There she goes

The baby is off to high school today. It brings extra trepidation for me. Not only is my *baby* in *high school* but she is 13 days away from the anniversary of her sister's death. Also, when she was a freshman in high school. 

The hits just keep on coming. 

The first year is the hardest. 

The second year is the saddest. 

Now, for your extra special pleasure, the third year is the year of firsts for us. 

The first completion of the first month of high school. The first child who turns 15. The first...  You get the picture. 

So, there she goes. Off to high school. Dragging my heart behind her. 

Insomnia

It's another night of sleeplessness. I get right up to the edge of sleep, but, instead of slipping over easily, I'm snatched back. 

It's a night when I'm trying to go without any sleeping pill. Sometimes I make it; sometimes I don't. So tonight I gave up. In 25 minutes maybe it will come. 

I sometimes have weird dreams with the sleeping pills. Hell, I have weird dreams often anyway. What the difference?

It's a night when I call to Katie to come into my dreams so I can see her again. It's a night with tears in my pillow. My eyes ache and weep. 

And sleep will not come easily tonight. 

I need a miracle

Some kind of sign to say that the storm will pass. 

I need a tangible reminder of good in the world. 

The taste of anxiety

I assumed that everyone knows what anxiety tastes like, but my friend Oklahoma Amy (as opposed to Wisconsin Amy) asked me what it meant when I said I tasted anxiety.

It's metallic.  It's on the back of my tongue.  It includes a cold-tingling sensation that runs down my neck and shoulders.  The cold washes over me while I perspire lightly.  And, most of all, I can't swallow the taste.

Were you ever young and dumb like I was and you were dared to lick a 9 volt battery connectors?  Or maybe you're still dumb and check the smoke detector batteries still.  It's like that.  In fact, it's a lot like that, down to the tingle.

And that is me when in the middle of an anxiety attack.  Now, I can push through (at least usually) when I have to get through it.  I have coping techniques.  I can usually stay in the moment.  It may not leave for a few hours (seriously), but I can cope through it.  Maybe I'm not the most successful in the world at what I'm doing at the time (I once spent three hours working a jigsaw puzzle to get through one), but I can survive.

That's it.  Survival.

I'd like to do more than just survive, but that's a project for another day.

Reflective

It feels like a reflective day. It's sunny and warm outside on the patio. It would be downright hot (for Wisconsin) if I weren't in the shade. It's a blue sky-puffy cloud day. 

It's a lake day. 

I've been contemplating going back to the lake Up North (which is always capitalized). I have such beautiful memories of the lake and summer and the girls. Memories full of s'mores and pjs all day and canoes. It is a magical place where board games were never bored games and where tie dye was the activity of choice. 

And I want to go back. 

I am afraid, however, that things won't be just "not the same" but will be so painful. I long for simpler times when the biggest disaster was forgetting to buy hamburger buns so I would make hot dog shaped burgers, and we would laugh. 

I wonder if I can ever go back. I wonder if I can stay away. 

Talking to myself

I find out the mostbinterestingn things about myself while I have silent conversations in the shower. I talk to myself, have conversations with other, relive conversations in the past, all while shampooing my hair and shaving my legs. (Okay, I should shave my legs more often. That may not count.)

Yesterday's conversation was about living and dying. Me, specifically. I can't live because I'm afraid of living, but I'm also afraid of dying.  Yeah, how's that for limbo?

It is so hard to love forward. I struggle to see tomorrow. (Currently, the thought of tomorrow gives me a jolt of panic attack. I mean literally, thinking about Monday gives me a panic attack. Breathe. Breathe. Back to this moment, on the couch.) I also struggle to see the future without Katie. 

I want to travel in the present and the future. But I feel so guilty because I didn't take Katie in the past. How can I go to Hawaii or Europe again (dreams, dreams) without Katie? I should have more Katie memories. I need more Katie memories. I don't want memories without Katie. 

But how do you live like that? How can I live like that? I can't. So I can't go forward. But I can't go back. But I can't go forward. I'm stuck. 

I'm here between yesterday and tomorrow. Just like you're supposed to be, living mindfully in the present.  Ha. Isn't that the point? To live each moment in the present? I don't feel like I am doing what mindfulness experts mean.  

Where am I? Why am I here? How can I move when I'm so afraid of moving? How can I step forward and chance losing the past?

Mail and more

The mail came today (always such good news, er, I mean bills).  Today brought it's own special kind of hell.  Katie got mail from an insurance agency.

1.  What the hell does a teenager need with homeowners insurance so that you'd send snail mail to her?

2.  How in the hell did she get on some insurance agency's mailing list when *I* am not on their mailing list?

3.  Geez, people, it's happened before, but it just got all over me today: anger, tears, the whole nine yards.

Thankfully Mom called the agency and explained the situation so that she should no longer get mail from some State Farm agent in Brookfield, Wisconsin.

It's been 22 months and 1 day.  The 13ths are no longer the hell that they once were, but they're still to be handled with caution.  And if it's a Friday the 13th, I'm unable to face the day.

I'm honestly surprised that I'm still breathing.  Not that I considered suicide (though those early dark days were dark), but that I still have no concept of time beyond my next breath.  It's hard to plan for the future when you can't plan for breakfast.  (Said while eating a bowl of pre-sweetened cereal because I can't manage plain cereal and having to put sweetener on it.  It's just too much hassle.)

I'm rather surprised that breathing isn't too much work.