Good Grief! More Laundry?

Do you have a sh*t ton of laundry that is ALWAYS needing to get done?  Whether it's washing it, drying it or folding it and putting it away?  I know I do!!  I have 3 baskets that need folded and put away as I type.  But, it's so much easier to put off washing it if the kids still have clean clothes in their drawers.  It's pretty easy to forget to put it in the dryer with 4 crazy kids running around and its even easier to put off folding it and putting it away when it's perfectly safe and content in that laundry basket!!  When it gets so piled up you usually say something like "Good Grief!  I have seriously GOT to do laundry!" I know I do!!  But, time and time again, it gets put to the back burner.  Well, going through the motions of grief is kind of just like that laundry that piles up.  It is WAY easier to put off dealing with grief than it is to face it head on.  There are so many different waves that hit me at all different times.  And I have found, that just like my laundry, I am letting these emotions of grief pile up.   But one day a few weeks ago a light bulb went off in my head.  Why?  Why do I keep letting these emotions pile up?  They are going to come whether I want them to or not.  Just like my fricking daily laundry does!  So why do I let them become huge, overwhelming piles?  So, I decided that day I was going to start using my amazing sorting laundry skills and sort through my piles of grief.  For me.  Not for my kids, not for him, not for anyone else but ME.  My life started getting super hectic.  The kids starting acting up, bad.  I started having way more panic attacks.  The house started to look a little too dirty for my liking.  I was eating junk non-stop.  I was doing a great job of ignoring the fact that these piles of emotional grief were coming straight at me.  So, one by one I have started to sort through them.

The first one was a little easier to sort through.  Shock and Denial.  Dustin dying was a total and complete shock to everyone.  Mostly to me.  And it made absolutely no sense as to why such a young, strong and healthy man could die!  But, the briefings from the military immediately following the news definitely helped me to sort that away pretty quick.  This pile still lingers, but it is not as big as it was before and is a little easier to fold and continuously put away.

The second one I am still slightly stuck in.  Pain and Guilt.  His passing literally physically hurt me.  The hurt is not as bad as it was almost 8 months ago, but it still is very much there.  And many times I feel horrible guilt about his passing.  He was alone, was he afraid?  Was he in a lot of pain?  Did he suffer for long, if he suffered at all?  Did he wonder where I was?  Did he want me there to comfort him?  All of these questions I will never know the answer to and sometimes they eat me alive.  This pile of grief is much easier to let pile up and try to push out of my mind.  Let's be honest here, who wants to think about this all the time?  I sure as hell don't!  Although, this stage is getting easier to handle.  I am slowly but surely learning how to fold this one up and put it away.

The third one I have completely been able to wash, dry, fold and put away.  It is Anger and Bargaining.  I am not a very angry person to begin with but I was definitely pretty angry with my Heavenly Father's plan for my life when I found out about his passing.  With this one, though, I spent a lot of time making sure I found all the miss matching socks, folded them and put them away.  Being angry and trying to bargain for something you can't bargain for is not worth it.  We all have learned from Dustin's passing that life is too short to stay angry.  And none of us make it out of this world alive.  So, what is the point in continuing to be angry and racking my brain as to how I could've stopped him from dying?  None, so I decided to complete this load and no longer have to watch it pile up!

The forth is where I am definitely currently at.  Reflection and Loneliness.  Let me just tell you this is the BIGGEST pile of laundry I have ever had to wash in my entire life.  It is way easier to let this one sit there, pile up and stink than it is to actually take care of it.  Do you like to be lonely?  Do you like reflecting on how your life is and what you thought it would be?  Nope, me neither.  Being lonely is the worst feeling in the entire world, especially if you were used to being able to talk to someone you loved daily!  So I love filling my time with worthless TV, food, shopping, running dumb errands that I probably don't need to run.  But I do it anyway.  I do it so that I don't have to sit there alone.  In my house.  With no one to talk to about every little detail that happened throughout my day.  No one to give me feedback on what I can do better on the next day.  No one that fully understands my kids, me.  Yes, I know that many of you have told me that I can message you or call you any time of day or night.  But lets be real here folks.  You have a life!!  I have a life.  As much as we want to be there for each other, we just simply aren't able to.  And unfortunately no one will be able to replace Dustin.  But that is ok.  I don't need to replace him.  I don't need to feel pity for myself anymore.  (Well maybe sometimes I do)  But I need to learn to accept that this is my life, whether I was ready for this or not.  It is my life.  And before I can take care of my kids, I need to reflect on myself, realize that I will be lonely for however long it takes me to fold this pile and put it away.  Because currently I am having to do about a million loads for it to all get clean!!  And I will get there, slowly but surely I will be able to say that I washed, dried, folded and put away the biggest load of laundry I have ever had to do!  No matter how long it takes me!!

