Land o'Lessa

So. 3am this morning, I woke up The Boy who’d crashed on the couch at about 1am. We made one last check of his bags, his things, made sure he had his money, his ID, his Choir uniform, and the Girl Next Door’s scarf that she’d forgotten and asked for him to bring up on the bus for her.

I’d given him the lectures (Don’t put anything in the pocket of the seat ahead of you. Keep your money and id in your neck case around your neck. Keep a hand on your fanny back – and wear it in front. Don’t break my camera or I’ll beat you. Keep track of your Chaperones, so they have an easy time keeping track of you. Remember the 3 to Pee rule, Don’t…) and gotten a roll of the eyes and a “MOOO-OOOOOOM! I have flown before! GAWD.” To which I smirked. “Yeah. With me, and with your NANA. Now, make sure you…”

I’m sure ya’ll heard the eye-rolling from there. But dammit, I’m MOM and I’m ALLOWED TO BE ALL LECTURINGLY PANIC-Y! So there.

So, anyway. Got him up, and his stuff together, and we were 45 minutes early to catch the bus. (He was a little anxious. Heh.) We brought the puppy with us, wrapped up in a blanket, for a little last minute cuddling. Then the bus pulled up, and it was time to load his luggage, grab his orange boppy pillow, and pick a seat.

Yes, Hendy even chartered the Oilers bus for them, so that they could ride in style and comfort! So, he hugged the dog, told me it was cold (It was -12F) and that he was getting into the bus. I made him give ME a hug too – because hello! hugging the dog and not his MOTHER? So, after a tight hug, I went back to the car, where I watched everyone else load up, then the bus pull away – I followed to the highway, and when I turned home – there was nothing but the tailights to be seen. SIIIIIIGH.

So. There you have it. The Boy is off on his Trip of a Lifetime. I’ve not received any phone calls, so can only assume they made it to Anchorage and the Airport on time, and are right now *checks time* just about to land in Seattle (3:10pm Seattle Time) where they’ll hang out for 3 hours before hopping the nonstop flight to London, where at 2:20 tomorrow, they’ll hop onto another flight to Madrid, where they’ll hopefully get dinner and a good nights sleep before all the festivities really begin Tuesday Morning @ 9am. All told, their travel time will be about 29 hours.

 I’m doing my best not to be all panic-y mom, but HELLO! my BABY! and he’s GONE! and he’s ALL ALONE (with 134 other kids/chaperones) and I can’t PROTECT him when he’s HALFWAY AROUND THE WORLD!

Yeah. Clearly I’m not all panic-y worried mom at all. Heh.

(And the other kids/furbabies are under orders not to be cute for the next 2 weeks since I sent my camera with the boy. Harumph. I’m reduced to the old camera, and my cell phone. Sorry in advance. Hahah!)

So people all over the net today are doing the traditional yearly wrapup – what they did, didn’t do, what they wanted, got, didn’t want, got anyway, so on and so forth. I’d thought about trying to do that too, but it just wasn’t working.

I still feel like I’m floating through space, that time has no meaning, that there’s no difference between one day and the next. The darkness of last year still clings to my senses, to the edges of my thoughts. It’s almost comforting, in a frightening kind of way. Every day is the same – no sleep, too much sleep, no thought, too much thought, nothing different everything different. Contradiction seems to be my middle name.

The kids keep me afloat, but now more then ever I want to shy away from talks of Kevin and want to cover my eyes and ears and thoughts and dive deep into myself where none of it matters or happened – anything at all. I paste a smile on my face, I make the motions, I move through the day with spurts of laughter and brief glimpses of sunlight that are all too soon tinged in darkness again.

My kids are the light of my life – they are the ones keeping my head above water, bringing laughter just when I think I have forgotten how to smile. Even so, i worry so much for them, how they are dealing, how they really feel. They seem so strong, so tough, so connected to his memory – he is their hero. I want to keep that alive, to foster that feeling of connection, even though every moment of memory and laughter is another bladed stab to my heart and soul. I focus so much on helping them, I lose me.

But then again, this floating feeling is comfortable, familiar. I’ve always had it, though never to this degree. Day by day, same same same. Its a slippery slope, I know that, and sometimes I feel my hand holds are smaller then normal, the niche I’ve shoved my feet in are swallowing the precarious grip. But still I cling, and perhaps even gain an inch or two with the aid of a friend or family’s shoulder here, a gentle nudge there, a not so gentle nudge elsewhere.

So what to do? I’ll keep on clinging to that slope, for now, inching my way up and likely sliding back down a time or two. I’ll use the shoulders and hand-ups as they are needed. And I’ll try to achieve something other then floating in the coming year.

(PS – and yes, I’m ok. just a little introspective.)

Aka – another post that’s all about randomosity!

– We have had our first (and second) casualty from the Tree. Sneaky little shits waited until I went to bed yesterday morning, then batted happily away until they broke one of my cheapo decorations. No great loss – but must step up the Kitten Training. Heh. Place your bets now…

– I find myself humming this morning. And randomly singing “It’s beginning to look a lot like CHRIStmas…” I’m finding it vaguely annoying. I blame lack of sleep – 2 hours or so – where the alarm rudely snapped me out of a lovely vague dream of some man dressed only in a red bow. Dammit.

