Happy 3rd Birthday, Ethan!

It has been a busy week celebrating Thanksgiving, putting up two Christmas trees (mine and a friends), doing a little Black Friday (and Saturday) shopping, and attending Ethan's 3rd Birthday party!  Right now my house is half done in fall decorations and Christmas.  I can remember a time, I would have never allowed such a thing to take place.  But along with adding years, I've lost some energy too.  I have a new sense of normal....lowered standards. ;-)

Mike use to joke that I was the holiday patrol, ready to issue anyone citations for decorations going up too early, or not coming down too soon. Never would had I allowed Thanksgiving and Christmas to exist together.  

In the midst of having a good time this week, I've managed to also pick up a sore throat.  It's not a huge problem, except that I couldn't love on my granddaughters this evening!  I allowed myself the pleasure of kissing the top of my grandson's heads, but I didn't dare get too close to the girls, being as young and fragile as they are.  I would feel horrible causing them any distress....or their parents.  So I'm praying there will be some extra time in the next few weeks that I can make up for lost time.

I recently wrote I was trying to move along in my grief journey, and I'm making good progress.  I'm moving forward, which I think is a good thing, but I'm also struggling in a few areas.

Since passing the first anniversary of Mike's passing, I have had moments pop into my head, as if I was just waking up from a long winters nap.  I have moments when the gravity of what has happened hits me hard.  Three steps forward and two steps back!

I sort of imagine God placing me into some induced-state coma over the past 370 days, to protect me from the full impact of Mike's loss.  At times, I feel I'm tip-toeing between present reality and acceptance, to a silent state of denial. 

I'm amazed how I can be in a room full of people, and at times feel such loneliness without a spouse standing next to me.  I had been so use to Mike being at my side, sharing life and family with me together.  Yet I can shop or go to work some days, like life is plugging along as usual..as if being single has been my state all along. 

Or I can press on, develop new friends and relationships, which are similar to the state I'm in....and be just fine with it---then following, have this overwhelming guilt that I'm doing something inappropriate, by not remaining the grieving widow.  How I would love to get off of this confusing carousel!

I suppose one good thing about all of this, is that this road isn't easy to walk down, but I'm still trying!  I haven't given up the fight.  I'm still trying to go on for my children and grandchildren.  It may not be the route others may choose, but we're all different, and each of us respond to grief differently. 

I don't know if I'll ever get over losing Mike.  I know I'll never stop missing him.  And I'm ready to say, I've done the best I could, given the situation.

I praise God for giving my heart a hibernating state over the last 12 months, so the full impact of the blow, it's had in my life, didn't reduce me to a devastating state I couldn't come through.  I'm still able to laugh, to praise God, and smile and press more love into my heart; not only for my new grandbabies...but for new friends I've made.  Those relationships are very important to me.  There is a sense of identifying, like nobody else can. I also know that if there has been any confusion in my reaction to this life blow; God will make it all right one day.  He's all knowing.  And He knows what loss feels like.  It tests every fiber of your being.  Some you pass....   Some you stand...only because you've fallen down and stood up, over and over again!