About Yesterday.............

Dear readers,

Yesterday, I posted two entries which were so different in their emotional content that when I read them on the blog, I felt as if I had put my finger into an electrical plug.

Am I that changeable I asked myself?  Is this as jarring to my readers as it is to me?
 I am suspecting so.  It is out of respect for you the reader then, that I explain how the two came to be posted on the same day and what I have learned as a result.

As I sat at my desk yesterday, I revisited the post I had started on Chris' birthday, December 6, 2013, which was in my draft folder. I had not planned on writing anything additional at all, but my feelings gushed out.  There was no stopping them, so I wrote them down. I wanted to attach this post to a brief entry I had written on December 6th, but alas, my inability (see CUT AND PASTE, last February) prohibited that, and thus, the piece posted yesterday.

I intended on posting the exercise piece because it is current with my dilemma of flab. Eating comfort food and watching old movies has to go, says my doctor. So, as I edited that piece, I howled with laughter as I recalled my first experience with Silver Sneakers.  Surprised at the drastic swing of my own emotion between tears and laughter, I thought, "Am I really this schizophrenic?" 

A day later when I reread my blog, I had to answer that, at the very least, the segue was just not there between the two columns.  Years ago, when I began my journey as a writer, one of my "Bibles of writing" was ON WRITING WELL by William Zinsser (fourth edition).  One of the things that sticks with me, is his respect for his craft, and for those who want to read what he writes.

This blog was started, not as much for you, the reader, but for me, the writer. It is a new venture for me--far from my journalistic roots. Balance and focus in blogging was a challenge even before our life was turned upside down with a death in our family.

I learned something new yesterday. A balance in this venue is not only words, but emotion and it is my responsibility to carry you as the writer.  Hopefully, as we travel, I will earn that respect---

Over the Coffee.

Chris' Birthday

December 9, 2013  Another level of good-bye to my son Christopher. 

December 6, 2013 would have been his 39th birthday.  There are waves, depths, seasons of feeling the pain of losing a child.  There are waves, depths, and explosions of grief relating to the act of suicide.

Thoughts of  "what if's"  seize me, and shake me like a wild animal rips its prey. My body, and my mind are either frozen, or fired with the hot emotions of shock and pain, or both. I can't believe it, and yet, I can.

Today, it is a pile of ashes, when I want desperately to remember life.

I try to read to comfort myself, but  my eyes cannot focus, and my heart is full of expressions I cannot possibly identify.

People ask "what can I do?"  I have no idea.  I want the life around me to go away-- I want people to go away-- and yet, I want them to come in.

I grapple with trying to lift myself up every morning under a terrifying oppression, a restlessness I can't satisfy, and a hope I can't find.  Tears fill my body, but they won't come--they stand poised in ice, waiting for me to melt.

But I'm angry instead.   It's not an anger I have experienced before--it is a quiet, smoldering anger, ready to lash out, but burning deep in my soul, and there is no focus.  I'm feeling unsteady, uncertain, unready to relate to any circumstance, or to any person.  Mostly, I just want to protect myself and stay in bed.

This is not the way it was supposed to be. This is not where I want to be.  I can only know that, with God's help, somehow, some way,

I can move on.