– Why was I up so late? Whew. Seaaaarching and shoooooopping and comparing and beating my head against a wall, etc. You know, when the kids get bigger, the toys get smaller. You’d think this’d be good, but oh no! For some reason these smaller gifts are DIPPED IN SOLID GOLD. That’s the only reason to explain the prices!

However, through determination (sheer stubbornness, to be honest!) I managed to score something I think the boy and I can both live with (NO, it is NOT a cell phone. Nor is it the coveted Ipod.)

And also, Ebay is my friend. I can find *It* on Ebay. Whatever *It* is. Which is where I was able to snatch up something for the pup at much cheaper then store prices – NIB. Awesome. Now I just need to locate some MoonSand for her. As it’s the “ONE! THING! MAMA!” that she wants most of all.

The girl, she is another thing altogether. She isn’t sure WHAT she wants – other then a crockpot. So, it’s guessing time for her, but she’s such a good kid and a girlygirl, I’m sure some of my bargain finds will make her happy too. Man am I glad she loves to cook! mmmmmmmmyummy!

So, come 3am or so, I’d finished the online portion of my shopping to my satisfaction. Now come Dec. 20th when I get paid and do local shopping, I shall be much less frantic! Yay! Cuz then it’s all stocking stuffers and little things, and whew. This is probably why I’m humming.

– Course, I also find myself retreating into a solitude and hiding in general – a social recluse. There is a lot of talk of Kevin by the kids and understandably so, and I encourage that. Unfortunately it’s like stabbing myself all over again each time, too. So I put on a brave face, and we laugh, and sometimes cry, and remember what each empty millimeter of my heart was once filled with.

– I also wonder how it is that all of his friends have disappeared. Once swearing they’d be here, they wouldn’t forget, they’d make sure to check in on us and see if we needed anything…. there is no contact, no returning of phone calls, and no checking in. I quit trying, because I won’t force myself on anyone, but even the kids notice it. I just tell them everyone works through things in their own way – they miss Daddy too, and they just can’t handle it. Sometimes, though, I envy their ability to use the out of sight, out of mind method of coping – because while Kevin’s certainly out of sight, he’s by no means ever out of mind. It’d be easier if it were that way – but no one said love and loss was easy, hm? Let alone fair.

– Though, that said, I do wish the guy who donated the Ham to us last year would show up again with another one. That was some damn good eatin! YUM!

– This conflicting of emotions is leaving me humming with tears burning behind my eyes, as well as sleepless. So I will go to bed here soon as the pup is off to school, having finally worked myself into such exhaustion that not even Diet Crack Coke can permeate it.. I can fell it pressing against me, suffocating my will to sit here and find something, anything else to do rather then face my bed again.

– Unless, of course, that nameless hunk in the red ribbon shows up in again. Rawr. Then? Then! I shall go willingly to dreamland.

– Wouldn’t you?

It’s been a long week. You expect certain days when you’ve lost someone. There are dates that you know from the beginning that will strangle you from the inside, pressing at your mind, suffocating your thoughts, and forcing your carefully controlled reactions to overflow in copious amounts of mood swings and tears. You don’t expect the little things – like breaking the last brush in the house and having to open his toiletry bag to get the one you know is there, with strands of his hair still attached because you don’t have time to go to the store for a new one. Or using the last of his tube of toothpaste.
It’s the unexpected, random things and days that really, really suck.

I had a complete meltdown saturday night/sunday/monday. Despite my normal state of not sleeping, I retreated by telling the kids I had a headache, and slept for about 24 hours with only a couple hours of random wakefulness during sunday/monday. I still feel bad for it – but had it was the only way i could cope with the darkness that was swallowing me whole. They don’t seem any worse for wear, in fact they likely don’t remember it at all. The older two are quite capable of watching the pup and It wasn’t like I didn’t wake up when they did need me and tend to them. And they got to control the TV remote without my grumbling. So guilty irish woman inside me – shut up already. (that never works. just so you know. heh.)

Got a txt message from TBF wednesday night asking if I was ok. Finally got tired of typing on phone pad, and called – helped tremendously just to hear him. We figured it was just a delayed reaction from the beginning of the week. Course, now I know it may have been premonition.

So what is it that stopped me from calling him this morning? Stupid movie made a random comment ‘He was 43′ and i heard ‘He was 33′ and that, with a realization that nothing I have smells like him any longer, not his pillows, his clothing, anything – was all it took. 3 hours later, puffy-eyed and covered in used tissues and exhausted, and I’d stopped myself from calling and waking TBF up 80 gazzillion times. It was 3-4-5am, but he yells at me for not calling no matter what time it is.

So here I am. 30 minutes of sleep before the alarm went off. Eyes hot, puffy, scratchy. Abs aching. Body screaming for rest. And I can’t make *any* connection to day, time of day, anything that set this breakdown off other then watching a stupid movie and not even really hearing what was said because I was attempting to drift off to sleep.
I guess – it’s just one of *those* days.

*Those* days suck.

