A Good Sleep and A Sad Story

I'm so much better today. Still think I have the cold but I am feeling a lot more rested! I went straight home from work and took a hot shower, dressed in my pj's and went to bed. Not sleep, bed. I lay and read for a short time. I had Dave come over and take my car to have a low tire aired. They visited for a short time and Becca put that medicine on my back and trimmed an inch off my hair. I have no idea why I wanted her to do it but I've lost so much hair it is becoming very difficult to do anything with it. I think the medicine has helped some of the back pain. But my neck... I don't know if there is much hope for that.

After they left, I went straight back to bed. I made two videos playing with my webcam. It does a lot of stuff. I went to the software website and found some additional things to download and messed around with those. That gave me a bit of a lift to my mood. Then I watched a show on Hulu called Wire in the Blood. Another British television show that I really like but it is a bit to violent at times. I love the Tony Hill character. He's just really brilliant. One that show was over, I put out the light and went to sleep. I had taken my medicine while I was watching the show so by the time it was over I was sleepier. I'm going to try again to take it around 8 and go to bed earlier. This morning when the clock woke me I knew I probably needed a couple more hours sleep but work was imminent.

One thing I've figured out is that if I don't wake up on my own, I've not had enough sleep. Remember the weeks and weeks I was waking up at five and six in the morning? I was rested and going to bed at a civilized hour. I just needed to shift that time a bit but hadn't figured that out. You would think by this age I'd know how to sleep, when to sleep, and how much to sleep. I feel like I'm in a foreign country. But I've had sleep problems so long it has never occurred to me I could fix it in any way. I've tried everything. Only now am I learning what works. I take the melatonin faithfully. How am I going to get that into the country if I go to England? LOL, Jilly said you can't get it there or was it controlled? I may have to get a script for it. But it works for me really well. That and the skelaxin muscle relaxant help me sleep. I just have to GO TO BED!

I saw that Jilly did a video this morning. I love it when she does them. I like listening to her chat and watching her laugh at herself. I always leave smiling. I think it is a great thing when people walk away smiling.

As I mentioned before, I'm so tired of living in the dark. I know that the only way to do that is change the way I look at things.

Today I was remembering a woman I once knew. She was a good friend of my mother and her mother had been a dear friend of my grandmother and a member of our church. She was a party girl. I mean the kind who dances on the tables at the bar while blind drunk and a different man a week. Brenda was a mess. In her forties, she met a man, Nathan, at a rodeo, a really good Christian man. They married and she cleaned up to the point you would not have recognized her had you been a bar buddy. She became such a wonderful person, with this positive outlook and astounding faith. Her whole life simply flipped on its head. She stopped the bars and drinking and men. Nathan became a dad to her little girl. They went around doing all kinds of really good things for people, they bought land near her mother, farmed, built a house, became the finest people in the church. They had fall festivals with hay rides and a party for the church every year. Everyone loved them. She was one of the happiest women I've ever known. I was amazed at how her life had turned around. They had maybe 10 years together.

We were in the military and stationed somewhere when I got a call that Nathan was dead. A couple in the church that they had befriended had bought a trailer. Nathan was under it, leveling it. The trailer fell on him, killing him. Brenda and their friend had to dig him out. I visited her shortly after the funeral. She was struggling to hang on and stay positive, to keep her faith. I told a lady in the church that I was worried about her. Remember this woman is my mother's age but I just adored her and knew her fairly well. She was trying too hard to be positive rather than grieve. I left feeling so sad for her and very worried. I returned home.

Later I was told she had stopped going to church. She moved away from the farm and no one knew where she was. Then, a few years later, while at another duty station, I got another call. Brenda was dead. She had moved in with a guy who was abusive. He blew her brains out. The coroner reported that she was so drunk she wouldn't have known what planet she was on. I was so devastated. She had lived her life in such a mess and had changed it completely to become the lovely woman with such joy and energy. Nathan had saved her. Had given her hope. She had placed all her faith in Nathan. And when he was taken, she had nothing to stand on, nothing to prop her up. She lost the home they built. She lost her faith. She lost her life. I remember thinking back then that she had put her faith in the wrong thing. She confused love and gratitude for faith. They aren't the same. When the supports were removed, she fell.

Today, I understand Brenda even more. I realized some time ago that I had leaned on Jerry in similar ways. My life was not the mess Brenda's had been so my rescue was not as profound. But I had a man very like Nathan. In the last year, I've realized how very much is missing and standing on my own feet is nearly impossible. I relied heavily on him, even when I was doing more and more, he was still the support I leaned on. When things got bad, he was still there. Around the end of this last year I had an experience that showed me why some women do stupid things during grief. I understand now why what happened to Brenda can happen to any woman suffering the loss of their spouse. Why misplaced faith is a futile effort.

I get angry at times for what I've lost. For not seeing my mistakes. For not being a better wife, mother, human being. I have to look in the mirror and see myself and I have to face who I am. I suspect when Brenda looked in the mirror she couldn't face herself. She lost herself. She walked away from everything Nathan had given her. She had a home that was paid for, a church family who adored her, a daughter who needed her, a mother who was dying that had asked for prayer over and over and over.  She saw none of that. She has so wrapped herself in another person that she ceased to exist and all she believed in was that person. He became her god.

Faith was not meant to be put in people. If you live for another person, you will either fail them or they will fail you...perhaps not intentionally. One of you will not be here forever. I grieve for Brenda even now. I grieve two wonderful lives lost but most of all, I grieve because Brenda lost far more than her life. And I understand how it happened. I could so easily allow the depression to overwhelm me, the panic attacks to destroy what little life I have left. I could get several drugs to numb my pain, dull my senses, sedate my mind. I could stop going to church and stop praying because there are days I haven't been able to see or hear or feel God or that he cares.

Or I can keep going. I can continually reestablish my faith in the God of my grandmother, not looking to man or woman to complete me and give me strength or make me happy. He hasn't left me during all of the darkness. There were many dark nights when I felt as if I were in that grave with Jerry but I always felt a presence, as if someone were holding my hand. That has never left me. Most of the time, I feel I do not deserve that presence. But I choose to hang on for dear life to that hand.