It seems to me that we have little if any control over what happens.  Accepting that can make all the difference in how life is perceived.  The sun rises, it rains or it doesn’t, people go about their business and the sun sets and what I wanted or what I did or did not do changed absolutely nothing.  Now, that makes perfect sense.  But you see, I hate that.  I want control.  I lust for control.  Being out of control freaks me out.  I see those I care for about to make a really bad choice and I expect them to do something else when I tell them to.  They don’t.  World leaders are dong stupid shit on a regular basis and no matter how many letters I write or surveys I fill out they keep doing stupid shit.  I can’t do anything about anything except my own choices.  So, what now?  Let go, that’s what. I find myself repeating “not my circus not my monkeys”.  Ahh, relief.  The world is on its own.

Today has been easier for me than some I have  had lately.  Why?  I took charge of what I can do and turned my back on everything else.  I went with the husband to finish settling his mom into her apartment at assisted living.  She is not good at decisions these days so I hung her many pictures where I thought they looked best and she seemed to be okay with that.  She didn’t want to “mess with” wearing hearing aids but she can’t hear anything without them so I changed the batteries and put them into her ears anyway. In short, I controlled what I could and let go of what I could not.

Back home I caught up on coffee drinking and novel reading and decided not to fix dinner because after two beers and some really good cheese I am not hungry. IF all goes well I have plans to make a short trip south in the next couple of weeks and a longer trip to the north east come summer.  If all doesn’t go well, well that will be handled as it comes along. Not my circus not my monkeys.

Most of the time I live on the positive side.  There is always something to be grateful for, always.  The usual items on my daily gratitude list are still here, but there seems to be a black fog between me and whatever is good today.  I woke up pissed that I woke up before the sun so I flopped around trying to go back to sleep, even knowing that would not happen because I had to pee and once I make that trip to the toilet going back to dreamland is out of the question.  Coffee and the newspaper did not improve my disposition.  Even the husband’s hugs and his having enough sense to let me be did not give me the usual lift.

My go to for these occasional bouts of the blahs is usually getting together with family and I thought about calling everybody and making supper, but today I just don’t have a decent dinner in me.  What I have in me is grief.  I understand this intellectually and generally have tools to manage it.  I understand that I need to reach out for comfort.  I got in touch with a good listener who listened.  Still feeling down.  I understand that I need to be kind to myself.  I took a bubble bath and sat down with wine and a good book.  Read the same damn paragraph over and over until I realized my brain could not hold onto the words.

The usual fixes aren’t working.  The only place left for me to go is just accept that this day sucks.  It sucks, it hurts and it is lasting too long.  I miss my daughter.  Always will.  I will handle that better on other days.  This day I just give up.

via Daily Prompt: Forlorn Today’s daily prompt fits my current emotional state perfectly.  Certainly feeling forlorn today.  Kind of at loose ends and trying to find something to hold on too so that I don’t get blown away by the next wind.  It’s just too much effort to really care about anything and all I really want to do is sleep or just hide in a corner away from everybody.  I can’t completely claim forlorn though because the very definition of forlorn is hopeless and I am never totally hopeless.  What I am is sad and I miss my daughter, my buddy who would have said do what you need to do mom.  You deserve a day off.

There are people I could call, shoulders I could cry on.  But what kind of selfish asshole does that?  So, say I call up a friend and cry like a baby and rant and rave about how unfair life is and on and on and on so that I bring them down from the happy place they may be in.  Would I feel better? Maybe briefly.  But not for long and my friend would be sharing the sadness.  Right now I am not doing that.  Maybe tomorrow if I need to I will call but right now I can just carry this load myself.

Each day when I first wake I have a headache.  For just a moment I wonder why, then I become aware that my daughter is still dead and I am still in a permanent state of grief.  It’s a strange thing, grief.  I thought I understood it before, having lost others I loved dearly and having comforted friends and family through their times of loss, but this is different in so many ways.  Grief for the loss of my child is so much more, so much more everything.  The sadness is deeper and wider.  The pain is more painful and intense and sneaks up to smack you without warning.

I find myself most distressed by my inability to concentrate.  I actually had to get out my recipe book to make biscuits the other day.  This is ridiculous.  I have been making biscuits from memory for years and now I have to measure out everything in separate bowls and cups before I start or I forget whether I already put stuff in.  Probably this will get better with time as I move through the stages.  The problem with there being stages of grief is that they do not line up single file where one can move from one to another, rather one stage seems to have passed and another to begin when all of a sudden your heart goes right back to the beginning and total devastation slams you to the ground.

Then just when I feel strong enough to go ahead and meet friends for a drink a song comes on the radio in the car that reminds me of a happy time and I break down and cry because that time is gone with her and will never come again.   Damn.  Now I have to blow my nose, repair my makeup, breathe deeply and go into the bar to order a drink.  I hug my friends, say I’m doing okay and find a way to make conversation.  It actually helps and I resolve to accept more social invitations.

Most of my life I have written to entertain myself, to record memories, to share ideas.  Now I find that holding a thought long enough to put it on paper is a challenge.  If someone asks me how I feel before I can put words to my current state it changes and I go from at peace to distraught to anxiety ridden to okay I guess and settle on saying I’m okay I guess.  Much of the time staying busy is the only way to get through the day.  So I clean, cook, shop, rearrange the house, take a walk, do pretty much anything that keeps me moving and requires the use of my mind so that there is no room in my head for anything else.

Today has been typical of my days since Teri died.  I have felt up, down, frustrated, grateful, lost, agitated, and even briefly calm.  It seems likely to me that there will be many more days like this one before there is a day of serenity.  Oh how I long for a day of serenity.

What I know is that I need to write down how each day changes, or not, so that when progress is made I can recognize it.