pushed myself too far. I need to go back and maybe take care of a few things at once. I think I sent myself over the edge when I tried to force myself to separate Brian from me. And that isn't going to happen. In my desperation, I let my heart take over and trick my mind into not doing anything, instead of taking baby steps with it.

I have my rings off today. That is a big step for me. I might put them back on tomorrow. Or the next day. Or in a few minutes. I'm not going to make any rules for it. Or I might put them on and never take them off. I just have them off right now to see how I feel about it. I am worried to have them off, that people will make stupid comments about me moving on, or assume that means I am "over" the said incident. How ignorant! It just doesn't work like that. But I am feeling somewhat as if I need to make myself understand that my marriage to Brian was lost to cancer.  The fact that I have experience in losing a marriage both to divorce and death complicates things. I know what it was like to have a marriage fizzle out, breakdown and lose the ability to maintain itself and lose love. Losing someone to death is so very different, all the bad feelings weren't there and the love was as strong as ever. I say WAS because I have struggled terribly to feel Brian's love now after he is gone. I know I will always and forever love him, and the pain of not being able to share that directly with him, and to feel it reciprocated has caused me great pain and suffering over the past 33 months.  I have summed up these two marriages that one husband didn't want me and left, and the other did everything he could to stay and he couldn't. You can somewhat imagine how emotional this all is for me.  I've heard the "you'll find someone else" comments, and so far, all they are is hurtful to me. It diminishes my pain, like another man in my life will fix the pain I feel. On top of that, I've been there, done that...I've had one crappy marriage and one marriage full of unconditional love and commitment. It will take a lot for me to even want to take a chance on anything, now that I have known true love and a healthy and happy marriage.  For a while I thought I was crazy (still do a little), because after my divorce, I truly felt like I would survive. I hoped I would not grow old alone, but I prayed that God would help me find peace in whatever my life had in store. I had almost 18 months from when Tim left until I actually met Brian, and that was a time of healing and finding myself again. So why is it so hard to find myself now? And it comes down to the fact that my love for Brian, our love for each other, is still there and will never be gone, and it isn't the same type of adjustment.

I'm not sure why I wrote all this, probably more for myself to see how I felt. If I was rambling, don't read it.  If it didn't make any sense to you, then that is good and I hope it never truly does make sense, and that you are never in a situation that what I have to say on this blog hits close to home.

So we will attempt the tree tomorrow, mostly just because we should. I will survive the holidays, as I have the last 2 without my husband. I am open for more joy than sadness to find its way into my heart this holiday season, and am thankful for the many blessings in my life, especially my 3 children, who help make that happen.