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Do you want to build a snowman....

2/26/2015

I am sure I don't need to tell you where that song came from.. every human probably dislikes it as much as I do... but yes.. yes I did want to build a snowman.. or woman.. or transgender.. or humanoid.. or mammal.. I JUST WANTED TO BUILD SOMETHING out of snow.

I got rain.... a ton of rain. If this had only been snow I could build snow.. things for days.

Instead rain. You should know that rain does a number on me. It makes me incredibly sad, like the heavens are crying. So I cry. I usually cry a lot. Today on top of crying, I will be sniffling, which you normally do when you cry but today I was sniffling before I cried. I also have a sore throat and my entire body aches.

I needed the snow today. I needed to be able to call into work and say I am taking a day due to snow.. which no one would understand since I work from home. Now I will be squinting a computer screen all day (it actually doesn't feel good to look at it right now). I don't know why I am telling you any of this. No one wants to hear about my cold.

I am sad today. Just very very sad.

I think I want to move again. Somewhere far far away, somewhere it snows, somewhere that I don't have neighbors that can see my yard. Somewhere I can open the door and let the puppies run. Somewhere I am the crazy lady that moved to town that no gets to know. Somewhere that no one can find me. Just somewhere that I can find some sort of peace.

(yes I realize this makes zero sense since the unrest is in my own head but it is just another attempt to just be something if it is only to me)

It is days like this that I don't know who I am. That it feels I am swimming around and around a fish bowl. One side of the fish bowl is bright and sunny and has some happiness, the other side is dark and gloomy and filled with sadness. I am on the dark and gloomy side.

I want to just go back to bed and never wake up. The dream world is just a much nicer place to be, I can dream of snow, I can dream of being happy, I can dream of everything being normal. I can dream of a clean house. I can dream of being in love. I can dream of being a writer. On top of all these lovely things when I start having a nightmare most of the time I realize very quickly I am dreaming and I can shift it to something happy.

Today.. just today I am not ok.

Enjoy your snow other peeps.
Love
Re

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Let it SNOW... Let it SNOOOWWWW.

2/25/2015

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My Re-make of the song Let it Go from Frozen... if any of you can sing that in that horrid screechy voice I have in my head I am sorry. Yes I hate that movie.. yes I will always hate that movie.. BUT if it will just make it SNOW I may cut it some slack. (I doubt it)

The above photos are from yesterday, that is not snow, that is a tease. That is a big fat HA HA HA, I COULD snow but I am just going to spit a tiny bit of stuff at you just so you know I COULD if I wanted to but I am not because you don't deserve snow snow. I do realize that my neighbors to the north of me that still live in my hometown are SICK OF IT, so why why why can't it just be dumped here for a day or two. The tree is my favorite tree in the neighborhood, it would look lovely with a big ole helping of SNOW on it. As you can also tell from his expression Banx was not impressed at all. Even as short as he is he didn't find the amounts worthy of being called an actual snow.

I do not know what my obsession with snow is right now, but I seriously have one. It may have something to do with the peacefulness of it that I wrote about before. I keep hanging my hat on the next hook of what may might me feel better and lately it has been snow. Yes I do realize that is completely ridiculous but that is where I am. I keep reaching for and doing the next thing in hopes that at some time I find the magical thing that causes peace. A lot of people move from snowy areas to warmer areas in the winter months and back from the warmer areas to the cooler areas in the summer. I wonder if I could find one of these kind of people to home swap with me. Daddy said the next place I moved would probably be up north somewhere that it snowed a lot. I laughed at him and said NO WAY.. he may have been right. I have not been particularly fond of the cold temps the last few weeks but that has a lot to do with not being prepared, however, if I lived somewhere that I knew it would be cold and snow I would completely be prepared.

I do realize that I can get in my truck and drive to Virginia this afternoon and see it snow. I do realize that they are now getting the snow that earlier this week was supposed to land here. I also realize that even if I did go it is just not the same. It is not the same as being in your own house with your own coffee cup and your own puppies and your own blankie and your own dang snow! It just isn't the same.

So one more time..
Let it SNOWWWW.. LET IT SNOOOOWWWW...
Can't take the rain drops anymore.
LET IT SNOOOOWWW .. LET IT SNOOWWWWWWW.
Turn down the heat and let it pour.

What? One can hope.

Have a great day all.
Re

PS I woke up with a sore everything. I went to the gym last night after running yesterday morning so now my arms and legs both are sore which is ok.. what I wasn't expecting was to wake up with a sore throat, sore eyes, and a headache. Blah. I really should go back to bed and just dream about snow.

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I don't want to get lost in the dark of the night...

2/24/2015

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This time I'm ready to run. ~ Ready to Run One Direction

(I think I will put the song title and artist here so everyone knows what it is.. and don't judge me)

Ok run is just kind of a figurative word. Run isn't exactly what I do. The Re Re shuffle is more like it. I pick things up a little bit and I put them down, by things I mean my feet. I am slow. Slower than slow slow. Slower than I have ever been in my life slow and I was no speeding bullet to start with.

Today I got up at 4:30 am and put on my running clothes and went to bootcamp for the first time in months. Today for the first time in years I "ran" without walking 5.29 miles. Today I looked at my pace and thought... a slug in peanut butter is faster than this. Who cares. I got up and I went. I got up and I did something to better myself. I got up when I had 982343298374 excuses to stay where I was.

