As I was sitting here eating my big lima bean soup with ham that I made yesterday- I realized that we have 16 days until we leave for our trip. I’ve counted down month after month, and now that the proverbial brass ring is in reach, it almost doesn’t seem real, yet it is.
I am excited beyond excited to be making this trip and yet at the same time I’m a little nervous about it. The good definitely outweighs the bad, but I know that in spite of all the good- I’m going to have to come face to face with the reality that Carol is no longer with us. I know that intellectually I’ve known that since March, but yet in my heart- sometimes I feel as though she’s still here. I didn’t go home for the funeral because I don’t think I could have handled it alone- and yet, because of that- I lack the closure that I need.
At first, I thought I’d done my mourning and that I was moving on, but what I’d really done was found a way to tuck it deep into the subconscious so that I didn’t have to feel the pain. It worked for a while, at least I thought it did- although the reality was that it manifested itself in the fact that I wasn’t making the right food choices or in the fact that I’d forgotten what exercise was. I knew I needed to do something, but yet the desire had washed down the train with yesterday’s bath water.
Eventually the dreams started. Sometimes they are bad dreams and other times they are just odd- mostly though, they’re sad and when I wake up I notice that I’ve been crying in my sleep. For a moment though- I think her being here is just a bad dream, but only for a moment until the reality sets in.
Last week I told mom and Desere both that there are days (like right now) when I can talk about things on the surface, but the depth of what I feel is yet to come out. If I sense even a bubble of that emotion, I push it away back into the confines of my subconscious where I know I won’t have to deal with it. Don’t get me wrong- I know I MUST deal with it, in order to move forward- but that time has not come. I know the time will come when I’m home- when I stand before her grave and see that stone and know that it wasn’t all a bad dream, but it was real and that no amount of missing her will change a thing. She is the closest person to me that I’ve ever lost and I don’t know what to do with the emotions but bury them even though I know it’s not healthy at this point.
I have always struggled with death of any sort- and struggled the most when my grandmothers died, but this …. this doesn’t compare. There are no words.. I need to go to the cemetary- and yet I want to pretend that I don’t have a reason to be there. Yes, this is something I’m not looking foward to, but I know that the good outweighs the bad… I just have to keep telling myself that when confronted with this.