The last few steps of grief I haven't quite gotten to yet.  Haven't even wanted to look at them.  But they are the Upward Turn, Reconstruction and Working Through and Acceptance and Hope.  One day I will be able to tackle these loads of laundry.  But the wonderful thing about laundry is that it is always there and can be put off for a while.  The other wonderful thing about it is that once it is clean again it smells so amazingly wonderful!!  One day I will wake up and be able to smell all my wonderful laundry and know how much hard work and dedication I put into that laundry to get it all washed, dried, folded and put away.  It will be a glorious day!!  Maybe by then I won't hate laundry so much either because let's face it, it will never go away.  It will lessen over time as kids grow up and move away, but it will never completely go away.  Just like my grief.  It will get easier to handle over time but it will never completely go away.

Time

It's been a little longer than normal from my last post.  I have been going through many different emotions in these past couple weeks.  But one that is the elephant in the room for me is precious time.  What is time?  Well the dictionary says it is a limited period or interval.  But what does time mean to you?  I am going to tell you what it means to me.

Have any of you heard the new Nickelback song "What Are You Waiting For"?  If you haven't, it is a must hear.  You see music plays a major role in my everyday life and it is my way of hearing what I need to hear from Dustin or Heavenly Father and the Holy Ghost.  It always has been and feels as if it is even more so now than ever.  The lyrics to that song speak to me.  They tell me what I feel Dustin would be telling me.  To stop sitting in this "waiting room" and move forward.  I am going to write out the majority of the song lyrics for you so you can see what I am talking about.  

What are you waiting for?

What are you waiting for?

Are you waiting on a lightening strike?  

Are you waiting for the perfect night?

Are you waiting 'till the time is right? 

What are you waiting for?

Don't you wanna learn to deal with fear?

Don't you wanna take the wheel and steer?

Don't you wait another minute here?

What are you waiting for?

What are you waiting for?

You gotta go and reach for the top

Believe in every dream that you got

You're only living once so tell me

What are you waiting for?

You know you gotta give it your all

And don't you be afraid if you fall

You're only living once so tell me

What are you waiting for?

Are you waiting for the right excuse?

Are you waiting for a sign to choose?

While you're waiting it's the time you loose.

What are you waiting for?

You know you gotta give it your all

And don't you be afraid if you fall

You're only living once so tell me

What are you waiting for?

Tell me what you're waiting for

Show me what you're aiming for

What you gonna save it for?

So what you really waiting for?

Everybody's gonna make mistakes

But everybody's got a choice to make

Everybody needs a leap of faith

When are you taking yours?

What are you waiting for?

When I heard this song and read the lyrics I could almost hear him talking to me, telling me to take that leap of faith I've been so afraid to take, for good reason. 

Before this song came out, time to me was just the passing of everyday.  I couldn't rewind it so I had to live in it.  The sun would come up, I'd fill my day with a lot of crap and then the sun would go down.  I wanted each day to hurry up and be done so I could go to bed, wake up and hurry through the next day and continue this the the remainder of my earthly days so that I could be with him again.  But what I was doing was letting each and every day pass and not have a lick of meaning to me other that it was closer to my day to be called home.  Kinda depressing huh?  Yup.  But what I wasn't doing was facing my fear, moving forward.  This song from Nickelback helped me put into perspective how poorly I was managing my time.  I wasn't making each moment count and that is what I need to do the most.  Our kids don't deserve a mom who is cranky all the time because all she wants is to die so she can be with her love again.  They deserve a mom who is happy and wants to show them life, how to live it to its fullest and enjoy every last moment we have.  I don't deserve to be miserable.  I don't deserve to sit and be so lonely for the rest of my life.  I am so full of life and love, why do I need to waste my days being so miserable?  Why do I need to be so cranky with our wonderfully crazy kids?  That's exactly what he is telling me in this song.  I don't.  I don't need to be miserable.  I can still grieve for loosing him, but I don't need to wait around anymore, afraid to move forward.  I need to have an open mind and an open heart for what comes my way.  I need to stare fear right in the face and not let it stop me anymore.  I need to stop waiting for the right time to move forward.  If I sit around and wait for that, I might never get the chance to experience life, love and happiness again.  So from this point on, I will not let fear stand in my way.  I will face my fear of moving forward and tell it to go shove itself up a very high post and stop getting in my way.  Nothing is going to stop me from feeling happy again, nothing is going to stop me from possibly loving again, nothing is going to stop me from living my life to the fullest and enjoying every minute of it.  Because in the end all we have is time and it is not meant to be passed with misery.