How it really is

Just so we are clear, it's not all doom and gloom. I'm not all doom and gloom.

The thing is that with everything I've been through, I had to learn to feel what I was feeling... and I had to be ok with whatever it was and whenever it was. And I talk about it when I'm feeling it, because it's very likely that later I won't be feeling that way.

But if I don't express it...  Well, it builds up. Just like a poison. Just like pressure in a volcano. Until it explodes. So I vent it off and I sound ridiculous and whiney and *very* sad. Mainly because I am at that point and time. But that's not really me. My base emotion is not a negative one. My main attitude is positive, and I'm normally hopeful for the future.

Unfortunately, I blog through the bad times. Blogging is how I get it out-- because I want to get through/past those emotions, which means it sounds like I'm constantly sad and dealing with hard stuff on my blog.

Plus who wants to read about the 3 hours I spent yesterday playing a Lego Harry Potter Wii game? That's boring as all get out.

And do you really want up to the minute info on my hair- (I somehow got it to hold itself up, and now I am afraid to move my head for fear it will fall. See now, isn't that the height of interest?)

I'm reading Brené Brown's book (The Gifts of Imperfection) and there is a lot of great stuff in it, but right now I just finished a section about "numbing and leaning into the pain." It's actually really great cause that's how I try to live. I try to numb as little as possible (everyone numbs things, but if you numb your bad feelings you are also numbing your good feelings) and I do lean into the pain though I never called it that before... because if you lean into it then you get past it, faster. At least I do.

Unfortunately for those of you who read my blog, my leaning shows up on here a lot. So I guess, what I'm saying, is, yeah, pray for me (and if you want to get specific- pray for a tallish, darkish, and handsomeish gentleman to sweep me off my feet.) But try not to worry about me too badly... I'm actually doing well... I think I'm in the healthiest place emotionally that I have been since Nathan died. I have silly crushes and serious crushes and super close friendships and regular type friendships. I've got plans for the future and back-up plans for the future and I'm overcoming a lot of fears that I once had and used Nathan to take care of for me. All in all, I've come back into my own.

Do I feel like something's missing?

Of course. Because something is.

But that doesn't mean I don't lead a great life. And it doesn't mean that I'm sad and mopey and miserable all the time.

Cause I'm just not.

Oh, and Merry Christmas. :)

Christmas Mobius

Why you crying, there, pretty girl?

Cause I'm alone and lonely and afraid it will always be this way.

I cry because it hurts.

I love the holidays... that's why this is so hard.

In a lot of ways Christmas is worse for me than Valentine's Day. Some people don't celebrate Valentine's Day. Some people hate Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day is easily avoided and often people celebrate it on days other than *the* day. Plus... I've just never loved Valentine's Day... it doesn't matter that much to me. It's harder to get upset over something you just don't care about.

That isn't true of Christmas... I *love* Christmas. And Christmas is for celebrating with the ones you love. It's all about family. And there isn't a time in the world that makes me feel more left out and alone, because I had my own little family, and it's missing now... and I still mourn for the family I haven't gotten to have. Right now I should be wrapping presents for my children and posting Christmas photos on fb, but I fear I will never get that chance.

It's not that I don't have family-- far from it, I've been blessed with an abundance of family-- every one of which I love very dearly.

But no one else has quite the same family as me and that's just hard, cause someone is supposed to.

My sadness is just so complicated. It's a mobius ribbon... it all seems to makes sense and but it loops around itself, and if you cut it in half you just get a longer ribbon.

In one respect it's entirely about Nathan and on the other side it has nothing to do with Nathan- It's about not having someone to share the wonderful mayhem and havoc of the holidays with... but that leads back around to Nathan which leads me on a merry chase right back to where I started.

Alone and lonely and afraid it will always be this way.

And probably more honest than you really want to read on Christmas Eve.

Home

Disclaimer on this post: Yes, there is a people element to the concept of "home," but I don't really feel like delving into right now. It is also important... maybe some other post...

I was talking to Kara the other day and she told me a short little story. Apparently when talking about their visit to Missouri she referred to Missouri as "home." Josh suggested that she refer to Philly as home and Missouri as Missouri. She then told Josh in no uncertain terms that she didn't appreciate the suggestion. Josh then decided he would let her refer to Philly as home on her own terms.

