Brave enough to do the things I never thought I would have to...Damn it!

I had to increase my O2 through the night and it became intolerable to sleep with the noise and heat put out by “R2D2” …my name for the large O2 concentrator. I found on Amazon an O2 hose long enough that I could push that damn noisy O2 concentrator into Skip’s room with only the tubing in my room.  My mission was accomplished! Blissful, quiet, cool, sleep.  But on the second night of cool quiet sleep, I was rudely awoken in the middle of the night and quite frankly frightened by having the cannula jerked off of my face by an “unseen” force!  I have got to quit watching those ghost hunting shows!... It was not a ghost but Not My Cat in the hallway, wrestling with the O2 tubing on the floor like he had just discovered the best ever cat toy. A few Command Strip hooks later and some not so pretty but very effective engineering and I think the problem is solved!

Next week we will do handrails in the hall, a bit more bathroom modifications, and some adjustments in Skips room to accommodate a full-time care giver…if and when that becomes necessary.   The things that I have avoided for so long is now arriving…and although I hate it, it is not as bad as I thought it would be.

"Brave" Sarah Bareilles

Little by Little

It will soon be 1 year since I have been alone, and I still want to have all of these new changes feel right and normal, but many do not!  I am still “carving out a new life amid this weirdly devastated landscape” of widowhood, covid 19 and still working through advancing heart failure.  I am making so many mistakes!  New life still brings some of the crap of the old life. However, the overwhelming fear of the changes and reorganization of my hospice care has passed. I learned that I get to keep my primary nurse ED, who I adore and is a true advocate for me as a person rather than a set of diagnoses and symptoms and a new Doc that I met yesterday too, and I really like her…I am feeling very lucky about this!  So, if I could add anything to Megan’s quote it would be that “little by little pain and love and fear will find ways to coexist”.

"Nothing Stays the Same" Luke Singh

Learning, how to forgive me.

Learning, how to forgive me. The first thing is being honest with how I really feel.  Exposing myself, being vulnerable, and to quit being the “showman” pretending that I am much stronger than I really am.  It is not easy but if I want to really move forward, this journey of self-forgiveness has to begin.

"Shame on You" Indigo Girls

Our House is a very very fine house...

I found this picture with more cleaning.  When I tell people, this is the house that Skip and I built out of love and tears, good times and bad I also mean that we literally built it…well not the whole thing but the family room we built (everything but the trusses and roofing). It was such a struggle but we did it! We also built much of the furniture inside.  Then there is a good bunch of furniture that family heirlooms from booth my grandmother and his.  It is a little home where I am surrounded by memories and family, and it is all very good

….but I still miss him so very much and all we did together.


"Our House" Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

no obvious end in sight...

Another holiday without you, and the day before that horrific the day brings back happy memories and tears. I remember all of the 4^th of July days on the sailboat anchored in Lake Monroe, the water balloon fights followed later by the kids squealing as the fireworks literally burst over our heads.

As I move forward without you there are mixed emotions between being proud of myself for existing and going on living and then terrible guilt for simply going forward without you. I still do not know how to reconcile these 2 feelings and I wonder if this will ever go away.

The love, the guilt, the happy memories, the profound loss still, swirl around in my heart with

no obvious end in sight.


"Summer Song"  Chad & Jeremy

The Magic Place

Not fighting to stay, not sure it is time to move on yet either, I am still learning the lessons on how to trust myself.  This moment, right here right now in the little house where I have loved and cried, laughed and hurt, brought babies home from the hospital, and mourned the loss of the love of my life.  It is my magic place, where the past, present, and maybe even the future exist in the same place.  For now…this is right where I belong.

"Heal Yourself"  Ruthie Foster

I would WIN!

After last month's attempted break-in, I replaced all of my cheaper front and back door cameras with RING cameras.  The older cheaper ones were so slow at connecting to the internet and then to the cell phone, that by the time the light came on and they ran, the cameras did not catch them….Damn it!