Today's song lyric is quite fitting because in all my brilliance, I showed up to run in the dark very ninga looking. Black from head to ankle, my shoes and gloves are neon so I did have that going for me. I guess I probably looked like one of those artistic things were all you see is hands and feet dancing, I was going to show you but I can't find a video. I really didn't want to get lost in the dark, but then again I kinda did. If I got lost no one would be passing me seeing how dreadfully slow I was.

I don't like being slow. I don't like being last. I do suppose the last person is still home in bed as I type this but that kinda isn't the point.
There is one plus to being the slowest, you get to cheer people on as they pass you... twice. (and I get all the encouraging from them to keep going so that is a plus plus).

But I went.. yay. Do you see the pattern here? This is me trying to talk myself into today was ok. It's ok I am slow. I will get there. The point is I showed up. Right?

I have roughly 2 days to make a big decision. Do I do the full or do I do the half. Here's the deal. My ankles, they friggin hurt. Today all I kept thing was, "Your hurt anyway, why stop now?" I am not sure I can pull that off for 26 miles. I can do it for 13 without a issue, but 26 is looking more and more like I won't be able to walk for a week. I can't afford that to happen. The question that is bouncing around is this.. do I take the next 3 and a half weeks and work on picking up the pace a bit so I am only slug slow not slug in peanut butter slow or I do I just stay slower than even a slug in peanut butter and pull off the distance?

It's an not a decision I take lightly and I have already gone back and forth on it a few times. One of the things that bothers me about running a marathon is that no matter if I complete it or not, I don't think it will matter much to me. I have completed two. I have told the stories. I don't think it will matter as much to me as completing the one I did last year for Deanna. It almost feels like to push this issue would be like pushing through to say "HEY I DID IT!", but I already have twice, so why put myself through that pain if I am not ready. Because you don't really know how to quit that's why. Because if you fall back to the lower distance you are giving up that's why. Who cares if you didn't train right for it, you got it in your somewhere that's why.

Do you see my problem here???

Going to contemplate some more.
Have a great day.

Re

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You feed off our fears...

2/23/2015

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Her actual birthday. What big hair you have Ganee. She's actually 2 years older in this pic that I am right now. I wish I looked that young now. My mom not Deanna!

Birthday 1. She had been walking for 4 months at the time. If I remember correctly that outfit she has on is 9 months and she was swimming in it.

Mom, she was 4. She was 4 when she ate all that pizza. We had a double cake made. The other half had an old lady that said over the hill.

Mom and I took the girls out to Williamsburg to a hotel with a pool. Just so they could swim in February. I believe I count 10 candles, maybe 11.

.. and hold back your tears.

I get it some of you probably don't think that some of these songs or the lyrics of them match the post. They do.. in my own weird twisted way they do.

Yesterday was Deanna's birthday. Her 21st. What a milestone for the kid who decided she liked bourbon and beer at 2. You could NOT sit a drink down anywhere close to her. She would literally steal it and hide. No, no one gave it to her on purpose, no one tried to see if she would take it, we just turned around at a gathering one night and a friends cup was gone. She wasn't happy we took it from her either. I do imagine that I was very lucky through her teenage years, I know she snuck a sip or two and had one massive drinking fest (that I know of) but was safely at home, but she didn't go out partying every weekend.. oh who am I kidding.. any night they could, all week long each and every week from the time she was old enough to get out of the house.. like a very close blood relative did. I won't name any names to protect my innocence.

It was a milestone that I surely would have helped her celebrate. I would have been right there beside her as she plunked her ID on the bar and said.. Serve me, I am legal! I know she would have remembered to stick to one alcohol because she learned that horrible horrible lesson at the drinking fest, do NOT mix up a bunch of stuff. That's one of those hard lessons that every kid learns when they go behind their mom's and aunts back to have a little sip of this and that. I have no doubt that story would have been brought up, along with the 2 year old booze thief and probably how I knew it was her that was taking liberties with the frozen margaritas in the freezer. I am sure lots of stories would have been told.

But.

They weren't. I am instead writing them on a blog. Writing them down for the internets to see. They are no longer silly little secrets between Mommy and De. They are really no longer important to anyone but me. I remember them. I remember the silliness of what was De.

I thought yesterday would be hard. No, I knew yesterday would be hard. It was. Her birthday falls just two days after a monthly angelversary so the entire weekend was pretty much a time bomb. I made sure that I wasn't at work, thankfully, because I lost it more than once. The thing I did not do was really make plans. I asked someone to be here. I was denied. Which is beyond hysterical because they were the one that kept saying.. MAKE PLANS.. GO DO SOMETHING.. POST ON FACEBOOK.. you dumbass, I did try to make plans. What I am thankful for was the light that it shined on a glaring issue. Just because someone is there for you once in the throws of a disaster does not mean they always will be there for you and it CERTAINLY does not give them the right to continuously say but I was there for you when, this weekend was this weekend, it wasn't then, the memories of them being there then didn't just magically make this weekend any better.

