1-30-06 A few sidenotes

- I am not giving back enough. I want to but I seem to be so very internal that I can't concentrate enough to empathize. This is not me. I have never been this deeply into "MYSELF". It's driving me mad and I think "I'll get past it." "It's still early yet." - but tomorrow is the 31st. 31sts are not going to be easy for me. Am I going to start over?

- My friend tries to understand what I'm going through. I try to explain, but I can't. She says, "when I lost my grandmother" and "when we lost our friend" and I know those things were difficult. I've lost both before...but it just isn't the same. This thing NEVER stops. There is no distraction great enough to overcome the gaping hole. It is 24/7, worse when I'm alone, all consuming.
It will change. Am I just holding on to the sadness? Am I normal? Am I grieving "correctly" or is this taking over my life instead? I don't know where I am on the scale......is there a scale?

- I am now reading 3 books concurrently. Each of them, in some way, about death. Two are fictional. I read them all in 1 page intervals. The thing is, I'm not INTERESTED in them. I am escaping into them. 1 page is about all I can concentrate on before my mind just wanders off again.
The books are Tuesday's With Morrie, Bag of Bones(Stephen King psycological thing about a man who sees his dead wife) and something John Saul wrote 10 years ago or so. John Saul writes horror novels (not tremendously well) that generally have a pretty high body count.
Morrie is helping. The other two are less than inspirationl.
I saw the movie "The Interpreter" and it really hurt to watch it. It wouldn't hurt anyone else.

- Lunesta gives me an odd taste in my mouth about 20 minutes after I take it.
I am getting way too happy about that taste. That taste means I will be asleep in 5 more minutes and all the above will be set aside.
Lunesta is non-narcotic but totally addictive. Go figure.
Oh well, I'll run out eventually.

- I'm afraid I'm working too hard at avoiding my feelings. To be honest I don't freely emote unless I'm alone. I can't decide if I'm alone enough. (I'd damn well like to be alone on a beach!)
I used to blog when I was alone.
Now I just cry.

- It will get better. I need Springtime. (but will Springtime only remind me of the things I can't share with him anymore?)

There was something else. These are the things I think about. These are the things that troll endlessly across my brain. Shouldn't there be something productive up there?
There was something else but I can't remember what it was. I'm sure it will come back..again and again and again.

1-22-06 The first dream

Through very fitful attempts at rest, I did have one dream.
Saturday night was the first time since that I've dreamt of my father. I wanted to remember it here because it was not a bad dream.

I dreamed that I was walking through the hospital and Mom and Dad were standing at an information board with their backs to me. They were reading the board and I walked up to them and opened with some corny joke, as we always did. Dad replied and we giggled. (I don't remember the joke.)
At some point Dad and I ended up walking down the hall together. He wasn't terribly sick. He had a bad cold or a flu because his nose was red. That is all that was wrong with him. We were chatting and I remember knowing that he as annoyed that he was still at the hospital...but I also knew he would be going home the next day.
That was the overall feeling of the dream...that the hospital was very temporary and that he was getting better.
There was no sadness or anger. We were just together like always. We were just walking and talking like we were out shopping or something.
I didn't awake from the dream missing him or sad about things. I wasn't elated or overjoyed for having dreamt of him. It just simply seemed like a "normal" thing.

I can't say that I ever dreamed of my father in the past. To be honest, I'd like very much to do it again.

Lunesta gets me asleep enough to dream. I'm going to try to get some more pills. I need to dream. I feel as though my subconscious needs to work through some things and isn't getting the chance.
I feel as though I'm not dealing with a lot of things on a conscious level yet either.
Maybe it would be best if I dreamed of him for a while.

1-20-06

I cannot make a fractal of my sadness.
I cannot sketch my confusion.

Most days are...tolerable. I've had one good day since.
Beyond tolerable is this huge hole of ache.
Some days I'm ok. I can get by. I can not think.
Other days I cannot think of anything else.
Today is one of the other days.

I never know when I'm going to have them. Maybe it's hormonal. I don't know.
I know it doesn't matter the cause because the reason for the sadness remains.

It remains. Those words are so foreign to me.
I can't wrap my head around "forever gone". I can't get a grasp on "never again".
I miss him like he's gone on a trip.
I miss him like I'll wake up from this nightmare.
And then I realize that this is my mother's nightmare.
Oh if we could just wake up to find it was all some horrible thing now put back right.

Today started in the shower getting dressed for work. No background music. Nothing to stir the emotions from my still heart.
The word "forever" crossed my mind and I was consumed in grief.
I read Morrie last night. I read that his mother died when he was a child, some 70 years prior...and he cried for her even then. He cried for feeling alone without her. He said it never stops hurting.
Nevers. Nevers of never again and nevers of never stopping.
Nevers are bigger than forevers.

Most days I cry on the way to work. It's a short trip but it's "alone time" and "music time" and the music usually overwhelms me.
I change the disc to something that won't make me think of him....but the words get me anyway. This morning I put in an instrumental CD thinking that would save me.
But "The Last Goodbye" was on it. I'd forgotten it was there.

Usually I'm back to being me once I step off that elevator and put on the mask.
Today that mask wasn't enough. No one else could see but I just couldn't think of anything else. Nothing but nevers.
I am in my gray funk today. I hope to sleep it off, if I can sleep at all.
I want to be a part of the world again...but it isn't the same world and I don't know how yet.

I cry an enormous amount for Mom.
All of the paperwork, certificates, financial worries, health insurance worries, tax worries.....I can't believe there's so much. I can't comprehend how overwhelmed she must be. I can't fix it for her even though I really really want to.
And all that technical/administrative BS that she's going through....while she's hurting like she never has.
I can barely think of Mom's pain it aches so badly in me. Oh if I could take it away.
Of if we could just wake up from this nightmare.

A million words...an no way to say them now.
Ouch.

Dad is gone.
I don't know how to do this.
WE don't know how to do this.