Learning to Dance

It's been forever since I have written on here, but as the holiday season has officially begun, so have my emotions....and why not write them out? The last four months have been the most trying months since my mom passed. Up until then, I was keeping myself busy and going through the motions of every day life. Two years ago, my mom got sick...I spent three months juggling my last semester of college and watching her fight for her life...she passed away...I had to finish two more months of college...I graduated...I immediately moved to Michigan to work for the summer...I got a kindergarten teaching position for the school year so I moved back and started that one week before school started...the school year ended and my summer job began...August rolled around and I FINALLY (one and a half years after I took my mom to the ER) made the decision to start grieving. Since mid-August, I have been going to counseling to work on, first and foremost, bettering my relationship with my dad (I love you), and now that I have finally worked through all of that, I am working on my mother. Up until four months ago, I didn't know what "missing someone so much it hurt" meant. I THOUGHT I did, but I didn't. When something tragic happens, you become numb. You turn your emotions off just to get out of bed and move on with your day. You basically turn your emotions off to survive. In August, I made the decision to take a year off of teaching (and just sub) and to start "feeling." I knew it was going to be a grueling process, and I knew I would need a lot of time for myself to just be a complete mess...and let's be honest, teaching doesn't allow you to be a mess. And as I miss my kids and my classroom terribly, and as horrible as I have felt for awhile now, I am SO glad I made the decision to be miserable to work on myself. You have to feel this way in order to move on with your life, otherwise you will never move forward...you just get stuck in a rut doing the same old thing day in and day out. Working through these emotions during the holidays is something that I would never wish on my worst enemy. The pain some days seems unbearable, but I somehow make it through...every single day. It's amazing to me that I can resist tears and behave "normally" in my darkest hours of grief...and then someone just simply smiles at me, or I see a sign or billboard or a commercial and I completely lose it. To lose someone you love...your best friend...your MOTHER...is to alter your life forever. The pain eases...new people come into your life and you do exciting, new things...but that gap never closes. The hole in my heart from losing my mom is in the shape of her - no one else will ever fill it. My mom will die over and over again for the rest of my life. Grief is forever....and that is something that I am currently, and have been, working through. Grief becomes a part of you, in everything you do...and now that I am looking at things differently, I see that I will be grieving her for the rest of my life because I will never stop loving her. I have come to learn, and deeply feel, that grief and love go together - you don't get one without the other.

"You will lose someone you can't live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your loved one. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn't seal back up. And you come through. It's like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly - that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp."

7 Month Check-In

It's only been 7 months since my last entry, so I thought I was due for one! Looking back, it's crazy to think how far I've made it. I survived graduation, getting my heart broken (which is still an on-going healing process), moving away, getting a job, moving back, Thanksgiving, Mom's birthday, Christmas...and in 3 days I'm getting ready to survive the one year milestone of the day I took Mom to the ER; the day that started everything...the day that CHANGED everything. These milestones are ones that I never think I'm going to get through...yet here I am. "A heart can be broken, but it still keeps a-beatin' just the same" from Fried Green Tomatoes always flashes through my mind. How true that is. Life goes on whether you're ready for it or not. It doesn't slow down when I'm having an extra rough day and need extra time to get myself going. Ya know, I don't need these big milestones to remind me that my mom's gone...each day is hard enough in and of itself. I still get the urge to text and call her multiple times a day. I still wonder what's for dinner until it hits me I'm the one going home to make it. Whenever I see her car in the driveway or in the garage I have to remind myself she's not home. It's just crazy to think about that I am still continuing to try to wrap my head around everything 10 months later. When my dad emailed me the stages of grieving when my mom first passed, I never in  a million years dreamed that I could have missed her anymore than I did then. Never. When I read in that email that months 8-10 are the hardest ones, I almost had to laugh....because I just didn't get that it could ever get worse. It said that a lot of times, during that time period is when a lot of firsts happen...and it's also the time when people are expecting you to have moved on with your life. People who haven't gone through something traumatic like this just don't understand how true that is...and how alone it makes me feel. I've found myself getting upset with friends or feeling bitter towards them the past couple months because they don't see it...they don't understand it...they're not there for me...they don't support me how I want/need them to. Blahblahblah...complaincomplaincomplain. Because of these feelings I've isolated myself quite a bit. And now I'm at a point where I see it and am angry at myself for feeling that way. Putting myself in their shoes has slapped me back to reality. My friends have been there for me how they know how to be, and that's all that matters...bottom line. I can't resent anybody for MY situation...and the fact that I've found myself doing that the past few months makes me so incredibly mad. And I am so sorry, from the bottom of my heart, if any of you have felt my bitterness lately. I love you and am so thankful for each and every one of you. I am so looking forward to 2012 and taking the necessary steps to positively move FORWARD...not backwards, or staying the same by just "getting through the day"...but forward.
Best wishes to all of you in the upcoming year and hoping you all had a very merry Christmas as well!