I am thankful that I got up on Saturday and rain 3 freezing cold miles with just a handful of badasses (or idiots.. I am not sure which), it actually gave me an accomplished feeling for getting out of bed when it was 20. I am thankful for the coffee we shared as friends afterwards. I am thankful that I was able to get in Hairoics, where I was treated by Jim and Sandy with love, neither of them even knew what the weekend was. They are just very good people and terrific customers, I am thankful that Kim could meet me for lunch on a few hours notice. I am thankful that Phyllis met me for a few drinks and apps when I realized I really needed company. I am thankful for Leslie would sent the text to meet her for a few more with the Truszs. Truszzees? Truszes? Truszss? oh forget it you get the point.

I am thankful for getting up yesterday morning and running 9 miles (ok it was 8.85 but that is close right) half of which was in a miserable rain. I am thankful for the people out there running it with me. I am thankful for Amanda being there at exactly the right moment. I am thankful that my mom called just to hear my voice. I am thankful that when I talked to my Daddy he knew exactly what I was doing and his response.. drink one for her for me too. I am thankful for the Trus... CHRIS AND KAMI, there that is easier, for being there at exactly noon to have a birthday drink served by the favorite bartender Brit. I am thankful for the nap.. the race.. the crappy TV movies. I am thankful for all of the messages, facebook posts, status updates, texts and emails.

But above all. I am thankful for that one friend who just out of the blue completely randomly said... say the word and I will be there. That one text opened my eyes to what love actually was. Love was what she did. Love was what all those other people did. Love is the random people who remembered her birthday and posted on her wall, commented on my status, took time out of their day to call, or text me asking me how I was or just saying I love you.

Today is actually worse than yesterday. My heart hurts. Her day has come and gone and she wasn't in it. Her day has come and gone and some people didn't remember. Her day has come and gone and life long friends of hers didn't post on her facebook. Her day has come and gone and the one person I asked to be here never asked.. are you ok? Her day has come and gone and neither of her brothers acknowledged it. Her day has come and gone and not a damn thing has changed, it still hurts.

You get in your own head ya know. You get in there and you make yourself believe that if you can just make it through to the day after it will be ok. It isn't. It is a lie. It's a lie we tell ourselves to make ourselves believe that some where at some time it is going to feel better. If it felt any better I wouldn't be sitting here typing this through tears. Her day has come and gone and I am still here and she is still gone.

I thank each of you that remembered. I thank each of you that acknowledged her.

As for me.. right now I am going to cry in my coffee and try to figure out where life goes from here.

Love
Re

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20. Do you know I hate 20?

2/20/2015

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Don't look at me like that Deanna. I know it is stupid. (yes that is the look that she would give you if she thought you had finally completely lost your marbles) That is the number that reminds me of exactly how long you have been gone. 22 months in a few short minutes. 671 days. I guess you can say I am getting better. I can't rattle off the exactly weeks, days and minutes anymore. It's almost like the mommies who can say oh my baby is 2 weeks 3 days and 6 hours old. I could do that, but it marked the time you were gone. I had to know the exact amount of time you hadn't been here. Yes I know you are looking at me like that again. I am sorry.

I guess I am trying to remember more important things now, like your smile, your laugh, and well that look. The exact amount of time doesn't seem so relevant because every second has been so very hard and it seems like forever and no time all mixed in one. STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT.

I remember you giving grandaddy hugs on the phone when you were 3 like it was yesterday, I can't remember what your voice sounded like because it seems like it was a lifetime ago since I heard it. I remember you holding a bowl of cabbage the last time I saw you just like it had been a few hours ago. I don't remember the last text you sent me. I remember the last message I sent you, so desperately I was trying to reach you that morning, just seems so bizarre since it wasn't in my nature to do that to you. You would call when you were ready. You would show up when you were ready. You would reply when you were ready. But you didn't. Ganee called me instead. My exact words as I picked up the phone, "Oh she must have been called you." You didn't.

Regardless if I can rattle of the exact minutes since you have been gone, I do know one thing for certain. The 20th never fails to remind me. 22 months this time De. In 2 days you would have been 21. In 2 months it will be 2 years. I used to hate the number 3. I have no idea why, I just did not like 3. Today 2s aren't my friend. I always loved that your birthday was 2/22. I think 02/22/2022 would have been an amazing day. Now not so much. Do you celebrate angelversaries in heaven like you would have an Earthly birthday? Is your Earthly birthday even important there? I guess if you celebrate being an angel that makes you 22 months today. (if one person tells me that you can't be an angel because the Bible isn't written that way and God said people can't be angels I am telling you right now, I will not be a happy Mama. My question to you is how do you know she wasn't an angel to start with sent here on a mission to better this world and her job was done? It's not up for debate, its how I chose to look at it, and when you lose one of your children then come talk to me about how you feel about it, until then I don't really care.) DEANNA STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT!

Yes Deanna, the last 22 months have driven your already looney Mommy pretty much over the edge. Questioning every move I made as your Mommy. Filed with so many emotions about the 19 years you were here. Love, Pride, Anger, Regret, Guilt, Pain, Happiness, Joy.. it's all there. All of the emotions of a life time wrapped up in a little box that is called my heart. Sometimes its all so mixed up that I can't even tell which one I am feeling anymore. Do you have emotions there? Do you miss us like we miss you? Can you see what a screwed up mess I am? Do you know now how much you were loved?

