Well, obviously whatever was going on in my last post didn't move any mountains.  Maybe I'll try something new in 2016.  I hope so.

Open concept living

Yes, yes ,yes. My heart is bleeding, definitely bleeding and it seems there is no end to the stream.  But, something is changing. Not sure what it is just yet but things are starting to move around.  I feel more like a blind man touching his way around a room not knowing what to expect next.  No foot holds to follow, no ropes to pull me along, no compass of up or down.  Just open air and little glimmers of light when I touch something.  Let's see where this leads today.

5 years and counting

Why do I sit year after year
Constantly staring into the rear
Of my life?

Why do I look day after day
To find reason or way
To my life?

Why do I think this life is about me when I am but a grain of sand on the beach? I am one of an infinite number of beings whose life, memories, feelings have come and gone like a blink of an eye.  So who cares about the past or the future? Maybe only the present is relevant.  What am I doing right now? Is that what's important? Is it good, or bad? Right or wrong? Funny or sad?   Do I have an effect on anyone other than my family?  Did my smile brighten someone's day?  Did my curse make someone cry?  Did my hug smother or console?

Someone writes a book that millions of people read.  Then those people die as life goes.  What good did reading that book do?  It may have helped in the moments of reading but does it change the life of those who read it? And for how long, a day, a week, a second?

My questions go unanswered as I know they always shall.  I wish I could stop asking them.  Unfortunately the first question you ask as a child is "why". And it is never answered.

Life is...

Life is a path of boulders and holes. Neither of which are good for the ankles. You fall off the boulder and into the hole. The light you saw standing on top of the boulder is now blackened by the walls of the hole.

Life is a path of lily pads on a pond. None of them will hold your weight so you better learn to swim.

Life is a path of with no hand holds, no directions, no net to catch you, no light to guide you so why do we walk down that path? What is behind us that drives away from where we stand? Is it not safe? Are we forced to keep moving by some force we can't see? Or is it there right in front of us but we choose not to look.

Life is a path of choices, a constant stream of splits in the road. Take the lesser of two evils if you are afraid or the greater if you are stupid. Which is better, fear or stupidity? Because bravery is just a figment of your imagination.

Life is a box of chocolates. Yes, when you are young and ready to start down that path. Sometimes your born on the path and there never will be any chocolates.

Oh my, oh my... What is wrong with me?

Oh my!

It's been just over a year.
Poems

When you smile and cry
From the joy in your life
Your heart expands with love.

When you smile and cry
From the grief in your life
Your heart caves in from the pain.


HOPE

I sit in a chair and slap my arm
Trying to figure out where I came from.
Not who I was when I was born, but who
I am not that you are gone.

Window panes of see thru glass
Coloring books with a lifeless past
Two dimensional photos staring back at me
While  I just sit and cry

You died. I cried.
My soul bled red life.
My heart did crack
Never to be whole again.

And now I sit in my rocking chair
Dreaming of life gone by
Tomorrows come with no relief
Todays I can only bare.
Where is the hope that I once had...
It crawled into a hole and died.


GRIEF
I don't do death and dying very well.
And you don't need a referee between you and your conscience.
You know the difference between true and real and false and phony.
And if you don't you'll learn very shortly.

If this is your first true close encounter with the face of death you'll understand why I can't be there.
It wears a mask of sadness but underneath is a shinning light of pure peace and forgiveness.
For it  is life that wears a mask of happiness but underneath is pure pain and revenge. The unforgiven walk the earth as do the unforgiving.

Regret stops at deaths door for those dying.  They can't do anything about it now. It's the living that keep hate and sorrow fed.  Death is a wake up call that slaps you in the face.
It asks the question, are you trying to hurt the one you love or do you want what's best for them?

This is not a recollection of all that life is.  Just a reminder to be careful of what you wish for, what you pray for, when the last seconds are ticking down.
Some use god to take away the pain like the morphine drip for the dying.
Some pretend and some just don't really care.