When Kara told me about this I laughed cause she's feisty that one, but I also sympathized. While I've never moved to another state, I have moved about as far as you can and still be in the state, and I had this issue in college--- where to call home. When I was in Springfield it was easy to call my parents' house "home." But when I went to my parents' house and called Springfield "home" it took a little adjusting --especially for my mom. I remember she had a verbal reaction and that almost never happens. I still regularly refer to both places as home, and I noted something when Kara was telling me this story.

Home is only home when you aren't there...

And then I said that was rather poetic and Kara told me I should write about it.

So here we are.

Another way of saying the above statement is: Home is whereever you aren't.

In the movie Garden State there is this speech about home which is beautiful but, (I think) hecka depressing:

You know that point in your life when you realize the house you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of a sudden even though you have some place where you put your stuff*, that idea of home is gone. [...] You'll see one day when you move out it just sort of happens one day and it's gone. You feel like you can never get it back. It's like you feel homesick for a place that doesn't even exist. Maybe it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't ever have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I don't know, but I miss the idea of it, you know. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people that miss the same imaginary place.

*changed that word

It's a speech that resonates with college students-- displaced youth that they are. And maybe it sounds like I'm saying the same thing as the above quote, but I'm not. If you read a little deeper into my statement then it's clear that I don't agree with Garden State.

And what I was saying about home? Well, the thing is that you don't talk about "home" unless you 1) Aren't there, 2) Just arrived there, or 3) Want to remain there. We don't usually notice home when we are experiencing it, but when we leave (or consider leaving) that's how we remember it, because we notice the lack. Kara isn't going to call Philly "home" until both her feelings reflect it and she isn't there.

And the thing is that home spreads out. Her house is home first... When she's elsewhere in Philly it's easy to say, "ok, time to go home!" and mean her house. And eventually that will spread to the whole city, so when she's in New York, or Springfield, or St. Louis and refers to home she will mean Philly.... and then someday maybe soon, maybe not, when she refers to home she will mean like she does when she referred to Missouri it in the beginning story-- the whole state of Pennsylvania.

I do not think that home is imaginary, at all... Yes, perhaps it is a feeling. But so are some of the most wonderful things in the world. Love. Compassion. Empathy. All feelings. All quite real, and very powerful. The character on Garden State is numb-- he's been given prescription psychological drugs to numb his feelings since he was nine (not saying they are bad, just that this character was given/is taking them unnecessarily.) So it's no wonder that he thinks home might be imaginary. Home is a feeling, that he hasn't been able to experience since he was nine.

Wintry

Well, I may or may not be going home tomorrow. It's in the plan, but it sorta depends on if I can leave my parent's house. This was what it looked like from the second floor this afternoon.

The road that I take to get back to Springfield (for the first 45 minutes or so) was "closed" today. It's not so much the snow (or so I'm told), it's the drifts.

In other news, I made a baby car-seat quilt in about 2 days. I'm pretty impressed with myself. Technically I still have to bind it, but I forgot to buy binding at Hobby Lobby last time when I was there, so I have to wait till I return home. It's not the most beautiful quilting job ever... I don't have a quilting sewing machine and I don't have much experience with quilting, but I think it will be serviceable for it's purpose. Luckily, Annika is young enough that she won't notice.

Anyway, it means that I finished everything that I was going to do while at home and I managed to do it with many hours to spare, and we made nut rolls which I wasn't planning on doing. And I feel very relaxed. It's good.

Oh and by the way, Kara is coming back to Missouri and I get to see her over the New Year!! It's a very very good winter break.

Gilbert, Matthew, and Mocha

This morning I went into town and baked nut rolls with my mom and Pappy. Well, Pappy was more there for moral support... The nut rolls were *for* him, but he couldn't (and shouldn't) do too much. He's still hurting, "everyday."

It breaks my heart. I love him so much and I hate that he's in so much pain all the time. He's just like Nathan-- fiercely independent, even when he's hurting... but I recognize the sudden sharp intake of breath whenever he moves... And I want to be there, but at the same time it's so hard for me to see how similar things are with them. I'm just so torn.

I have a great wish in me-- that since I've lived through Nathan's death that my life's sorrows would be over. Surely that is enough for one person to endure? But I know that's ridiculous. There are still many and sundry pains and sadnessess waiting for me at unknown junctures down the road. My heart still has a lot of breaking to do-- if I'm lucky... because having a broken heart means that you have loved someone enough for it to matter.