There are so many questions. And the only answer to any of them is there is no answer.

The 20th. One solid truth in a world full of questions. The 20th.

The day you left.

My love flies to you and your brother on the wings of angels.
Love forever,
Mommy

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You ain't nothing but a Hounddog...

2/19/2015

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Crying all the time.

Ok this song is the perfect one for today. My brain is weird, I know that, but it is also funny at times.

This happened yesterday.

Me to Banx and Charlie :I'm going to take a shower

Dogs: Okie Dokie have a nice shower.

Charlie: You won't be long right?

Me: No I won't be long

Charlie: Just a few minutes right?

Me: Yes, just a few minutes

Charlie: You pppppprrrrrrooooommmmiiissseee you're coming back

Me: Yes charlie I promise.

Me: *Walk down hall. Go in bedroom and shut door*

Charlie: OMG!!!! She shut the door that is it she is never ever coming back I will be stuck here until forever behind this gate because she shut the door she will never come home she lied she is behind THE DOOR OMG! Banx dude she is NEVER coming back come over here and cry at the gate with me maybe she will hear us and come back!

Banx: Dude.... chill. Lay back relax... watch the time tick by as the sun shine on the house next door...
Chill man.

Charlie: OMG OMG OMG it's been 2 minutes and no movement from the door. They have taken her! I must jump the gate! I will jump the gate.

Banx: dude ... you're gonna get in trouble for that.

Charlie: Naw man I Must save her. She is mine I am hers I must protect her from the evilness behind the door that launches itself at me like a baby octopus.

Banx: dude... ya know that's a cat right?

Charlie: IT'S EVIL! PURE EVIL! I will cry beside the door in hopes of scaring it into letting her out.

Banx: You know the cat is laughing at you right. . Dude. Come here the cat shared some nip last night... you need it I think.... chill.

Charlie: OMG I HEAR SOME THING! !! IT'S PROBABLY EATING HER.

Me opening door exactly 13 minutes 23 seconds later: What exactly do you think you are doing jumping the gate mister!!!

Banx : Told ya

Charlie: YOU HAVE BEEN GONE FOREVER!!! I THOUGHT YOU WERE NEVER COMING BACK!!! Let me run around the house and show you the dance of my people in honor of your return.

Banx: Oh brother.

Me: WILL YOU SIT DOWN!!!!

This is little exchange I wrote on Facebook on my phone yesterday. I am strange. Someone said I should write a book, actually lots of someone's have. Well I did. Here it is.

Charlie's Life

It doesn't work as well when I THINK about what I am typing. Granted this took me about an hour and I have never dealt with putting pictures with words like this before, that took more time than the actual words. I can't help but wonder what I could do if I spent actual time with my words. Maybe one day I will actually have the time to. Writing a book to Logan was extremely fun and I think I will do more of that. He is a long way away and I don't want him to forget me.

The other thing that makes this so blasted funny is that Charlie is a wimp. Granted I don't think he would mind eating you if you tried to come in my house but then he would sit down and cry about it. Last night the wind blew over a trashcan, his first reaction was to try to eat the door to get to it, by eat the door I mean he just barked at it in his mean voice, then when he realized he didn't know what it was he just started crying. Seriously Charlie??? Big huge wimp.

Speaking of Hounddogs. My Daddy the original Hounddog with Big Brother caught this sucker this week.

He came out of Tater Neck and ended up in Beaverlette. Pretty good run for the hounds. So all of you non hunting against this and against that people.. thank a hunter your little dog, your cat, and your chickens are now safe from one more coyote. He wasn't a small thing either.. 44 lbs to be exact. The only problem I have is that I am not sure I could have taken him out, I would probably have him locked in my bedroom trying to make a pet out of him or something. I am seriously not right when it comes to animals.

I need to win the lottery so I can have an animal refuge and write books about the conversations I have with them. I would be happy, they would be happy, the whole world would be at peace.

When I dream I dream big.

I know some of you probably read all this on Facebook yesterday and that is ok, there are added things here, and my non facebookies deserved a little happy today, its been really dark around this joint for days.

May your day be filled with talking puppies and safe kitties.
Love
Re

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Memories, pressed between the pages of my mind...

2/18/2015

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Some of you are probably looking at that thinking Dear Lord.. that is crazy... this isn't your brain on drugs people this is your brain on Re. All kinds of crazy going on up there.. all kinds. The problem with the all kinds of crazy is with all of that stuff stuck up there things that need to be stuck don't.

In the past week alone, I forgot my password again. You say you do that all the time, everyone does that. Really? To an application you have logged into for the last 5 years each and every day multiple times a day and you have to type the password each time?? No, no one does that. My phone, I lose it constantly, again you probably think everyone does that. Really? In their house when as far as they have walked is from the bedroom to the kitchen and poof GONE?? I found it after about an hour. It was on top of the trashcan. I don't lose my keys, I leave them in the truck. Please don't steal my truck, but I figure that a stolen truck is less hassle than losing your keys EACH AND EVERY DANG DAY! I forget if I have taken my meds, I don't know right now if I took today's, I think I did. Buy one of those pill things you say... I will WHEN I REMEMBER TO BUY IT!

