Back online

It was rather odd to be offline for a week and a half. I had a tiny notepad to work on and it was having a few problems and broadband access was horribly expensive, so I cut down on my computing time massively.

DD and I spent quite a bit of time in the hotel pool. She still can’t get the hang of lying on her back, floating. Massive trust and belief problems, I think.

DD just watched an episode of 3rd and Bird, the one where the baby kitten is lost and the birds help the kitten. DD has seen that one before. I wasn’t expecting her reaction this time, though.

She came into my study, tears streaming down her face. “Mummy, I miss our two kitties. I want them back!” These are the two cats that died last year. She hasn’t really mentioned them for months but obviously something about that episode brought them to mind. Poor love, she took a while to calm down. We had a long talk, including me explaining that I couldn’t dig up the cats’ bodies from the garden because their spirits were gone.

I’m feeling a bit blue now. I was OK for a while.

 

Nearly a year now

It’s been nearly a year since DH died. Part of me is amazed that so much time has passed and I haven’t arranged with the foundary for a memorial for his ashes. Nor have I cleared up the house from the extraordinary amount of clutter.

The other part of me is (forgive me) relieved that it is nearly a year. For some reason, I was thinking “If I can get through a year, then I might be OK.” Who knows whether I will or not? Hope has been the only thing propelling me some days. My faith has been wobbly, contentious, vague, and argumentative and I have given myself permission to tear a strip off so-called Christian people who give me crap about ‘Trust in the Lord’, rubbish about perfect love and all things working to God’s purpose, and how God sees time. Y’know, if that’s the best you can offer someone, just shut up. Just shut up. Nobody wants to hear that. Not even a year on from someone’s death. I have been let down by people who think they are God’s representatives on earth because the only way they want to help is by prayer because (God help them) practical help may actually require that they be uncomfortable or give up some free time or think about another person in a real, concrete way.

Good things? Well, some of my friends who are not Christians have been the greatest comfort and help in the past year. Their kindness and love has known no bounds. They have accepted me as an imperfect person they still love. Some Christian friends have been loving and have helped me in dark times.

Here is an article on “The way we grieve now” by Piper Weiss. I disagree with Claire Bidwell Smith who says:

once you share your coping rituals, however odd they may feel, you’ll find you’re not alone and not crazy at all. Then, you can start moving forward.

Um, what? I don’t think “SHARE” is the word. “Admit to self” perhaps. But honestly, I don’t want to hear about others’ coping mechanisms and they may not wish to share it. Far more important to work it out with oneself and see it for what it is. That’s all.

 

Decluttering this evening

Good grief, is there no end to the stuff in these filing cabinets? Another supermarket bag full of stuff to shred. A box of paper, magazines, etc. to be recycled. I even found old printer cartridges – used ones!

It’s amazing I can even get to the desk.

No wonder the burglars gave up.

 

Dear Universe, you can stop it now

I’ve had enough. Completely had it.

All the utter crap I’ve had to deal with over the past year, and you send me the latest offering – a burglary. Now I have not only lost my engagement ring and DH’s wedding ring and the two necklaces he gave me as birthday presents plus the TV, I’ve had to also deal with the crap of repairing the door the burglars had to break down in order to get into the house. Then there are the umpteen phone calls and faxes to the insurance company, the UTTERLY INEXPLICABLE building estimator who seems to work in another state, and so on.

Seriously, dear God, this is enough. OK, I know that I am grateful for the dear people who love me. I am ALREADY grateful. You don’t have to beat me around the head to point that out. You made me. You know I’m not a total dumbass. I’m grateful for the things I have. I get it. So why on earth do you keep dumping this stuff on me? I gave up on trying to work out if it was some sort of ‘lesson’ back last year. As for punishment – well, this gets to the point where I am being punished for things I haven’t actually got around to doing yet. Not to mention the damage done to my darling, dear daughter who at four years old is way too young to go through terrors of burglars breaking into her house and stealing things.

God, I’m over it. I can’t deal with it anymore. I’ve told you this before, but maybe you were busy doing something else at the time. OK, I understand that you don’t owe me anything, but please help.

You know I love you anyway.

Meowmie

 

Too quiet

That’s why I’m not enjoying being home this afternoon. Yes, I’ll have to get over it eventually but in the meantime, it is all too obvious that the Siamese Princess is no longer here.

I haven’t been pestered for another snack. There’s no cat hair on my duvet. There’s no yowling for this or that. There’s no purring at my feet while I type. No cat has got shut in a kitchen cupboard by accident. There aren’t any pawprints around the kitchen sink and the bread board.

In short, it’s quiet.

 

Dear Universe, Enough already!

That’s what I was thinking yesterday. I had to have my darling youngest cat put to sleep. The house is so empty, despite having two humans in it. Her noisy little snores, bouncy games, yowls and meows, bounces on the kitchen counters and garbage bin investigations are all missing.

 

Organised families – one person at a time

There is a BabyCenter article here that I’m going to read. I sometimes agree and sometimes disagree with articles that I read on the BabyCenter website (and boy oh boy am I sick of all those darn coupons and offers both on the site and in e-mails – hellooooooo! I’m in Australia and can’t use any of them!).

