Day 244

DIARY OF AN UNWILLING WIDOW

February 5, 2014

Day 244

Tomorrow will be the 8 month mark.

This has been another rough week.  I think February is really doing a number on me, emotion-wise. Maybe it won’t be so bad, in future Februaries, I don’t know.  But right now I’m struggling.  I find myself bursting into tears at the drop of a hat, in front of the kids, in awkward places and at inopportune moments.  I think I’ll be glad when March arrives.  Although, then I can start dreading my first birthday without Paul! L

Maybe the weather is having an effect on me.  Paul would actually love this.  We got four plus inches of snow yesterday and last night.  Ben had a snow day today.  And this has been the 15^th coldest winter in recorded history.  No kidding – I don’t have to be convinced of that fact!  But Paul loved snow and cold.  Normally, things started slowing down, work-wise by the end of January, but I have a feeling he would have been kept busier this year.

I think stress is playing into how I feel, too.  I am stretched pretty thin these days.  There’s a lot going on.  David’s Learning RX is demanding a lot out of me.  This week I have a city council meeting which has meant the necessity of spending a lot of time up at City Hall, which means I’m not home doing what I need to do there.  I’m trying to get stuff ready to have our taxes done.  We have a trip coming up in a few weeks that I haven’t even begun to make reservations for or anything.  Valentine’s Day is coming.  Our anniversary is coming.  My house is out of order because of the new bathroom/bedroom project.  It’s just life but I’m feeling kind of flattened by it right now!

Oct. 2011

I had to buy a new dishwasher yesterday.  When it went late last  week I just could not believe it.  Since Paul’s death I have had to replace the garbage disposal,  the vacuum, the washer and dryer, the toaster oven, the microwave (and that broke, too, a couple of weeks ago – now I’m waiting for the company to cover the warranty), and now the dishwasher!  I debated about this one because a dishwasher isn’t technically a need.  It’s more of a luxury.  But when your life is so harried and there are so many people in the house, it’s really, really nice to have.  Fortunately, Will and I found a used one that was only two years old at the Habitat for Humanity store yesterday.  I could do that with a more clear conscience.  But I’m wondering just what it going to break next?  Perhaps the modern age isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.  Yes, we have conveniences that weren’t available to our forebears, but at least they didn’t have the expense and frustration of continually having to replace everything!

Well, enough griping- onto more cheerful things:

Sam has been wearing a stocking cap to bed lately.  It has caused me to wonder if that means I am a bad parent.  Shouldn’t one’s house be warm enough that its occupants don’t feel the need to wear hats to bed?  But, he’s the only one doing that.  I guess if they all start, or someone goes to bed in his or her coat, then I might have cause to be concerned.  Sam told me that he’s doing it because, “If my brain gets too cold, then I can’t think straight!”

The other morning Lizzie asked me if I remembered a few weeks ago when I picked her and the other two up after spending the day with the girls’ bio brother and family.  She reminded me that I had asked if they were glad to be going home and she had replied, “no.”  I had forgotten all about that, but remembered when she reminded me.  I had not been upset by her response.  If anything, it’s typical Lizzie, just being contrary!  But she looked at me and said, “I didn’t mean it.  I really was glad to be going home.”  It’s progress.

I’ve also noticed that she cries more easily now.  Most parents would probably find that troublesome or annoying at the very least.  But I welcome it.  Lizzie came to me with such a hard shell around her 3 year old heart.  Life had really messed with her.  But slowly, bit by bit, that shell is crumbling.  I suspect she’ll always be a harder child to parent and more of a work in progress (aren’t we all, though?) but we’re going to get there.

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I was working on scrapbooking earlier this week.  I am so far behind that I am just now to Will’s senior year of football.  That would have been about 16 months ago.  I had an old Facebook status I remembered writing the night of his last game and I wanted to print it off to put in the book.  So I sat down with Facebook to find it and as I did, I found myself re-reading some of my old posts from that same year. 

I was different then.  I was so light-hearted, it was almost embarrassing.  Now, granted, I am not one to bare every single emotion onto my Facebook wall like some do.  That’s a little more of a public forum and I prefer to save my deepest thoughts for my blog where I have about four readers to see them.  But it made me wonder.  Is it just grief that colors my thinking now or have I really changed that much?  Can I ever again be that Sarah I was then?  I don’t think so.

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I had a phone call from a friend last night.  How she found out about our woodburner/propane situation, I don’t know.  My blog is the only place I’ve been wailing about it, I’m pretty sure.  But she called and said she and her husband had talked and wanted to help.  And this is a family that has already done so much for us since Paul’s death.  They’re helping us financially with some future costs and then she made a phone call to the owner of a propane company she knows.  He couldn’t promise anything immediately, but said he would talk about my situation with his partner and see what they could do for us.  I couldn’t help it.  I stood out there in the cold mudroom (the only place I could privately talk away from the kids) and just sobbed on the phone.  Every.Single.Time.

He rescues me.