Feeling Punky Today

I went back to bed this morning. Just feeling punky...body aches...the whole nine yards. It's the first day I've taken off since I moved up here nearly two months ago...and I suppose I needed a break. I've been running non-stop and it's finally catching up with me.

I stayed in bed until 11:00 and I'm still here in my P.J's. Just can't get myself moving and heaven knows I have plenty to do. This is one of those moments when I think Lisa was right...I need a T.V. It sure would be nice to veg out in front of a few mindless shows. So instead I'm trying to feel better, by being good to myself. I took some aspirin, fixed something to eat, and I'm listening to the radio. Just flipped through some magazines and plan to hit the paperwork soon. The usual boring stuff.

Last night on my way back from dinner I ran into some women from the office back home (down South). They spotted me and called out my name, so I stopped to talk with them. They were having dinner at a street side table.

One of them commented about my smile. She said something like, "Just look at that smile, we hadn't seen that down there for a while; it's good to see you happy again!" I just laughed. What could I say really? But I've thought about it this morning and realize that it's mostly a charade. No one knows how lonely it still feels beneath the surface. I'm sure I appear to be tripping through life now happy as a lark and that couldn't be farther from the truth. I suppose as I've been cautioned before, it takes a long time to get over this. That's true.

Most of the time I try the "mind over matter" approach. As soon as I start feeling down...I push myself to concentrate on other things. That works for the most part. But not always. Like today. I find myself questioning my purpose again. What is it I'm supposed to learn and what is it I'm supposed to do? I think about all those things that people think about when trying to understand the meaning of life. I know...too deep...stop thinking. But I can't help it. Life is puzzling for me. It's just the way I feel.

I would like to get some bit of normalcy, familiarity, something stable back. I find it really hard to describe this state of limbo that I'm in. But it's weird, very weird. I don't even know what to call home anymore. My things are there...I am here. Where is my home really?

I was talking yesterday with my friend Brad about how hard it is to have reached the one year anniversary of our losses. It should be a turning point. And we both expressed how we feel like other people have opinions about how we should be acting. Yet, everything we do now is with the memory and thoughts of for me--Kenny, and for him Erin--his beautiful daughter so tragically lost.

It's a constant battle of feelings. Happiness...versus profound sadness. Mixed with guilt of course, for moving on and trying to live again. People think by now we should be "over it." But instead, our grief is still there, just surfacing in different ways. We even go about trying to hide our sadness, as I mentioned earlier. We put on a happy face for the world to see, even trying to fool ourselves. But we carry our loss with us as we go, just beneath the surface.

I am so thankful for Brad, and Bill, and Leslie, and a few others...my friends who understand. The ones who have been there. We are the walking wounded. Thank goodness I have them to lean on...to cry with, to be myself with. I'm still feeling an impatience from the rest of the world who would like me to move on. And I feel like most people are tired of hearing about it.