So, back to the article. Best thing, it starts with the Basics. So important that I will give it a capital letter.

1. Commit to change.
Yes, I have, but my commitment sometimes wavers. I get tired, I work in an office, I have to find time to exercise, and so on. So I need to re-commit to change, and to believe in it.

2. Take it slow.
Yes, I’m doing that. I teach DD new things that will help us eventually be more organised re time and activities (e.g. most recently we’ve been working on how she can make sandwiches). The teaching takes up time, but I accept that this is actually an investment of time, both in the initial teaching and in supervising practice. It paid off with potty training.

3. Keep it simple.
Thank you, dear writers, for reminding me. Now and then when I was doing initial decluttering, I was tempted by home TV programs that I need certain container systems, or clothing racks, or bookshelves of a certain size, or cabinets …. OMG! Stop that! It is only now that I’m part way through that I can see the floor and see what sorts of things would work. Sometimes being slow is an advantage.

4. Sort and purge.
Go back to the article. Read this. Can you honestly say that you could purge your wardrobe or kitchen cupboards or bookshelves? This is worth quoting:

A good rule of thumb: If you haven’t used something in a year, chuck it. If you just can’t bring yourself to do that, box it up and stash it in the basement — if another year goes by and you still haven’t used it, get rid of it. And rather than holding on to every item with sentimental value, pick a few representative pieces to save …

5. Store things sensibly.
OK, this is something that is in flux in my household and because I don’t always store things sensibly, it comes back and bites me in the ass. Picture me dashing round trying to find the Telstra bill, or wondering where I put the receipt for the purse that now has a broken zipper, or looking for DD’s library book that is now overdue.*

6. Build organisation into your daily routine.
Yes, very keen on that, and working to regain what organisation in my daily routine may have disappeared after DH’s death and the subsequent chaos of my life. Part of the desire for routine is my OCD, but I also have strong examples from my mother who is very organised. I know what time we need to leave in the morning to ensure that we are at work and childcare on time. I know when we need to leave to get to a swimming lesson or to a ballet lesson. All these things are vital to cut down on anxiety.

7. Help kids get with the program.
Yes, doing that bit by bit. DD is having an “interesting” time at the moment – more grief working itself out in tantrums, rebelliousness, cheekiness and rudeness – but occasionally the beautiful DD comes out and I am so very grateful for those moments. (If I were a better or more Christian mother, I suspect I would be grateful for her rude periods and see it as a time of testing grace or something. But apparently I’m not and I’ll have to get over it. )

OK, I’m going to print off that article so I have a copy in the kitchen. One day when I feel very brave, I’ll post photos of the two most frightening rooms in my house so you can see my progress.

*1. I found the bill. 2. No receipt, so I am out $29 for a purse that absolutely is useless for my purposes. 3. The library book ended up at the bottom of DD’s toy box and I had to pay a library fine.

 

When did it become June?

It’s the 2nd of June today. Where did 5 months of the year go to?

While I’m on these questions, maybe the universe will answer a few more.

Why does Austria put in crappy Eurovision entries?
Why haven’t I decluttered DH’s study yet?
Why did DH hide *my* stuff in boxes underneath many other boxes in his study?
Why are Raymond Feist’s books so boring and long?
Why have I been pathetic in contacting a couple of friends, even by phone? And am I becoming frightened of the phone again?
Why can’t I get my crap together re bundling telephone and internet services? Am I frightened of the too-difficult-to-understand plans?
Why is my diet failing?
Who is whispering to my big boss that I probably should work fewer hours?
Who have I pissed off recently? Or in the past?
Where do my reserves of patience come from? And can I get a bit extra to deal with DD?

DD is having a rough time. OK, it isn’t unexpected but I find it hard to deal with occasionally because I am not sleeping well myself. Having a small person wake up hollering or crying because she’s lost her bedsock or a favourite stuffed toy in bed is enough to completely mess up my sleeping pattern. Last night I got six hours of sleep – SIX! Count them! That totally pwns the 3 hours the previous night.

I still don’t have a social life. (If you’re one of those horrible people who think a widow should sit home every night and do worthy crafts or read spiritual books, kindly bugger off right now.) No choir. No movies. No dinners out. I want to remember who I was as an adult rather than simply mother-and-hard-worker. Yeah, I’m hoping for too much. Better off shutting my mouth now and fading into the background.

 

More sadness

My father-in-law died last Friday.

DD has misbehaved since I told her the news. Poor dear, this is such a hard thing for her to deal with. This afternoon was the first time she was back to being her normal self (long may that continue). No magic words, no instant fix, just hard slog for us all.

 

And so it goes

Today I had another cheque to deposit from DH’s estate. This time it was made out to the executor. Yup, still awful. Still pokes at the soreness. Made slightly more grim by having to explain to the bank tellers that the form they were waving about was actually DH’s will and yes, I am the executor. I didn’t want them to feel awful so I held off crying until later.

Still felt embarrassed and slightly sick while standing for half an hour listening to speeches and consequently spent most of that time with my body trying to regulate temperature (no way to escape discreetly). Cue blushes, chills and then a heated up body, then chills. Gotta love a Canberra winter. Note to self: no more polyester. Must get to shops to buy some cotton or linen shirts.