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.