Lately, I've been playing a very dangerous game of 'what if' with myself while I'm lying in bed in that place when I'm not quite asleep but I'm not quite awake. Sometimes, the things and thoughts that visit me while in that place scare me so much I can't go to sleep for hours. It's not a very good place to be sometimes.
Tonight's 'what if' game got me out of bed, wide awake and dead set on writing on my blog...something I haven't done in a really long time. I'm not sure why I'm so set on writing on my blog tonight...right now...but here I am.
It all started with the way I was lying in bed, on my stomach. I NEVER sleep on my stomach...but J always slept on his, in the very same way I was laying. I started letting the thoughts in my head wander. I wandered to the place, the moment, when we first started dating, to my breaking his heart, to J breaking mine, to my pledging to love him until death do us part, to us bringing E into the world, to buying our very first house, to bringing A into the world, to us living our not so perfect life sharing all the love either one of us was willing to give the other. That's when the 'what ifs' started showing up. Like, what if I had noticed J was putting on a little more weight than usual. Or, what if I had noticed that Monday before he left that he went to bed at 830p because he was tired from running at bball practice. Or, what if I had questioned him about his arm hurting a couple of days ahead of time. Or, what if I had noticed the color of his skin in a picture taken 3 days before he left. Or, what if I could have saved him that morning.....that one right there gets me every time because I know the answer to that, nothing could have saved him that morning. Nothing, period.
For the last 18 months I've been sick in the head with worry that my children are growing up without the one cheerleader they need. That by J not being here to balance it all out, to be the good guy in the house, they will grow up and be lop sided in their views on life. Pretty heavy stuff I think about in that space before I fall asleep, huh?
One of the many things a spiritual advisor told me a couple of weeks ago, the only thing my babies are missing out on is having their dad here physically because I'm still here giving them love, I'm still here giving them hugs, I'm still here smiling at them and I'm still here guiding them and teaching them what tough looks like. If it was all really that simple. In 18 months I hadn't had one dream about J, but that night I saw him in a dream, he was on the outside looking in and smiling. It felt like the sun was hitting my face and when I woke up at 4a with a smile on my face I knew it was because I was finally feeling a little bit of peace. Then reality set in, again. My life, my little no so perfect life, is gone for good and in it's place is my little not so perfect life alone with my beautiful girls. For now, that's good enough for me....
A year ago, I did a lot of work changing the house we live in so that we could stay and live in the only home the girls have ever known. And when I say I did a lot of work, all I did was write the checks :) I made the decision to stay and I made the decision to make the changes so we could. Those were my first steps to moving forward. For a year, there were no pictures on my walls and today there are many. There are pictures from the past and there are pictures of the present. Is it sad to look at the pictures of J and I in Mexico or of J and his girls when they were babies or of the single picture of us 3 girls walking towards the ocean in Florida last year without J beside us...hell yes it's sad. To truely understand where we are, we have to look at the pictures of where we came from....
Thanks for checking in....
L
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