When we got home I did a lot of sewing. I'm making two big projects for my nieces for Christmas- an apron and a car seat quilt (You tie it on the handle so it won't slip off.) I finished the apron today and I got a good bit into the quilt, and I watched cable for a while, but then I watched Anne of Green Gables, because I've had a hankering ever since I wrote my paper in my "Form and Theory of Prose" class.

It's such a good movie-- in part because it's my nostalgia at it's finest, in part because I identify so closely with Anne and Diana, and in part because it's just a good story.

I tell you what. You can keep your Mr. Darcys and your Prince Charmings. Find me a man who is a mixture of Matthew Cuthbert and Gilbert Blythe and I'll love him forever and ever. (And I'll admit I also "wouldn't holler if he were as handsome as anything!" to mix my movie metaphors.) But seriously, there is a sweetness-- a tenderness-- that Matthew, Gilbert, have that I'm searching for.

It didn't used to, but these days the movie always makes me cry.

I cry about Matthew, which I wrote about in a different blog. And I cry because I somehow convinced Nathan to watch the movie once, and after suffering through for a while he actually really liked it and every once in a while when Anne does something especially ridiculous it brings back his laugh to me. I can't recall his chuckle on cue, anymore... we are far enough away that it's hard to hear his voice sometimes, and having something that brings it back for a moment... Well, it feels good and hurts all at the same time.

There was once a time when I loved hot cocoa, but now that I drink coffee, cocoa always seems like it's missing something for me... the chocolate isn't as good if it doesn't have that coffee bitterness mixed in...

My life is sorta like a mocha.

Christmas Songs

I have a lot of favorite Christmas songs. Two of my favorites are from movies.

Interestingly enough, one is a Christmas song in a non-Christmas movie and the other is a non-Christmas song from a Christmas movie.

(The first is "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" from Meet Me in St Louis.)

But the second is from White Christmas- "Count Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep)"

After the terrible shooting in Connecticut, the song seems even more fitting for this season.

If something awful were to happen tomorrow, there is not much we could do to stop it. Which is why I think it is so important to be grateful for what we have... and count our (many) blessings.

Plus Bing Crosby... his voice... it's butta.

Being there

There is very little in this world which I feel better about than being there for a friend when I'm needed.

I appreciate the trust that is implicit in them telling me about their problems and I value the relationships that it builds.

It's not that I enjoy "drama." I like the stuff that's *real.* And sometimes that's dramatic and sometimes it's intense, but I like feeling as though simply being a listening ear can help. I like feeling as if I've made the tiniest difference even if I said almost nothing.

I really like being able to feel like I've repaid even the tiniest bit of what was offered up to me by family and friends when going through cancer and Nathan's death.

But the thing that I love the most? It's that stirring of my heart. It's the aching and the longing. It's the empathy of love that I feel so deeply within me that it's almost as though this person were my child. It's the feeling that lets me know I've somehow managed to keep my heart soft despite everything. It's the echo of what I think God feels for this person, and it's so very reassuring.

Because if I can love them this deeply...

how much more does He?

Renée in Real Life

Watching Dan in Real Life for the first time in a long time-- a good holiday feeling movie with family. I really like this movie. It's that beautiful mix of sad and funny.

Funny thing about Renée: Since Nathan died, I normally sleep with a huge pile of laundry on one side of my bed. I thought this was a weird thing that I did to make the bed not seem too big, to not feel so alone. I don't do it if I have company (in part cause my laundry is all put away in that case) but in part cause I just thought it was super weird and I try and hide my neurosis from other people... you know until I write about them on my blog.

But it turns out I'm not weird. Dan, who isn't really in real life, sleeps with the other side of the bed completely taken up with books.

I find a strange comfort in knowing I'm not alone... even if the only other person I know who is like me is in a movie.

"I'm looking for a book... something that can help me deal with what might be an awkward situation. Something funny might be nice, but not necessarily big, 'ha, ha, ha,' 'laugh, laugh, laugh' funny, and certainly not make-fun-of-other-people funny but rather something human-funny. And, uh, if it could uh, sneak up on you, surprise you, and at the same time make you think that what you thought wasn't only right, in a wrong kind of way, but when you're wrong, there's a certain rightness in your wrongness... Well, what I mean is, more importantly, I'm looking to be swept up! And at the same time, not." -Marie from Dan in Real Life

"It was all so beautiful."