Of the things that I lose the most aggravating right now it is words. I lose words. I forget the name of things, I can be having a normal every day conversation and need to name something, something simple, like buff because I wanted a running buff to keep my nose and breathing warm when I run in the cold weather (yea like i am ever going to run in the cold weather.. I don't know why I keep making these running promises to even myself.. I suck and I am stuck in a rut of I DO NOT WANT TO RUN) but I couldn't name it. I could not come out with the word Buff. I couldn't come up with muffin the other day. This happens daily.. like all the flipping time! Do you know how frustrating it is to constantly say.. give me awhile it will come to me.. ALL. THE TIME!

The crazy doctor, who is different from the talking doctor, because the talking doctor isn't crazy at all, but I am not too sure about the crazy doctor yet and if you go to a heart doctor for your heart I suppose I am going to crazy doctor for my crazy. By the way, can I just say I think it sucks that my talking doctor is so good. She is really really good, like I can't afford to be without her good, but if I could really go without her without having a complete melt down I would fire her just so she could be my friend. I think we would make good friends, she may not want someone crazy as me as a friend but that is where I stand on the subject. What was I talking about... Ohhh the crazy doctor. The last time I was there he told me that the human brain can have 7 conscious thoughts at one time and if you try to think of an 8th something has to go. I am not sure I believe that, I feel like thousands of thoughts are flying around my brain at one time, but I totally get forgetting something to think of something else. Like where I put my stupid phone!

So now that I have unstuck a couple of thoughts out here on the internets I am going to try to remember that stupid password.

If you happen to run into me later today, this week, this month... remind me of who I am ok?

Much Love.
Re

(there at least I remember that.. speaking of Re, it is quite funny that yesterday I asked one of my dearest friends to remember my first real name, the response.. I don't think I ever knew it... CLASSIC!!!)

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I keep wishing it could be that way...

2/17/2015

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Because my world would be a wonderland

I realize that not everyone enjoys the words I write. They are a very hard pill to swallow most of the time, what can start as a bed of roses can very quickly turn to all of the sadness and gloom of a thousand nations. Trust me... that is not how I wish things were. I don't wish to have all of this sadness and tragedy swimming around in my head constantly. There is something that I think that everyone really truly needs to understand, I never know what exactly I am going to type until the moment comes that I sit down in front of the keyboard. It all just flies out, so what you are experiencing is exactly what I am feeling right that moment, unfiltered. I don't edit content at the end just grammar and punctuation which we all know I still stink at. I read a curious little line in a book last night, it says that the main character received a C on an essay not because of the content but because of the way it was worded, the essay was written in the same style he spoke. That is how I write, just like I talk, full of ...'s and all.

Now that you know that you know that you actually in my brain while you are reading this, think about the fact that it takes me anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes to generate a blog post. That leaves roughly 23.5 hours left in the day with the rest of the swirling thoughts. Try to imagine reading my blog 24 hours a day, just for one day. Can you imagine the ups and downs you would feel? Just because I am incredibly sad in the moment I am writing doesn't mean that I will be at noon, and vice versa. It is a roller coaster. A constant incredible roller coaster of madness. Sometimes that roller coaster comes out right in the moment I am typing, going from the peace of snow yesterday to the horrible sadness and pain of how my brain processes the death of Dustin and Deanna all within a few short minutes, that is my life. That is my entire existence. I NEVER know what I am going to feel and my feelings betray me constantly.

Even through the sadness yesterday I made it to the gym, I lifted my weights, I went to have a drink, I went through the motions, yes I did it but I was no where near the place mentally. I was completely and totally checked out, gone, stuck in my own weighted madness. I am not sure if anyone notices anymore and it's ok because honestly why would they, this is me at a constant. It is like the alcoholic that you have no idea is drunk because you see them drunk all the time. Me, everyone sees me emotional all the time so I think they just know that as the me I am now. I HATE IT. Not because I want anyone's pity or sympathy but because my entire being has shifted so incredibly much that THIS.. THIS ME is what people expect. I don't want to be this me, but it is who and where I am right now.

I didn't go to bootcamp this morning, why because I am petrified of any kind of road condition, PETRIFIED, not so much for me but for others, what if I hit one patch of ice and caused the death of someones child? Do I feel like a heel and boob because I didn't go? Of course, because my friends went. Because they aren't the wimps that I am, because they are who I used to be. Before car accidents and dying and tears of 3454 different fears. I made a promise and I broke it because of fear. I am the person that rants on facebook now about please staying safe and off the roads. I am the person that is wracked with worry over nothing, it wasn't that big of a deal, the roads were wet. I am that psycho. I am that crazy person that expects the worse when her kids don't answer, or a friend calls out of the blue, or the phone rings in the middle of the night, the one who goes straight into panic attack mode. It's ridiculous.

It's days like today that make me just want to lay down and QUIT. Quit it all, give up, stop trying, because it is days like this that show me just how much of my existence is so insanely wrapped around tragedy. My brain will not allow me to be at peace, my heart is a constant lump in my throat threatening to spill the tears at a moments notice. It's days like today that my only thoughts are of failure. How badly I have let people down. How much I have done wrong. Yesterday during a talking doctor appointment I said I wished that I had a rewind button, she asked what I would change, I said I would go back and fix all of my mistakes but that would take me a life time, to rewind myself and fix all I have screwed up would take my existence, it would take me back to a small child, it would take me back at least 40 years of untangling the mess I have made.