As much as I've tried to hide my grief, put on the facade of strength and courage, I have not "healed", I am a walking wimp.
I do what it takes to get by, hanging on to those who put up with me.

To those who morn, you do not want me around you in these last hours before death brings relief.  I would be a black hole sucking in the life around me.
You need  perseverance (not strength) and solitude to understand what's happening to you.  And some day you might.  I haven't yet.

I don't do death and dying.
I am not good at it.


Those are a few things I wrote over last year.  So much more in my head and it's expanding too fast.  I hear people thinking that it's time to let go and get on with my life.  I just ignore them.  They don't understand.  But the direction has changed.  It's time for me to take the blame for the relationships in my life.  Take a good look at myself.  And hope I don't throw up.

A different kind of pain...

The first year after Mary left, was taken, disappeared, I needed to be as close to her as I could be. At first wearing her clothes helped, keeping the pictures of her  up and around, I thought would help but it didn't. Listening to her music hurt worse.  I was not in control of my life.  Yes I know no one is truly in control.  That's probably why religions tell you that god is in control. I think it's a way to not take responsibility for you actions.  But..... I did take control of the only thing a person can control 95% (nothing is 100%) of the time - what I ate.  I wanted to weigh what Mary weighed, 100 pounds.  She's 5'4" and I am an inch shorter so I knew it was possible, mainly because I wasn't hungry. 

I got down to 105#. My doctor and friends didn't like seeing me at that weight. But I stayed there for awhile. Last year I got back to 120#, bought new clothes, even started wearing makeup. 

Now I have lost control of even that. I am eating no more than I have been for the last year and yet I have gained 12 pounds in 4-5 months. My clothes have slowly gotten tighter. I have been eating the same amount or less. But less slows down your metabolism.  So with the new year I started walking on out treadmill.  One hour up to level 3, 2-3 times a week.  Still gaining. 

Here's the worst part, my hip muscles are having spasms, I can barely walk, and am on pain meds that don't seem to be helping. All from exercising too much. My last vestige of phantom control, gone. My doc is checking my thyroid level.  If it's off then there's an easy fix.  If it's not, more tests.  Meanwhile I may have to start wearing baggy clothes.

Danny couldn't really control what he ate since everything affected his heart.  But he controlled when, where, and how long he slept. Doesn't sound like a big thing but every little bit helps.

My little bit is gone, at least for now.

Who? Why?

Who am I writing for?  Why am I writing?  I don't want to write anymore.  I don't feel the urge to start cutting on my arms just to see the blood flow either.  I know what's under the thin layer of "resignation" skin that I so carefully caress.  Every time I see or hear something about a child dying I turn the other way, stop reading or listening, lest I fall apart.  

I am handling my life as best I can. I am not joyful, gushingly happy, frantically positive but I'm walking and breathing.  I have things to do to keep me busy enough to give me time to focus on today with out falling into the "life sucks" abyss.   And believe me, life does suck - even when you think you are having fun.  

Other people are just as good at fooling themselves about reality as I am.  I'm not the only person who ignores pain and truth.  People believe in life after death because they don't want to believe it's the end either for themselves or someone else.  But since no one actually knows what happens after your last breath it's easier for them to pretend.  I choose, in this matter, not to pretend.  I have just resigned myself to knowing I'll find out one day.  Getting to heaven is not a reason to be a good person.  You should be good no matter where you end up.

Anyway, I can't write everyday like I promised. And who, exactly, did I promise?  Who reads these words?  I know who read the ones I wrote after Mary left.  I also know they stopped reading them because it hurt them too much to read it.  So, in the end I was writing to myself anyway.  I supposed it helped because I thought I was writing to the world.  And I wanted everyone in it to know exactly how much worse the world was without Mary. I wanted to scream it at the top of my lungs.  But no body was listening in the end.

It's not that I don't want the world to know how much it hurts not to have Danny in it. It's that I can't stand the pain of describing it.

So I won't.  He understands.