Post-Graduation Tonsillitis

Hello strangers! It's been awhile! I made it through my final week of school and survived graduation day with only a few rain drops. I had amazing support getting through my final days and felt all of the love everyone was sending me. I'm still waiting for my diploma in the mail, but since grades came out and I managed to maintain my 4.0 despite everything this semester, it SHOULD be coming soon. I moved my things up to Michigan the day after graduation and then left to go on a road trip. I ended up being bed-ridden with horrible, and I mean horrible, tonsillitis shortly after I made it to my destination, so it wasn't much of a trip. I stayed in bed with a high fever for three and a half days, but I missed being home so much that I slowly drove myself back and am still battling a swollen throat, jaw, and neck. I have a consult for surgery on Thursday and am hoping to have everything done and I'll be fully recovered by the time work starts June 13th. I am currently trying to relax and rejuvenate my body at the lake. It is the first time I have been able to get myself to come up here since my mom's passing. When I think about her it's hard NOT to think about the lake. The two went together; you can't disassociate them. Since the place still isn't opened up yet for the summer (that comes this coming weekend), I've used the quiet time to help heal not only my ailing body, but my soul (as cheesy as that might sound, it's true). It was a beautiful day out Saturday and I spent a lot of the time outside in the sun (finally soaking up some healing UV rays), under the willow tree, and admiring the one that was planted in my mom's memory...picturing how it will look fully grown next to the giant right next to it on the water's edge already. It's going to be beautiful. I find my time up here to be extremely bittersweet, trying to imagine what this first summer up here is going to be like without her. It's going to be tough for everyone. Baby steps. I took my first ones by just getting out of the car when I got here....it only took me two months, but I did it. Bring on the summer baby<3

Banquet Pictures :-)

Gloomy Weather = Gloomy Mood

Today has been a rough day. I had another restless night with horrible dreams. All of them were different scenarios of Mom dying, but none of them accounted for how she actually did die. I remember crying in my dreams, but as I was waking up each time, I was actually physically crying real tears. I had another night exactly like this one the night before the one month anniversary of her death. I'm not sure if I can use "milestones" to attest to my extreme dreaming, but I'm getting recognized for graduating with honors at the senior dinner in a few hours. I can't help but believe that missing her so much on days like the anniversary and days like today plays a significant role in what goes on in my subconscious dreaming. All tonight is is a dinner; I can't imagine what my thoughts are going to be like on graduation day and how my night before that is going to go. It is so incredibly hard going through these successes without my Mom by my side, because she was the one who told me so often how proud she was of me. It probably didn't help either, that I listened to voicemails from her for the first time that I saved on my phone throughout the time she was sick...just in case something did actually happen. I almost erased them when she started getting better. I am so thankful, now, that I didn't. Going from talking to her constantly throughout the day every day (before she got sick) to just...nothing...makes me miss her voice more than anything else in the world. I miss her encouraging words, advice, jokes, laugh, and "I love you's." And I want one of her hugs right now so badly to pick me up and get my head out of the gutter. Despite my intense gloom today, I am excited to celebrate my academic success with my Dad and my Aunt Bonnie who will be here in a couple hours. I miss Mom, but I could not be more thankful for being able to share tonight with them.  
Thank you to everyone who continues to send me beautiful cards, letters, emails, texts, calls, thoughts, and prayers every day. They all mean more than you'll every know.

24 Days...But Who's Counting? =)

I really wish someone could have been videotaping me and my roommate this evening when we faintly heard the ice cream truck strolling through our surrounding neighborhood. We've been talking for awhile now how badly we wished someone would come around when the weather actually got nice. Picture two college girls yelling and screaming down the street and around the entire block, each sprinting and carrying her own piggy bank full of change...while the other college kids are sitting outside enjoying the nice weather and making fun of (they had to have been) how ridiculously determined both of them were to get a Blue Raspberry Screwball. It might have been the funniest five minutes of my life. And I'm pretty sure that if anyone would have gotten us on tape, we could have a shot at winning $100K on America's Funniest Home Videos.
After that adventure, I went and had a massive meal at Scotty's with Nancy (my mom's best friend). She's been coming up once a week to check on me and take me out to dinner...not to mention the few calls and/or texts in between visits. It's easy for me to see why her and my mom were best friends. She's just so amazing. We talked about my graduation, which is creeping up so quickly. Only 24 days left! It's crazy to think that my college career is almost over. Never in a million years did I ever think I'd make it this far, especially without my mama. May 7th is going to mean more to me than anything else ever has. I just have to push through three more busy weeks. Piece of cake though, right? =)

Four Weeks Without My Mama

I never knew what it was like when people talked about missing someone so much that they couldn't breathe. Well, I know that feeling especially well...in fact, it's been an all too-regular occurrence over the past few weeks. It's been unusually hard to catch my breath today, though, as I've been picturing what I was doing exactly four Wednesdays ago. And as I picture that, I picture the major events in my life I have to go through in the future without my mom....graduation in four weeks, job searching, meeting potential future husbands, planning my wedding, having children, etc...as well as just the every day conversations and experiences I miss so much it hurts. I didn't even know it was humanly possible to feel like this. Ever. One of the things that probably makes me more sad than anything is that anyone new I bring into my life doesn't get to experience her.
As bad as I hurt, though, life goes on. Although bitter at first about the recent discovery of how busy I'm actually going to be until the end of the semester, I'm coming to appreciate my mind being temporarily occupied. I should probably just tell all of you right now that, until May 7th, I'll be MIA, camped out in Club Bracken.
On a brighter note, I got an invitation in the mail to a senior's dinner for those graduating with academic honors. I had no idea I was even part of that group, but hey, I'll take it! I know my mom would be beside herself and make me go, so I decided I'm going to go and take my aunt to be my mama for the evening =).