I still hear the words of how horrible of a mother I was. They won't get out of my head. They won't go away, this woman takes up space in my head CONSTANTLY, her and the woman that said that I was not much of a mother when she found out I was at the accident scene. Yea.. it is those things that are on repeat, the bad things, the hurtful things, the sad things, the things that remind me of all of the mistakes. I see the scene.. rewind, I hear her say I was horrible, rewind, I hear my daddy's voice crack, rewind, I remember the moment I realized, fast forward, I hear her say I was horrible, rewind, I see her in the road, fast forward, I hear my step fathers lies. rewind, i am trying to call her, fast forward.. CONSTANT.. CONSTANTLY!!!

Now we can add a mixed bag of nuts of how I don't show up as I promised, or I am not running like I should, or that I don't get dressed unless absolutely necessary and you have the perfect recipe for a pure failure. Yes failure, that is what I feel, failed, didn't pass, big fat F in red ink. I had one job, protect the kids. ONE JOB. Failed, not once but twice. Some how I didn't instill in Deanna that the seat belt should always always always be on, fail. Some how I wasn't around and she was driving an SUV not her car, fail. Some how I didn't save Dustin. Some how I am still failing the children I have. They aren't happy and I don't know how to make them happy. It is truly a vicious cycle of pain and guilt.

Have you ever been in one of those toxic relationships where the other person is just sucking the life force right out of you? Spewing hatred at you with each and every word. That's my brain, I am in a toxic relationship with my brain and it isn't like I can break up with it.

Ok that is enough mind numbing rambling for the day.
I got nothing happy today, not right this minute anyway.

Stay warm, stay safe, stay happy.
Re

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And I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills...

2/16/2015

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I have no idea where and how Forrest Gump's mother figured that life was like a box of chocolates, yes you are never sure what you might get (kind of like when you take the gamble at reading this blog) but the bottom line of that is that everything is sweet and good. Life is not all sweet and good.. it's served up all crazy with a side of chaos, and what seems more often than not a congealed, cold, sour mess. No I did not get up on the right side of the bed this morning, no I don't know why, no I don't plan on putting on proper (I have been reading books set in England and Australia and such, they even write differently than we do.. using words like proper and snog.. I am sorry I don't want to snog.. that sounds dirty, cheap, and something that would be done in a smelly alleyway but I will do a proper tea or proper clothes or bid you adieu just because I think it is funny hearing those words in my rather messed up dialect and accent of all the places I have lived) clothes until I have to go to work, (edit.. I have been informed that we are closed tonight, I don't have to put on proper anything!) and YES I plan on enjoying the fact that it is like no degrees outside and even the dogs don't want to go on a walk.

I think I am a bit prickly because they say that we probably won't have any snow accumulation. I am not exactly one that ENJOYS cold weather, I haven't skied since high school, ice skating really hurts my ankles, I don't breathe well when it is frigid, BUT I do enjoy a nice snow storm once a year. If just once a year it would snow it's butt off and give me about 3 good feet of the white stuff, close schools, have a nice pot of chili, and good coffee (for two days then it all needs to disappear and resume life as normal) I would be ONE HAPPY GIRL. I love watching snow fall, it is peaceful and calming. Something about the way the snow seems so silent, I can remember my mother saying that she could hear it when the snow started, not because of a noise it made, because it got so quiet, what she was hearing was a peace falling over the land, a blanket of peace being placed on the earth for just a little while, the white bliss covering all of the ugly.

My mom also loved to see her house with a freshly laid blanket of snow, she loved this so much that when it snowed we weren't allowed to play in the front yard, only the back where people going by wouldn't see messed up snow in our front yard. Keep in mind we lived on a dead end road with about 10 OLD people at the end that were not going anywhere in the world until all the snow disappeared. I don't know who she thought she was fooling by saying she didn't want "people" to see the messed up front yard.. the "people" was just A people.. her. The funny thing is 4 decades later I get it. It wasn't that she didn't want us to have the enjoyment of the coveted snow in the front yard (yes even back then I knew that snow was special snow, it was different from the back yard snow and I so badly wanted to go and land right in the middle of it and make a huge snow angel because that was BETTER SNOW), it really was that she didn't want to disturb the peacefulness of it, while her children were outside throwing snow balls, building forts and snowmen with bread bags on our feet inside of snow boots and a snow suit that you seriously couldn't run in if you tried, she could look in that front yard and forget for just a few minutes that the world was full of crazy, she could gaze across the beauty of the while falling flakes landing so quietly on a blanket of peace and for just a few minutes be transported to a place where all was right with the world. Then in would run two frozen children with snow everywhere blanketing her floor with fresh puddles of thawing remains of snowballs, demanding hot chocolate and soup.