The new RINGS go directly to the internet and my Amazon “Show” Screen currently parked on my bedside dresser.

 

The old cameras are strategically placed where I can see blind placed in the front and back yard…they not be fast but if a “bad guy” lingers I will get them on video!

I now feel like the neighborhood Gladys Kravits! 

"I Can See Clearly Now"  Johnny Nash

...if you allow it.

Such a wonderful meaningful concept.  So very easy to say, so damn hard to actually do.  Seems like the natural “go-to” for human emotion is negativity and fear.  If I have to blame something, I guess I can blame that on the limpic brain function.

There seems to be a fine line between recognizing, addressing and solving a problem and allowing it to become the long term focus of my attention.

Don’t get stuck in the negative! Stay positive, recognize and solve problems then move on and stay happy!

"Happy" Pharell Williams

Fathers' Day

It is still those little moments that sneak into your heart that still hurt the worst.  Yesterday was a double-edged sword.  I got to spent time with my own wonderful father, my son who is also a great father...but there was one very obvious father missing. It is still hard!


"Daughters"  John Mayer

Plan A...

And that is plan A…

All of the (well most of it) picture framing equipment is gone, the laundry room is opened up, the storage room has been razed and of all the half-finished projects, unused and broken tools, and a host of leftovers or “I will get to it’s  someday” have been hauled away.

Holding on to the stuff was my sad and failing attempt to hold on to Skip and my old normal life.  It takes courage to admit that, it takes more courage to actually do it. I am ready for good things to come into my life!

"Music in Me"  Paula Cole

I chose....

I hate fear!  It is the one thing that has kept me from doing more than any other thing in my life.  As much as I have tried to blame it on situations, people,  and/or negative experiences. I chose to allow the fear to control my life decisions.  

…the reality is I chose to keep it.


"Doing the Things You Want To"  Lou Reed

God's Creativity....

This one caught my attention!  And know most of you that know me are saying under your breath, but you don’t believe in God.  So right off the bat, let me clarify what I do and do not believe. I do not believe in the Christian version of God, but embrace that all religions have got some of it right, but no one yet, really gets it, it is still "beyond all of our understanding". 
~Episcoplian prayer.

So what you all may call God is shorthand to me to for the Universe, Higher Power, and several other non-religion associated names. 

I thought this one protest sign was significantly thought-provoking!  Maybe it is my attention to creativity that I related to immediately.  It is time we all respect each other’s culture, skin color, and beliefs even when they may be uncomfortable for our own personal beliefs.  That and we all need to understand that “bad” people exist in all of these groups and we can no longer define everyone by the actions of a few!

"Got to do Better"  Eric Bibb

Changes....

Everything is different now. The life I expected to unfold disappeared: the good and the bad. Right now there's nothing "ordinary" about my world inside or outside.

 

I concede that there is nothing I can do about the outside world. I wear a mask and keep my social distance, that is about it right now.  So, I have turned a great deal of my energy into controlling my inside world. Cleaning out and sorting through the storage room, reorganizing, having my framing equipment and moulding, glass, etc. (vestiges of who and what I was) hauled away.  It goes very slow because that is who and what I am now, but I am finding some contentment in the organization.  I am finding some peace in the changes, and that, quite frankly is surprising even me!

"Waiting for the World to Change" John Mayer

This is a stellar recommendation with a fatal flaw…

This is a stellar recommendation with a fatal flaw….At the time… I think it is really worth my energy.  That information of whether it was or was not, does not typically become apparent…until after the fact and when it is too late.  

I am trying very hard to figure it out and it becomes more and more critical as my energy really begins to fail me.  Here is a lesson I have recently learned, another one of those “better late that nevers”…

There are many people that get away with massive amounts of just plain attention-grabbing, control clutching drama, under the guise of being emotional, intuitive, or empathic.

