Lori's Rambling

It has been a tiring weekend, but a good one overall.   I find my emotions are simmering near the surface.   Packing to move is so much more emotional than I expected it to be.   It is really hard packing Scott’s things.   I know that I’m not packing them to get rid of them, just packing to move, but odd little items just bring tears to the eyes.   I have found so many little items that if Scott was alive I wouldn’t have any problem throwing away; but because of his death now hold so much more meaning.   I’m not sure why his old knee brace and industrial ice pack hit me so hard.   He hadn’t worn the knee brace in years. The knee brace is useless to anyone else as it was custom made for Scott.     The ice pack was one thing that frustrated me in the past because it was so big and took up so much room in the freezer.   I simply tucked these items into a packing bin until I am ready to get rid of them.   I am grateful that Scott...

So, Jaelyn had her first sleepover since Scott’s death, away from mommy this past weekend.   I admit to being shocked when she called me from her play date to ask if she could sleep overnight.   I said yes, with some internal hesitation.   I have to admit the internal hesitation was more for what that meant for me – my first night alone without either Scott or Jaelyn in over 8 years.   I expected that I might get a call in the middle of the night to come pick her up.   But that didn’t happen.   I didn’t have a great night, but it wasn’t as overwhelming as I thought it might be.   Maybe that was because I didn’t have much time to think about it happening. The days since the sleepover have been a test in patience for me.   Jaelyn has reverted to being more clingy and whiny.   She is asking me every night to lay with her until she falls asleep.   She isn’t quite back to the insecurity right after Scott’s death, but it is a definite c...

Today I am filled with awe at all the single moms out there that take it all on their shoulders every day.   I don’t think I ever recognized how difficult it is to be a single parent before going through this.   I believe that single parents especially, become very adept at juggling.    I’m not sure I will ever be adept, I’m just hoping to become adequate.   The last couple of weeks trying to balance keeping a house clean, having clean laundry to wear, healthy and balanced meals on the table, as well as maintaining discipline, supporting us financially, doing a good job at work, have been challenging.   And that list doesn’t even include the most important things of loving Jaelyn, being in tune to where she is at emotionally as well as myself, helping her work through her grief, and providing a stable, consistent life for her.     I realize that I have a few extra challenges on my plate right now with packing to move and getting the new house re...

I have been doing a lot of thinking the last couple of days about this grief journey.   I think for the first four plus months, it has all felt like a bad nightmare that I was eventually going to wake up from.   I think the grief during that time was full of disbelief and shock.   It was more of a dramatic emotional grief.   I feel like I went through a somewhat numb stage through the holidays.   I think some of that was how busy our holidays were, without much time to sit and think.   I have come to realize too that the more I prepare myself for something to be hard, I am usually shocked that it isn’t as bad as I thought it would be – probably because the anticipation is worse than the actual event.   I think in preparing myself for a difficult situation, I grieve ahead of time.   I’m not sure if I am explaining this clearly. I have been shocked at how hard the grief has hit since the holidays and yet it feels different from before the ...

So, even though it has been more than five months since Scott’s death, I feel like I have taken a step back in the grieving process.   I have felt up until this point that we have made good progress in our grief journey, getting to the point where the emotions weren’t simmering on the surface or just below the surface.   Yet for the past week I have felt those emotions surging back to the surface.   I feel tears in my eyes at the smallest, insignificant little things, including things that have nothing to do with Scott’s death or my grief.   I have realized even more how being in the grief journey leaves me with no emotional reserves to deal with things that ordinarily I would be able to take in stride.   I’m talking about things both in my personal life and at work.   I find myself less able to ride out the emotional bumps at work that are a normal part of the professional life of a foster care worker at a county Children and Youth office.   I have ...

It is hard to believe that it has been five months since Scott’s death.   There are moments that the loss still feels so fresh.   I’m in that kind of moment tonight.   I have been thinking about Scott a lot this week. I think this week I am particularly missing my best friend.   I miss the companionship and sharing my life with Scott.   I miss talking to Scott, bouncing ideas off of him, venting to him without worrying about how I was coming across, and just having his presence in the house.   I want to hear him coming in the back door from work and greeting the dogs as they jump around him.   I feel the loss of Scott’s companionship and friendship so intensely when I have a rough week.   This has been a difficult week with not feeling good this week with recovering from a sinus and throat infection.   Not feeling well makes everything overwhelming to be handling alone.   I feel like I haven’t handled things well this week at work...

I have observed a surprising thing – surprising to me at least.   I have noticed that I am having a harder time with New Years and starting 2013 than I did over Christmas.   I prepared myself for Christmas to be hard and I’ve learned that sometimes the anticipation and preparation are harder than the actual event as I’ve grieved the loss for that event before it hits.   I didn’t really think about New Years and starting 2013 as being hard.   I think it really hits home that this is a new year without Scott.   There is always the theme around the new year of new beginnings.   I don’t want new beginnings, I want my old life back from six months to a year ago.   Mentally I feel like I am going into 2013 kicking and screaming.   There is such a finality to starting a new year.   Instead of focusing on the future, I find myself thinking about my regrets from the past.     I wish I hadn’t taken our time together for granted.   Ho...