I need a blanket of peace, if even for just a few days. Something that can just so purely cover the world and my heart with a quiet that can't be measured. I need my mind to slow down, for the whirling of the constant chatter to just stop for it just to be quiet and peaceful for a few minutes. Yes I realize over the past few weeks I have been better, I have been finding my footing and just taking step after step, but I had to face the harsh reality that in 6 days from now it will be Deanna's birthday. She would have been 21. A big one, a milestone. As much as it breaks my heart, all of her milestones have been replaced by that cold headstone. It isn't fair.. it isn't fair at all! It isn't fair that I can be driving over a bridge and for no reason at all on an otherwise normal Saturday morning have all the thoughts of that day, that accident come rushing back at me. I can hear my Daddy calling me Sugah.. that's how he says it Sugah.. it's going to be ok Sugah, stop crying now Sugah... I remember those words, but even now so many months later all I can think is IT'S NOT OK.. NONE OF THIS IS OK.. IT WILL NEVER EVER BE OK AGAIN. He hasn't called me Sugah since and I can't remember a time since I was a small child that he had. I sometimes wonder if he knew how much I still cried if he would get in his truck and drive here just to give me a hug and try to tell Sugah that it is going to be ok. I wonder if I would ever believe it.

As hard and as terrible as it is remembering thoughts from that day, even now pieces come back to me that I had just pushed in some deep part of my mind, it is the parts I don't know that are worse. The reconstruction in my mind of her last minutes, did she reach for the phone? Was her window down, the radio up and her hair blowing in the wind? What was her last thought? What song was she listening to? How did it happen? The worst the most painful of it all, is my brain trying to reconstruct each and every second of that accident, the truck flipping, did she brace, did she get knocked out, how did she get out side of the truck, were her eyes open, was she scared, did it hurt, did she know she was dying.. answers that I will never ever have, but this stupid messed up brain won't stop popping up the questions, like some bad riddle that has no answer no matter how many times you try to solve it.

This is my brain, this is my life. The never ending cycle of another milestone is on it's way to remind me of that gravestone, to remind me that she will never walk into a bar and proudly show her ID that she was now legal, she will never sign her name on her marriage license or the birth certificate of her child, that her name will not be proudly displayed on a college diploma, she will never decorate her first grown up home with hand me downs from family members proudly displaying things under her own roof, and you know what.. what makes it all that much harder.. the riddles and milestones are compounded by not one child's absence but by 2. The same thoughts whirl around about his life and death as hers do, combining themselves in the perfect storm of emotion that no parent anywhere should ever have to feel.

My heart hurts today for all the missed milestones... that those babies have angelversaries instead of birthdays, that they will forever be 15 and 19, that I will never see what their adult selves would be. That on each February 22nd and July 2nd it will mark another year that is not going to age them.. she will never be 21, he will never be 43, it is always she would have.. he would have.. and they SHOULD HAVE! This is just not the way life is supposed to happen. Do you know that when you google their names the first thing to pop up is their obituaries, not life events, not how much anyone loved them, not some picture from their kindergarten classes field trip that made the paper, their obituary. This is just not right. None of this is right.

So you see... I need a blanket of peace, I just need a quiet place to rest my mind, a few minutes that can be filled with lies of all being right with the world and there is no ugly, a freshly fallen blanket of snow over all the crashing thoughts in my brain.

Here's to hoping my meds kick in soon and that Jon Cash is wrong and we get snow here on the Outer Banks.

Love
Re

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Contemplating Life.. and Death.

2/13/2015

4 Comments

No song today...

Yesterday morning on just a normal Thursday while sitting there doing my normal job I got a phone call. I couldn't answer it as I was doing my normal job, but then received an URGENT text message, I knew I needed to call before I saw something online that I didn't want to see. I put my normal job call on mute and called back immediately and as co workers babbled on in the back ground oblivious to the conversation that was going on behind my muted phone line, I heard the words that my dear friends husband had lost his life yesterday morning in a car accident.

A flood of feelings came rushing in, shock, sadness, heartbreak... it brings back feelings of the day Deanna became an angel each and every time you hear of a life lost by a car accident, but this was different, this was someone I knew. It's not the same when it was from some other cause.. I don't know why and if that is just how weird I am.. but I always empathize easier with the families of car accidents, or at least I think I do. Then I wonder later, did they feel this same thing, do they still feel the same way, do they think about these things. It is empathy gone awry.

Through out the day I caught myself just going on about my day, continuing on with my normal job, folding a tub of laundry, I would stop and catch myself and for a few moments my heart would completely ache. I would think of the days, weeks and months following the accident that I was truly angry that other peoples lives were moving forward and mine was stuck there in that deep pit of sadness. Then the dogs would need to be walked and the dishes washed and again I would be doing normal everyday things. It felt like I was betraying my friend, that I knew she was feeling the "HOW CAN THIS WORLD BE STILL MOVING when THIS.. this has happened. Stop people just stop." It still feels like a betrayal this morning as I sit here having my coffee.

I met my friends husband only a couple of times and in the short amount of time I had with him I knew he was a kind caring man, and I knew my friend loved him. There were many things I thought about yesterday in regards to the differences in the situations and caught myself thinking, I couldn't make it if that had happened. Then I thought of the many many many times I had heard. "If it were me I would not be able to survive" Or "I would be locked up if it were me, you are so strong" and I remembered how angry it makes me when I hear those words, those words become twisted in the minds of grieving, they come out sounding like.. "I loved my child so much more than you obviously loved yours because here you are and I know I couldn't do it." That my friends is the way we hear things and here I was catching myself doing it yesterday. I am very angry at myself for feeling that.

