Today has been a whirlwind of emotions for me. I guess its been a while since I've felt so much hit me at one time.
I woke up this morning with an awful headache from yesterday. Drinking margaritas at 1pm and continuing the rest of the night with beer was apparently not a good idea :)
I decided to take the kids to sci-port. As we were getting ready to leave The wind blew the front door completely shut on courtlyn's hand. Three of her fingers were completely closed in. She was screaming and it took me a minute to realize why. Being the type person who panics over everything, my first thought was that I was going to have to call 911. Luckily I came to my senses and realized that smashed fingers did not warrant an emergency call! I can't even begin to imagine what the paramedics would have thought! lol
Then when we were finally all in the car and pulling out of the drive way I ran over someone's scooter. Completely broke the wheel off. But we headed on.
We finally got to sci-port around 1:00. Played for a little bit and then ate lunch. When we went upstairs to the little kid section I sat down on a bench and all the kids ran off playing. There I was again sitting alone. I completely lost it. I thought back to what I had read when Joe first died.....just simply being sad for the fact of being alone. I talk to lots of other moms who say they understand that feeling of being alone because maybe their husbands don't go everywhere with them and the kids. But the fact is.....Joe did. We always did things as a family.....the zoo, Disney on Ice, sci-port, the fair, the revel, the park, walks after dinner, out to eat, school programs....all of it. Granted, I'm not saying we were perfect.....I'm sure half the time we were probably argueing about one thing or another.....but we were still there together with the kids. So for me to do these things alone is a harsh reminder that I'm alone with these kids.....all the time. I've never been one to love playing with my kids.....I loved watching him play with the kids. And I loved sitting together as we both watched the kids. Having someone to laugh with when they do something funny. Someone to make me laugh when I feel like I'm losing my patience. Someone to have adult conversation with amidst the chaos that comes with having kids. Someone to look at in complete frustration and tell "will you go get him" so that I don't have to be the bad guy every single time.
So I sat on that bench and suddenly started crying my eyes out. Then right there in the middle of sci-port Courtlyn came running out of the little tunnels, smiling as big as she could...I looked at her through my tears and realized she didn't have any pants on. Looked again. Hell, she didn't even have a diaper on. I scooped her up and quickly found her pants and diaper in a pile....exactly where she had left them when she apparently decided to strip naked. I got her dressed and sent her on her way. Then I continued my pity party. I finally decided I had all I could stand, so I told camryn and courtlyn that we were going to walk around to some other areas. I found Dylan driving the little worker truck and asked him if he was ready to go see something else. He said yes. I looked behind me to make sure courtlyn was still there, and when I looked back at the truck Dylan was gone. I turned around in every direction and saw him no where. Asked Camryn if she saw where he went. Nope. I looked over toward the little gate at the entrance. It had been closed when we got there and there had been one girl monitoring it. Well, now the gate was open and there were two employees there....standing several feet away while they talked. OMG! I ran over to them and asked them if they saw a little boy in a LSU shirt leave. They had no idea. Asked me how old he was and his name. One of them left to begin the search for him on the outside and the other one shut the gate while I looked for him inside again. I looked everywhere I could and I told Camryn to look inside all the tunnels, etc. We found him. He was sitting quietly inside a tunnel. He came out looking completely confused at why I was a complete basket case. Apparently when I asked him if he was ready to go see something else he just thought I meant another toy!
Luckily the rest of the afternoon was pretty uneventful. But still I can't figure out for the life of me why we can't just have a normal day around here. Can't I just take the kids out for the afternoon without smashed fingers, broken scooters, emotional breakdowns, naked toddlers, and missing children???? And then of course it all leads me right back to where this started. The fact that things weren't like this when Joe was here. And that even if they were, he would still be here in the middle of it. Helping me, making me laugh (or at least occasionally smile) about something.
As I sat here tonight wondering why I had this complete breakdown today, I thought it had been a long time since I had done anything like that. Then I remembered that it actually wasn't too long ago. It was the night of Camryn's christmas musical. Which had to be somewhere around the beginning of December. Shit. That was only a little over a month ago. Seems like a lifetime ago considering all thats happened since then. Then I realized that since about that time I have not had any grief about Joe to speak of. I even made it through christmas without any sadness at all. THEN I realized the worst thing of all. Am I really that needy of a person that all it took was for one person to walk into my life and shower me with attention to make me forget all my probelms? And the minute all of that is over I'm back to being overwhelmed with grief for my husband?
People tell me all the time that they're amazed by my strength, how inspiring our life is, how they don't know if they could do what I have....hell, the word hero has actually been used before. And the truth of the matter is that I am so far from all of that its ridiculous. In reality I'm just barely holding it all together, and obviously it could all fall apart at any moment.