Monday - Sunny Side Up - Tuesday Not So Much

Monday

Two days of sunshine - amazing. The down side is the 37F temperature. It is cold. It was warmer yesterday. I stayed home as I still wasn't feeling well and Mike is still in the midst of that horrible cold. He'd improving faster than I did. We went to lunch together and I stopped by the cemetery briefly. I was fine until I started to leave and I really looked at his name in the stone. The term "carved in stone" has a new meaning and I begin to think it will always be painful, feeling the chisel cut into it, chipping away at me.

I had that horrid dream and my whole day simply followed suit. It was a stupid dream but it was probably a reflection of what was in my mind. The house is filled with Jerry and yet feels as empty as a tomb. It is an odd analogy - empty as a tomb. They aren't for the most part but I think it refers to the fact that the body may lie there but the person is gone. Regardless, the tone of the day was set before I even woke up. I have no idea why. 

Somewhere in all that I even thought that I should sell the house and go somewhere else. I don't really think that is the answer at this point, particularly in light of my wobbly job situation. I just find that there is nothing here for me anymore. I don't have close friends. I don't have much family and those I do have I don't see much. I go to work and I go home. I'm trying to stay involved in things - crochet and writing. But even the writing group is falling away. I think I'm one of those people who has to be absorbed in something to keep my mind occupied. I've considered taking classes but honestly, my mind is not able to keep the way I did nearly 20 yrs ago.

I need to stop whining about it. I need to shut up and get back to writing. That keeps me focused for hours. Physically I'm better. My cold is abating so I can probably do more than lie around like an amoeba. I've had a bit more pain in my neck this week but probably from not sleeping well. I did better last night I think but it is aching. Yesterday I had a bit more pain all over than usual but it could be the weather... oh, that's probably not true. We have these highs sitting on us right now and it is making the day lovely to look at... thru glass. My back and legs bothered me over the weekend too but I'm pretty sure that is from sitting to much. I simply couldn't do anything. I should have gone to church. I'm sure I'd have felt better. Stupid to think I can ignore everything and sit in that empty house alone. Becca called to check on me and I think my sister Phyllis called me briefly. Other than lunch with Mike I saw no one.

I'm dying to go to the beach. I watched something... or saw some photos.. can't remember which, of the ocean and so longed to just lie in warm sand and listen to the waves. I was ready to pack up right then. OH.. Costa Rica.. that's what it was, an advertisement for a Costa Rican vacation. Warm and sunny and the Gulf of Mexico. I don't believe there are many bodies of water that are more lovely than the Gulf. I remember seeing the Atlantic the first time and though how gray and ugly it was and how cold. I love standing on the beach and looking out over the blue, blue Gulf until it blends with the sky. I am homesick and there is no home left there. 

I am going to get back to work. I just needed to get all my thoughts down. The positive aspect of the blog is that I can look back over time and see what was going on and how I was dealing with it. I wish, in a lot of ways, that I'd been a more consistent journalist over the years. I have some journals but there were weeks and sometimes months that I didn't write anything. And they are decidedly depressing. I only wrote when I was down it seems. The online journals tend to be more a reflection of what's normal for most of us... huh, I'm normal.

Tuesday

The afternoon fell apart for me and the evening was spent with Dave, Becca, and Sarah. Crisis seems to bring us together as a family and Becca offered to do some cleaning for me. I sat and watched cartoons with Sarah and crocheted on her spread. I must get some photos posted of the squares. They're really pretty.

This morning loomed gray. I thought it was going to have sunshine because there was a bit of sun through my window but it quickly disappeared before I even left the house. 

Only real pain I have today is that darn shoulder and my neck. I know they are related. I move my arm in a certain motion it hurts and I never know it is going to hurt until it does. The neck ease a bit once I'm up and moving around but again, certain motion and position hurts it. 

I had some bad leg pains late yesterday. I think sitting all day Sunday was the reason. I simply sat all day at home and did very little but read and watch t.v. and I think I crocheted some. Sunday is mostly a blank.

I'm not going to write a lot this morning because I have lots of work to get busy with. I might be back later today or tonight but can't promise. I'm trying not to think about anything at all, a preoccupied mind makes it easier to function.