I contemplated life and death more yesterday than any other time since Deanna's accident. Isn't that strange? Almost 22 months have gone by and yesterday hearing those words brought so many feelings and thoughts to the forefront.

(If you think things are ugly up above this moment you may want to stop reading now and just say a prayer or good thoughts to my friend and her family because it is going to get down right nasty fast)

As the day wore on yesterday the thoughts of what had happened just would not leave my mind. Here is this kind man who was simply out on his way to work, and didn't make it. Here was my sweet daughter who was simply on her way home and didn't make it. Here was me still making it. I thought about the sadness the entire family felt when De had her accident, the tears of the friends, the heart break of the family. I thought about how this mans wife and children had to be told he wouldn't be coming home, the pain and sadness they must be feeling. Then I thought about how I didn't think about any of that when I was planning my own death. I didn't think about someone having to phone my mother, or the police on her door step. I didn't think about the person that would have to tell my Daddy that it was over.

Why am I still sitting here typing then you are probably wondering? And please for the love of God do not say "Because you were strong enough to make it through it." I wasn't. The one and only reason I am sitting here is because I did not want Drake to find me. That's it. The only thing. I am sitting here because in my sick twisted messed up mind I had to die at home and I knew the only person that would come looking for me was Drake. I told my Daddy once that I wouldn't do anything stupid because I didn't want him to feel like I did. I didn't care anymore.. I didn't care that he would or might feel this, I just wanted the pain to stop. I wanted to die. I could rationalize that he wouldn't feel that way because he would know that I did it so I would feel better and he would be ok because he would know I was better and that was what I wanted, yet at the same time wondering if heaven is real and if Deanna is happy where she is and not in pain or lonely, feeling like I had to get to her to make sure.

I am not sure that the point of that was driven home until I saw my friend's sister post last night (just an FYI.. the friends sister and I are close.. she is one of those people you can go weeks without talking to yet know you can call or text any time and she will be right there) she has young children and she posted about the heartbreaking feeling of having to tell her children that someone they love has died. I have done that.. it is one of the most painful experiences of my life. How in the world do you tell children that their brother is gone... that it happened again with their sister?? I don't know but some how I did, it was done. Even after going through that no where in my mind did it register that someone would have to tell my children that their mom was not coming home and that she caused it herself. I thought of this last night and still in my head it could be rationalized, they are grown now, it wouldn't have bothered them. Then my mind slid to Haley, I don't know why, it just did. She is the young daughter of friends here in the Outer Banks. She loves me, I love her. I don't spend near enough time with her but in that moment I pictured Sandy telling Haley, I could never hug her again.. and that I had made that happen on purpose. Every thought I ever had of taking my own life crumbled at the feeling that I could only imagine that little girl would feel. I am not incredibly close to any other small children right now in my life, but thinking of the confusion and pain of that one small heart right now is mind numbing.

How selfish and cruel am I? There are people out here fighting illnesses to survive, having accidents going on about their normal day that they wanted to live, babies not making it to birth, and here I was rationalizing my own selfish death. I even planned my small funeral and burial, I knew exactly what I wanted, how it would all play out, in a neat tidy little package of she wasn't here anymore, the end.

My mind drifted to my friend Rhonda, I have written about her before, her beautiful daughter took her own life just days before Deanna's accident. We met quite accidentally and I watched her struggle as she watched me. I heard her fight against suicide for medical students and doctors, I heard her speak out about it in general through Facebook posts, blogs, and finally her book.

"At least on my dying day, if I have time to think before I go, I will have known that though I have not done great feats in this world I have no doubt that I did do some of the most important things a person can do; I have loved my children, my husband and family with all my heart and did the best I could for them, though I was far from perfect. Love has always been given freely in my house. I have loved my family. And I have written this book and if one person can be saved from it, it will have served its purpose. But I hope my book spurs on more action in some way. Rhonda"

Three days later, Rhonda was gone. I thought a lot about her death when I was in my darkest of depression, I wondered if she was better now, if the pain had stopped or if she was just in a different place feeling pain for having left her daughter and husband behind. I thought of Rhonda last night, if she had made it through "winter" would she now be sitting behind her keyboard wondering where the next step of life will take her as I am? I wonder now what life would be like today if I wasn't in it? Who would be waking Drake up for school, or walking the dogs, or even washing the dishes. The normal mundane life things that made me so angry that everyone else was doing, I am doing. Life is moving on even though it was so hard to see, day by day life is happening. I don't want it to happen without me anymore, even if it is just a normal day at a normal job with normal chores, it's happening it hasn't stopped like I thought.

Yes this entire thought process came from the loss of my friends husband, every bit of it. I can only hope that if I ever fall into the darkest places of my soul again, I will remember Ken, and all he taught me on one fateful otherwise normal day in February, and that I will think about his wife, children, and nieces and nephews as they had to be told someone they loved wouldn't be coming home.

My heart continues to break for his family and friends as I know they are hurting and no amount of words or hugs or anything can make that change. The only thing I knew to do in the moments after I heard was send a message up to Deanna to welcome him with a hug. I will hold them each tight in my heart and prayers to continue to find the light in an otherwise dark time, and I hope one day that they can read this and realize that their angel brought another back to life.

Much Love,
Re

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Let it SNOW... Let it SNOOOWWWW.

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And I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills...

Contemplating Life.. and Death.

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