"I love Bartok's music, as did Mr. Teszler, and he had virtually every recording of Bartok's music ever issued. And it was at his house that I heard for the first time Bartok's Third Piano Concerto and learned from Mr. Teszler that it had been composed in nearby Asheville, North Carolina in the last year of the composer's life. He was dying of leukemia and he knew it, and he dedicated this concerto to his wife, Dita, who was herself a concert pianist. And into the slow, second movement, marked 'adagio religioso,' he incorporated the sounds of birdsong that he heard outside his window in what he knew would be his last spring; he was imagining a future for her in which he would play no part. And clearly this composition is his final statement to her -- it was first performed after his death -- and through her to the world. And just as clearly, it is saying, 'It's okay. It was all so beautiful. Whenever you hear this, I will be there.'" - Ben Dunlap

http://www.ted.com/talks/ben_dunlap_talks_about_a_passionate_life.html

Oh Look, a Procrastination Blog!!

Last night I literally would not let myself work on my presentation for my Form and Theory class until I finished my book report for my Shakespeare class. My book report is technically not due until Sat, but I have a research paper due on Monday for Shakespeare that I haven't even started (looked at some of the research-- that's all) so I really needed to get that out of the way and my presentation for Form and Theory is based on the paper which I've already written, and it's just a lot more fun than Shakespeare. Plus, since it was due today I knew I wouldn't go to bed before I finished the presentation, and I cannot say the same about that stupid book report which I've been putting off for weeks now.

And it worked. The book report is done and I think the presentation went well. Plus I got two new facebook friends as a direct result of my presentation, where I quoted a facebook conversation. (Whatever. It was a totally brilliant analogy- don't give me that look. At least two (TWO!) people physically reacted by leaning back in their seats and nodding when I came to the crux of the analogy.)

The cookies that I made for it were certainly a hit. I made special oatmeal raisin cookies for one of my friends in that class, and he says he's going to write me a jingle to use in my fictional cookie business.

Soon I will have a fictional cookie making empire. (The cookies will be real, the empire will not.)

I love making people happy with baked goods. I really do. It's so easy and people are so grateful/impressed. (I won't lie, I totally love the compliments, too.)

Now I need to be working on my Shakespeare paper, but a friend just came over to talk out some relationship issues she was having, and people are more important than papers.

And now she has left and I know when I finish this blog I have to buckle down...  so I'm stalling for time a little.

It's a bit weird how being stressed out and super duper busy puts me in a really good mood, but it's as though every laugh has to be extra joyful to make up for the fact that I'm stressed. I think laughing is just my favorite. I think I'm a Care Bear in people clothes.

Shakespeare can't handle a Care Bear Stare!

To the Care-a-lot! (otherwise known as my upstairs office)

2nd Christmas

I've noticed I'm much more prone to tears this holiday season.

Now some might blame that on how little sleep I'm getting of late.

Not gonna lie- that's possible. I left work early today because my head hurt so bad I couldn't think and I slept from 2:00 ish until 6:30 without any hesitation.

But I think what it really is, is that this year my heart is more vulnerable. Last year I was so guarded about it being the "first" Christmas... and I was so aware of the upcoming 1 year mark. So I just didn't let myself think about it or feel it. And I've always loved Christmas... but I just kept it shut down, cause I couldn't handle it.

I can handle it this year... but it still makes me sad. Christmas is not the same without your person. Have you listened to Christmas music lately? It's all about being with the ones you love (most especially the *one* you love) or missing the one you love. (...or Jesus. There's a goodly amount of Christmas music about Jesus, too. :) )

But Christmas just isn't as much fun without your person.

All the driving... no good without someone to share it with-- or to just drive for me, who am I kidding?

There is a lot less sneaking around-- which is also less fun.

I don't decorate because it makes me so sad. Nathan hated decorating a tree when we got married and slowly but surely I was convincing him that 1) decorating a tree doesn't take any talent. and 2) it is fun... But it's not fun when you are doing it alone. At least not for this extrovert. Plus you know what I don't want to see? The beautiful "our first Christmas" ornament that's hiding somewhere in my boxes of Christmas decorations.

And taking it down would be even worse, because even that has memories attached. One year I took our tree down on Valentine's Day as a gift to Nathan. He was so exasperated. :)

So maybe next year I'll be able to decorate. I'm not sure.

Last year I was just trying to survive. This year I'm *trying* to enjoy. But it's not easy, because there is nothing like the holidays to make you feel even lonelier than you normally do.