The clock keeps pushing the minutes forward. My Grama used to say this funny little rhyme about a doll filled with sawdust. Thats how I feel some days, like I’m full of sawdust.
I used to write a funny advice column here. It started as an outlet for my frustration, then turned into a practice space for my writing, then a place I was proud of: a compilation of my hopefulness, my faith in being lighthearted and forgiving. Sometimes my moodiness crept in, but for the most part I was my best self here. Even when I was joking around about being lazy or a bad worker I always wanted to be true to my belief that life is wonderful.
This blog has come so far from what I meant it to be. I guess I feel like so many things in my life are so different from what I meant them to be. I still think life is wonderful, I’m just sometimes consumed with grief.
Now what? As I sit at this tiny desk scattered with sympathy cards and insurance bills I am finally realizing that it’s time to adjust. I have to adjust my plans, my dreams, my expectations.
Maybe I have to adjust this blog- just the layout to start. I’m probably just grasping at the few things I do have control over. My stomach is rumbling satisfactorily. Maybe I’ll become one of those women who uses food to assert control over my life. I wish I could start by cleaning up this fucking desk. I just lifted a few sympathy cards to find several drafts of Tom’s and my speeches from the memorial service. I can’t seem to throw them away. I can’t seem to do anything that would help me restore a sense of order in my life.
What I just wrote is misleading- there was never a lot of order in my life. I never liked cleaning or making decisions or doing paperwork. But now it’s like all my bad habits are on rocket fuel. And I can’t stop complaining about not being able to act out. I wish I could get it through my heart that acting out isn’t going to get me anywhere. I know I’m doing this right (right for me anyway). My brain knows I am getting somewhere, that my grief isn’t going to destroy me.
Still, the way I cry is so remarkable. Big fat tears pour out of my eyes until they sting like I’ve been swimming with my eyes open. I sob until I can’t breathe.
I relate to you on so many levels. I cry like that, too when I feel an open, gaping wound raw to the touch. It hurts to cry and I don’t know about you, but it wierdly helps me feel relief—- to get it out instead of trying to stifle it in.
You can get order to that desk. You don’t have to throw out the drafts of the speeches from the memorial service. You need a shoe box or a cardboard photo box to keep the memories in. Craft stores have them, as do recycling depots. You don’t have to put all of it away at once, either, if that’s too hard. Just grab the box, and put in the memorial drafts with maybe a card or two for now. Anything related to your little man can go in that box– something you won’t throw out and you can look at any time you want to.
Then next, some trays for organizing the different types of papers you keep there— one for bills to be paid, one for blank paper, one for mail picked up recently. Then a holder for all your writing utensils. We have a plastic box with file folders labelled for all our different types of bills. It helps me feel more in control.. they are labelled: coupons, bills to pay, phone, hydro, credit card, bank statements, tax papers, insurance, etc. Order helps me feel more in control, too. I don’t come by it naturally, either.
First step is to buy the things you need to organize. It gets you out of the house, too…… Hang in there.
i’m happy to make a special trip to help you organize your desk.
I would recommend the shopping “acting out” vs. the using food for control thing. I was having issues returning to work and I did a terrible experiment to myself and I’m so adicted to food now and gained approx. 55 pounds in 2+ years. Yikes!!! Good thing I’m tall! Now I’m trying to lose the weight and it’s not easy, for sure! (Shit!) I was going to suggest the special memory box, also. AND I think this blog of yours is still a masterpiece! Write what you need to write, when you need to write it. It’s yours. Just like time is yours…take it…