I feel like I just have so much to say about grief and life after losing my little love. Not a day goes by where I do not feel such immense pain within myself that my physical body is actually beginning to feel physical pain. It is an awful state to be in, a place where you simply feel your heart shattered and breaking each and every day....a place where I feel like I don't have the strength to keep going, a place where my soul feels crushed, crumbled, and thrown back in my body without care.
(Photo cred. goes out to my friend Peter! I was living in the moment and didn't take pics!)
Lately, I have been thinking a lot about the wonderful moments that we get to experience during life and how those wonderful small moments are the things that create joy and happiness. Do I experience joy and happiness after losing Adeline? Absolutely, but there is still a persistent overshadowing presence of sorrow that seems to always be around.
50 More Days...
It has been 1,051 days that I have had to keep living without my sweet girl. Adeline lived for the best 3,303 days of my life. She was so special and the child that I knew was going to grow up to care about the world, why things are the way that they are, and to love history like me. I don't have that now and not getting to have someone who I felt so in tune with grow up in front of me feels so heavy and painful. I feel as though every piece of me is breaking. In just 50 days, we will have lived 1/3 of Adeline's life without her since she left this earth. I would still do anything, give up everything, and offer literally anything that I could to have her back here with me. I miss her and when I say that I miss her, it is a deep soul longing that I miss where I feel as though I can barely keep breathing without her.
The Lowest of Lows
This past week was filled with some very high highs, but also it was filled with some pretty low lows. Before I talk about the highs, I am going to explore some of the lows with you and the feelings that I have had to push through in order to get to this point where I am.
Last Wednesday was Halloween and I was filled with the mind-numbing sorrow that I didn't feel like I could go on. It was the hardest day for a number of reasons. I realized when I was sitting here sobbing in my room that there were some things that were changing and changes that I need to be prepared for as the kids all get older. I think the challenge with that is that I still feel like I have a 9 year old little girl, she is frozen in time forever 9.
Halloween was hard because I was home completely alone. Althea wanted to go and have fun times with her friends and Hux got invited to go to a friends house and to trick or treat with a group of kids. It was so awesome that they have such good groups of kids and enjoy spending time with their friends, but it was hard being alone on a day like that. I only had a few trick or treaters too!
Then I struggled with not getting to really see or spend time with Shane. I hate how dependent and needy I am since we lost our girl. I don't like that sometimes I struggle with this type of thing where I feel like I need another human so bad. I don't like that I feel like I don't know how I would survive the loss of my husband. I really always thought that I could handle something like that, but after losing Adeline it's as if I cannot handle any more.
Staying in Canton alone is so hard too...especially being so close to the junior high building where she would have attended school now. When I am home during the day at the apartment, I hear the kids screaming and playing. These are the same kids that were her classmates, the same children that I watched grow up and am now watching as they continue to grow when in my mind, they should all be stuck in 3rd grade eternally, just like my little angel.
Not a day goes by when I do not feel that weight, that soul crushing pain. It is relentless.
The Highest of Highs
If you know me personally or even if you have been around here a while, you know that I really love music. I love so many different performers, artists, groups, etc. One of my favorites is Wilco. I just love so much of their music. Yesterday I got to attend a super intimate and fun book talk with Jeff Tweedy. He talked about his new book, World Within a Song, in which he offers up the 50 most influential songs that have meant something to his life. It was a really cool experience and so unique. I attended with my friend Peter and it was really great to be able to catch up with him. (I know that Jesus, etc. is a super common song but I have never gotten to see it live. I did last night and it was acoustic Jeff Tweedy!!!!)
Shane and I also got to spend the day in the city. We arrived in the city and enjoyed brunch together. Avocado toast and a cocktail went over great. (I went over a year without consuming hard liquor and now I occasionally have a drink, just keeping it casual now that I know that I can handle drinking without over doing it.) Then we went and finished up our Christmas shopping. Neither one of us are shoppers so that went by pretty quickly. Thankfully we literally have 2 orders to place online and one singular gift to pick out and we are done. I am so thankful that he is willing to go with me to do these types of things because post losing A, I hate places like malls and have insane anxiety. (I really think that it is all my mental health and a strong sense of what matters in life makes me annoyed with mass consumerism.)
So, there was definitely good. It was nice to be able to hang out with Peter and for him to finally meet Shane. I also got to see my friends Daneen and Michelle and have breakfast with them on Saturday morning. Friends truly remind us of the things that are most important in life and the things that we most love. I struggled for many years when I felt like I didn't truly have friends. Now, I feel like I have been blessed with the best people in my life.
Future Plans
The future holds a lot for us. I feel like things are going well. I taught one course this semester as an adjunct instructor. It was US History 1. I will be teaching US History 1, Latin American History, and African American History next semester and I am so excited to be able to do the thing that I love most. I always find it odd that after I have a class and/or offer a lecture, I feel so energized and so ready to tackle the day that I generally remain highly productive, getting lots of things accomplished. I am going to be teaching US History 2 over the summer and I am equally excited about that. I am actually getting to teach that one online too which is awesome because I have wanted some online teaching experience to continue to gain more adjunct roles in the future.
Grad school for political science is going surprisingly well. I am finishing up my first class, just a few things left to do and I will be done. So far, I have gotten an A on every single assignment. Some of my As have been 95% and others have been 90%. Since I got some that were 90%, I will be doing some extra papers to try and pull those up to 95%. I am starting my research and getting ready to start working on my paper after getting approval in my proposal meeting. I really hope that my topic is something that I can have published at a later date.
Further, I have my schedule for next semester and let me just say that it is crazy. I will have a 10 hour a week internship with Big Brothers, Big Sisters for 10 weeks. This internship is primarily for grant writing. I have crazy busy days though since I am teaching on 3 different campuses to teach. I also have 2 additional grad school classes. I will have 2 independent studies over the summer and if everything is completed, I will be able to start teaching political science by next fall, not that I expect to be assigned my first class before the following spring.
Goals for the Blog
I have been bad about doing the blog lately. I have been trying to be better, but frankly I keep just feeling sorry for myself on the days that I don't have things. I do have a goal to do more regular posts. To talk about some of the things that have helped me, etc.