(Yes, I’m basically ok. I know it’s all part of the process. The process – btw – also sucks. No need for panic. Or interventions. Or drugs. [Although... heh. j/k] Or phone calls. Specially not phone calls, cuz soon as the pup’s off to school, I’m going to sleep. So – Nana, Auntie – I’m alright. Don’t panic. Sometimes, even my strength and control crumbles, s’all. Few hours sleep and I’ll be fine [And we all know what fine means - Fucked up, Irrational, Neurotic and Emotional.] and back to normal.)

liz_marcs: I Remember Townsend…

Read it. I’ll wait.

Done? Good. I’ll be the first to admit I’m one of those American’s that just doesn’t pay attention to politics unless it directly affects me – and as a widowed white SAHM, not much really does in the broad spectrum. I don’t watch the news, I only read the ‘neighborly’ parts of the local paper (online, I don’t even subscribe), I’m more likely to know when Suri’s first pictures came out of who was able to “Make it work” on the latest Project Runway or who is the newest Superhero for Stan Lee. Even though those still have nothing to do with me personally – it allows me to keep a wall around me and mine in some attempt to protect them from the horrors that is the American Government. I’m not completely oblivious, I just choose not to spend all my time fighting the man or for the man. I have much more personal battles to fight.
Today is a day of rememberance for the familys of the 2996 who died and thousands more injured at Ground Zero. Many, many places are remembering, are gathering together to pay tribute, are still searching these five years later for some reason why, and someone to blame. I understand that search to lay blame on a far more personal level then I ever did before. Not because I knew someone there, or lost someone there, but because of my own far to recent personal tragedy.

Losing someone you love, unexpectedly, SUCKS. Losing someone so violently can only suck even more. Part of me, however, feels guilty. I can’t connect with those who of 9-11, and worse – I don’t want to. I avoid all of the tv shows, the movies, the sensationalization, the half-truths and lies of the media, the blogs of tribute today, everything that has happened over the past 5 years.  Part of me doesn’t want to know. Part of me doesn’t care. All of me doesn’t want to have to examine it as closely as it deserves in order to find a personal truth. I have my own demons – I don’t need yours, theirs, the world’s also laid at my feet. I am not strong enough for that.
And even then – someone says “9-11″ and I rememeber how MY truth went down, and how part of it is amusing even now because it was *so* Kevin, and how I ache that I’ve lost him, and how horrible the past year has been without him.

That morning he called – at ohmygodEarly – and told me to get up and turn on the TV, he’d call right back. It was something ungodly like 5am here. That detail escapes me, I just remember cussing him out because I should have been able to sleep another 2 hours before getting the kids up for school. I tuned in just as the second plane hit. I was watching as the towers fell. I saw each moment unfold on national tv all throughout the day – the fear for AirForce One, the hit on the pentegon, the terror in faces as the cameras captured every moment of this Life as a Movie event. The blue of the sky, the silence, the crash of the towers – I watched it all. It was unreal – surreal. I was very far removed from it all.

Then Kevin called again – and said “Get the guns. Make sure they’re loaded. I expect us to be hit, and expect Martial law.”

And I laughed. He was upset at me because of it, but man – I laughed. And laughed and laughed and laughed some more. Why the hell would anyone hit Alaska? Seriously? Sure, we’ve got oil, and that’s where he was, but… why? This was centered on the part of America that people think matters – if anything, I worried for my friends in California more then myself. Yet I had to agree to check the guns, and be prepared for an invasion in my tiny town of BFE.

He was so frightened for his family, even as I continued to chuckle everytime he checked that I was prepared. I had gone to town and filled up the jeep with gas. I had made sure that I had bottled water, and batteries and the flashlights handy. I was prepared to grab the kids and head toward Anchorage if they hit the Agruim plant. It was so him, so Kevin, so… pessimistic. But then again, he always watched the news, paid attention, loved political debates almost as much as he loved religious debates – maybe he knew something I didn’t. And still, I laughed.

I didn’t cry about it until I saw the faces of the families, lines of grief stretched across their face, empty terror and agony in the bottomless pits of thier eyes. They never thought it would happen to THEM either. Mothers holding children now made fatherless, as the death tole rose, higher and higher. How I hated the media then – invading these people’s tragedy, forcing their way in to get firsthand reactions to something that should be so personal. And they’ve never stopped – specials on TLC this week include the story as told by the children who lost parents, and I want to scream, to grab the nearest newsguy and shake him.

My grief for Kevin is personal, palpable, and has not subsided since I lost him a year ago. I cannot imagine what these people must feel like seeing snippits of their lives viewed by millions, possible distorted, some achingly real, either way being layed out for the consumption of the masses.

That is my reality. I understand, in part, that their ache is the same as mine. I know that my tragedy will be forever remembered in love by friends, family, those who knew us. I know that my husband’s memory is handled with respect, because I demand it, and because he deserves it.

I am glad I was spared the loss of someone during 9-11. I wish I were spared my personal loss as well. I can only take days one at a time, and avoid what I cannot handle. I am sorry, to those who were directly affected, that my personal tragedy eclipses your own. I can only hope that you have personal friends and family that support you, as I do.

That is the best I can do.