In the Walls

In Memory - January 29, 2009.

I could leave that as my only post today and it would be adequate. I thought, somehow, that because the last few months have been tolerable that today would be very easy. Even up until yesterday I thought, “This year I won't notice so much. I won't feel so bad.”

I had a dream this morning. I was asleep in the house and in the dream I woke up and began to walk through the house. Something was wrong with a spot high up on my bedroom wall that backs on the laundry room. It was a “hot spot”. In my dream I thought, 'We moved the fuse box so that can't be causing this.' The area was soft and sticky and very warm. In the real world, the fuse box is on the opposite wall of the laundry room where it has always been.

I left the room, calling Jerry as I went. I went to the living room and the front door, both storm door and entry door were standing open. I stared, dumbfounded. What on earth was he doing that he'd leave me asleep in the house with the doors open like that? I went to the kitchen and checked the laundry room and found that the hot water heater was removed. Again, I stared. I began to work on the floor that needs replacing.

Then, I stopped. Where was Jerry? I went back to the living room and looked out the window and saw my sister's car. I went out just as she was coming in. A refrigerator was lying on the ground near the house and near the curb between my drive and the next cabinets and other junk lay on the ground. My sister said, “The people next door are moving out.”

I said, “No, she's in a nursing home and they're cleaning the place out.” This is true, by the way, she is but there's been no work there for a year at least. And no junk anywhere around.

I said, “I can't figure out where Jerry is.”

We went into the house and I went into the bathroom. Bright blue paint was all over the tiles and the shower curtain was missing. It wasn't being painted. It looked as if someone had  been painting and residue settled as they tried to clean up but it was all over the place. I rubbed a spot on the tile and it seemed to rub off easily. There was a time I'd have blown a gasket to find such things. Now I just though, “It'll come off.” Oddly, it was the old white tile we used to have in there.

I stepped into the hall. Incidentally, my bathroom was not in the right place. But directly across was a door to another room where this is a closet in the real world.  I saw a white shower curtain, spattered with blue paint hanging from what appeared to be a shower rod. I saw Jerry behind it in an odd position. He was wearing his glasses and that registered as odd to me. He'd had contacts for several years before he died. His hair was also thick and dark. It had begun to thin when he died. He'd been coloring it for years. He was younger and slim.

He appeared to be sitting on top of the window, his legs through the wall and he was hanging backwards, his hands behind his head as if he was on a lounge chair relaxing. It was such an odd, frightening position and my heart pounded. I yelled his name and ran into the room. In  my mind I thought he was dead but I asked what he was doing. He didn't answer me. He just looked at me and made no attempt to get down.

I told him I'd help him get down. I began to check the wall to see how to get him down and I saw that the wall was literally “finished” around him. There was no “hole” that he'd gotten stuck in. He was just a part of the wall. His hips were in the wall, over the window and the wall smoothly finished all around him.

In my head I was thinking I need to call 911 and get help. I have to get him out of there. And then I woke up into the real world feeling as if my chest were being crushed. I sat up and looked around.

And I said, “God, that wasn't fair. That was cruel. It was mean.”

Gray Matter

Thursday dawned... scratch that. Thursday didn't dawn... it morphed. Everything went from black to a blanket of gray. Heavy fog greeted me when I lifted the garage door. It was cold but not miserably so, in fact, warmer than yesterday and damp. And now, at 2 p.m . it still looks like it did this morning, but the fog has lifted slightly... but it is all gray.

I am still coughing, although less than before and the stuff in my chest has decided to release, allowing my lungs to clear a bit more with each cough. 

Now, my head must be the fountain of youth because my nose is a running spring. I didn't realize you could hold that much stuff inside your sinus cavities. It is horrendous and until this week the nose wasn't even an issue! I blew my nose over the weekend and it went into the Eustachian tube (runs between your ear and throat to allow your ears to drain) and nearly fell over with a horrendous dizzy spell. This is a totally new thing to me. I've never had such an experience as that and and find if I never do again. It took ten minutes for that to pass and for days now I've been having mild balance issues and trouble hearing. Several times the stuff was pushed into my ear when I had to blow my nose. Really unpleasant and I seem to have no way to prevent it...well, I did start blowing in a different manner to try and prevent it - with only moderate success. Although why it is going backwards when I'm blowing forward makes no sense.

