Checking out for the Night

“Why don’t you write?” suggested my 17 year old daughter. I was mentally checked out for the day. I had worked my butt off the day before and even that morning, but by mid-day I had nothing left in me. It’s not that I was tired. There simply wasn’t anything left in the reserve tank to give a damn after lunch. It was now 6:00 pm and I had pretended (clear throat and change that to “fake it til you make it”) for a good five hours.

You know how you push, push, push through the entire holiday season only to crash and burn in January? Well that is me. Now. When I was younger it was pretty much a given that on December 26th I would start coughing, feel achy, and end up very sick for a couple weeks. Nowadays it seems to have taken on a different flavor. I face Halloween remembering the last costume I made for TJ. I muddle past my birthday, not feeling like celebrating; move forwards to Thanksgiving thinking about that last Thanksgiving and TJ’s “I am thankful for…..” comment (“all the nice people I’ve met since I’ve been sick” – puddles of tears!); segue into Christmas thinking about what I would have bought him, the happiness he would have brought to the season….

But then, as if all that emotion wasn’t hard enough to deal with, the acute awareness that Christmas was TJ’s last good day is forever etched in my mind. The next two weeks follow with memory after painful memory of trauma and lost hope, culminating in the picture of me crying over his lifeless body in the hospital bed, not wanting to allow the funeral home to take him. A week of funeral preparations surrounded by family and friends leading up to a beautiful Celebration of Life…….this is how I spend the holidays. And this is why, I believe, I have nothing left in the tank. I have used every last drop of poise and grace that I had for nearly three months. There is……well, no more.

I try to stay positive and put a smile on my face, and I do so with marginal success I suppose, but inside I am battling to keep a river of tears from flowing. I see my other children who need me so I keep on truckin’, putting one foot in front of the other. Get up. Make breakfast. Take care of Mr. Doggypants. Do school. Run errands. Play games. Clean the house (hell, clean it out is what I’m really trying to do), take kids here and there, make dinner (don’t laugh, I really do cook once in a while), work, clean up. Rinse and repeat. What is my therapy? All I can do is crank the music and sing loudly (my apologies to the neighbors for last Sunday. I know I was basically screaming my lungs out while singing some really awful pop songs) while I dance around the house, wailing against the misery until I collapse. It feels good to get it out. It helps me face the next day. It enables me to breathe again. Good air in. Bad air out.

But today? No, today is just a stay in my pajamas (again) kind of day. It was not my intention. I pulled clothes out of the closet to get dressed, but it never happened. Somewhere along the line my mind made the decision that since I hadn’t gotten dressed “by now”, then why bother.

The morning even started out alright. Cleaning was done, school was done, people were fed, things were going along just fine. I think it started with the realization that I was still in the pajamas that I was in yesterday and that I slept in Saturday night. It felt gross. But it was too late. The brain was already diving right in to “just-forget-it-land”. I’ve little capacity to interact. I made it through until about 6pm being social and present. I am the mom. It’s what I do. I keep going. I WANT to keep going even now, but eventually I ran into that wall and I simply can’t. Which is actually hard to accept. Wanting to and not having the mental stamina to do anything more than sit in a dimly lit room while writing it out does not feel very uplifting. It feels sad and pathetic. And I know I am not actually sad and pathetic. But just grant me the validation of my feelings for a minute. I promise I will not wallow in pity for too long. That’s not me. I am not a wallow-er. I am a fighter, a doer, a light, a strong tower (see? a little pep talk!)

But for just this one minute of just this one night, I choose to hide away in the fairy lights of the room and be alone, allowing the soft glow coupled with the peace and quiet restore my mental space, clarity, and imbue their waves of healing.