Not sure this helps me with MY energy, but I figured it would be a good start to just steer clear of the negative energy.

"Go Down Swinging" Michelle Chaumel

Accepting the Pain...maybe...

Every 5^th of the month, his death anniversary, I gird my loins, adopt this philosophy and head into the day, determined to have a normal and relatively productive day!  And for the most part, I can do that, but there is always sometime during this day, usually in the quiet evenings, that my strength and resolve break down and I find myself in a sniveling hovel of human flesh. Yes, if I accept the pain it cannot hurt physically hurt me, most of the time….but then there are times it will still take my ass down to a raw emotional nub!


"If Only"  Dave Matthews Band

My Mantra!

I think when I finally realized this, much later in life then I would have liked, it began to empower me as an artist and a woman.  

Then when I became sick, it became my greatest coping tool.  

Now as I move through life on my own, it is my mantra!

"Love Me or Love Me Not"  Michael Franti

When things sneak up and bite me on the butt....

About the time I feel like I’ve got this under control, something comes up and bites me on the butt and I realize, I got nothing under control! Those normal, unexpected, ordinary, run of the mill everyday things that literally sneak up on me from behind bite me, chew me up and spit me out!

An old friend of Skip’s drops by for an unannounced visit…I mean an old friend back from the Boy Scouts, Little League days, of course, he was shocked to hear Skip had died, I was embarrassed that I had not gotten touch with him earlier, but after that first few weeks how do you make that phone call? Repeating what happened was not difficult, but dredged up all of the out of control grief and fear that Monday morning.

Then Monday was junk hauling day, it was a two-fer ass biting event. Watching my picture framing equipment loaded into the back of the junk truck felt like I was losing the definition of who I was, who I am, and where my strength was, and then up into the storage aka Skip’s workbench space and again I was overcome by grief that I was letting go of the things that were part of him.

I know these things are necessary for my life to move forward, but no one explains how emotionally grueling it is!

"Details in the Fabric"  Jason Mraz

I have said them...

And…that about says it all.  Sometimes I read back on my own writings and roll my own eyes, with no one here so see my embarrassment.  However, in my own defense…to have this place to vent anger, express love, overcome difficulties, and yes even express grief and death has been a grand starting point for healing.  It is the place I can scream into the universe my pain and my needs; it is also the place that I can show my gratitude or ask why? It is how I begin my emotional processing.  When I look back I see a great swath of time after Skip’s death that I did not write at all and realize that was pure overwhelming grief, I was incapable of emotionally processing anything!...So the fact that I am writing again is a tremendous signal to me and the universe that I am getting better.

"Things We Said Today"  Beatles

It’s the little things…or in this case the super mega ultra-strong!

In days like these, I have been grossly reminded of how many things I have truly taken advantage of.  The availability of toilet paper has never been at the top of my priority list but had always been readily accessible to me and now it was GONE. 

Almost 2 ½ months of gloving and masking up to stalk the dollar store the moment it opened, hoping to score 1 of the 3 miserable packages of 4 for a dollar 80 grit TP they put out each morning then having relatives box up rolls and ship them to me in plain brown boxes finally came to an end. 

It finally happened!  I received 6 Charmin mega rolls with my regular weekly Walmart Grocery order delivery Woo-Hoo!  

Between the stalking, masking, negotiating, shipping and receiving I was beginning to feel like a class A smuggler in training!

"Smugglers Blues" Don Henley

Trust the Timing...Not Yet!

Really?  Loosing a spouse regardless of timing is lousy!  More than lousy, worse than any of my worst dreams! I did not just loose the love of my life I immediately lost half of our income, half of my identity, half of my courage, 90% of my conversations and just about the time I think I have made a fair assessment of the losses and beginning plowing through the efforts to rebuild, another thing happens and a vile amount of vulnerability is exposed.  Trust the timing? NOT YET!

"No Such Thing"  John Mayer