Mike is also sick with the same thing. He has a doctor's appointment tomorrow anyway and it is a good thing. 

I have a writer's meeting tonight. I'm looking forward to it and I hope it is productive. Although, I haven't been writing the last two weeks it is always helpful to run ideas by everyone. I think all but one of us will be there tonight. Unless someone backs out.

I sat and worked on Saran's spread last night until about 9:15 a.m. It is going to be really colorful and so pretty. I'm eager to get it finished but at the rate I'm going it is going to be several months. Each square takes me a couple of hours. I'm at the point that I'm finishing one each night and starting a new one to finish the next night. I keep screwing up in the 3rd thru 6th rows. It is a very frustrating because just as I think I've got it, I find I haven't. These rows are very much alike with a very minor change and it throws me every time. Doesn't help that I'm sick and not really able to focus long. 

All right, back to work now. I hope you are all having a much brighter day than I am. Although, despite the impending terminations I'm not sweating it. I can't change whatever happens. I have sat and counted the cost to me if it is me. It isn't good. But I've been through this before and I'm so tired of it that I think I find it hard to react. I've had a lot happen to me since the last time, horrible things that took more than I could ever imagine from me. I find that these days I simply am unable to care about much else. 

Losing your job is terrible but honestly, there really are worse things that can happen to you. If I could have Jerry back in exchange for this job.... I'd willingly walk out. I'd go back to living in crappy houses with no money and not much else. I seem to remember we were happy in those places, even though we wanted better. Sunday will be three years. How empty life has been that it feels as if it were yesterday.

Sunlight

And there was light.... lots of sunlight in a cloudless blue sky at 38F. I still feel pretty bad but the level of crap has receded. Maybe three kinds now.

I've been sick for over a week and it really stinks.Noooo it isn't the crap I smell!   I am getting nothing, and I mean NOTHING, done. Sue, my cleaning genie, is still out of town. I don't know when she'll be back. The house is a mess, at least to me. I've done some minor cleaning and kept the dishes washed but it needs more. It has been three weeks since Sue cleaned it. I did laundry over the weekend and I did Mike's last night. I stopped by his place and picked it up. He's really sick, too and not able to come over with it. Twice he said he would but called to say he just couldn't. He's been washing out a pair of under shorts every night to wear. Well, he'll have some clean tonight.

I did manage to dabble in my story last night but only briefly. I don't actually remember what else I did last night. I think I watched something. I think I read something for a bit but mostly, I just don't remember. While I ate I watched something... I do remember that. Then I messed with the story... nothing constructive... just read a scene and thought... "That's really really good." Read another and thought about how to improve it. All I can say is "it is what I like". I don't know if anyone else will. 

So January will be a washout for WRoE. But I'm fine with it. I have been sick for half a month. I worked on it the first week, rested from it the second, got sick the third and am still fairly sick. I really need a good sleep and a good sleep is what I'm not getting at the moment. On a positive note, joint pain while I have been ill.... really. Silliest thing I've heard. But I have been so sick and felt so bad.... IT DIDN'T MATTER! My ribs hurt, my chest hurt, my neck hurt, and my head hurt...every time I cough -- which is constantly.

Last night my neck bothered me.. Guess what... positional pain. I'm nearly positive that a lot of the neck pain is posture when at my computer and the weight on my chest. I get pulled out of a good posture or I sit incorrectly when working on the computer. No more laptop in bed or on the sofa unless I have a really proper support for it and a way to keep my spine aligned. I watch a good little video on youtube about proper position and it really helped. Just have to keep at it. 

I'm hungry and it is lunch time now. So, I'm off. May your day be filled with sunlight. 

Stormy Night

The storm blew in about 30 minutes ago. Huge wind and rain and thunder. It has calmed a bit at the moment but not sure how long it is supposed to last. Based on the weather map, maybe another 30 minutes of rain. Just a guess.

I'm on my way to bed. Work is still headed toward me at the speed of a jet. I'm not actually ready for the impact.