December 31, 2007

This is it – the last day of an incredibly difficult year. Hard to believe that he’s been gone for nine months. Hard to believe that I could (even want) to recover and learn a ‘new normal.’ One thing is certain; I am so ready to put the year 2007 to bed tonight and move into 2008. A fresh, clean slate, just waiting to be painted on with whatever I choose to do. Pretty exciting, yet sad when I think that he will never see this year. Hell, he never really saw ‘07, to be honest.

I think perhaps one of the biggest indicators that I’m moving forward was when I was offered the chance to either be mean and petty or better than that the other day. Jr. and bubblebutt didn’t give shippers the correct address on something they had ordered, so it ended up being delivered to my house. To be honest, the urge to either send it back or throw it away was very strong. Instead I decided the other day to just leave it on their porch, keeping my karma going in the right direction (I hope).

No list or resolutions that won’t be kept. My only goal for this coming year is to stay focused and continue moving forward with as few setbacks emotionally as possible. That should be enough work for one year…

Moving Forward

Nothing disgusts me more than sexual predators.

Thursdays’ training was a very stressful, awful day. My btw trainer has always had a tendency to displays of inappropriate behavior, but since he’d never done more than just make verbal comments to me in the past when I worked for the company before, I had already planned on just ignoring him and his comments so I could get the training done and move on with life. Thursday changed all of that.

I won’t go into all the details, but suffice it to say that I came away from that days’ training feeling raped and violated. In addition to the verbal comments, he managed to get physical with me while I was driving the bus. At first, when I parked the bus that afternoon, I tried to blow it off. “Only two more days with this asshole, then I’ll be done with him,” is what I kept telling myself. However, as the night went on, the more I thought about it, the more upset I became, until by midnight I was hysterical and in full-blown panic attack. Once again, thank God for friends. I called one who is also a driver and knows this guy, and he stayed on the phone with me for over two hours listening to me scream and cry, just listening. I asked him to call the branch manager for me and explain to her that I wouldn’t be able to make training that day, but I would be in to file an incident report. I had every intention of walking away from the job also. They have promised me a full investigation, and knowing the branch manager, it will happen. However, the asshole has been with the company for almost 20 years, so most likely nothing will happen. Which will leave me with a decision to make on whether or not I want to stay and work at the same location as him. Chances are not, as I know from past experience just how bad sexual predators can get, especially if they get away with it.

Meanwhile, some very good changes are happening in the mudpit I call my mind. I think I’m beginning to see the reasons why my subconscious wanted me to go back to driving. Already, I’m feeling more disciplined in my head, and starting to get the forward momentum that I had when I first got back from The Road Trip. My hope is that asshole will get fired, and I can continue to move forward. I have the chance to walk into a very sweet route, hauling special ed kids, which means that I’ll have an attendant to deal with the kids while pretty much all I gotta do is drive. The route is more hours than I wanted, almost 7 1/2, but that’s ok too. My biggest mindset that I’ll have to guard against is the mindset that a lot of busdrivers end up with – that of not doing anything more than the busdriving. They get up, haul kids all day, and because of the mental exhaustion associated with the job, never seek to expand anything more than their butts. It’s easy to become mentally stagnant because as a driver hauling kids, you have so many mentally stressful aspects of the job, so your mind just goes stagnant and you quit learning. It happened the last time I worked there, but I don’t want it to happen again.

Driver Training – Day 2

Ugh. 5am. What an awful time of day…

I suppose I’ll get used to the early mornings, much like I did last time. I will not, however, ever learn to enjoy them. The driving is coming back quickly; all the different steps to picking up and dropping off students, doing the r.r. crossings, etc. My b.t.w. (behind the wheel) trainer is cool. Yesterday he just kinda let me get used to the new buses. When last I drove, we had the TC2000 style. Now we have conventional style buses. Big difference in turning and reference points. At least I don’t have to deal with the DMV stuff other than getting the school bus endorsement added to my license. That will be the first of two endorsements I’m getting this year.

The other will be my motorcycle endorsement. After being the owner of a motorcycle since 2004, yet only putting 300 miles on the thing, I’ve decided that it’s time to just get over the fear of the thing and start riding it. Not real sure what clicked the fear about riding it; I’ve never been afraid of learning how to drive anything. No matter; that little bitch sitting out in the garage will not defeat me. I will get on it, and ride it until the fear is gone.

Too bad it’s not summer already…

Almost There

Day 283 of this grief journey. Christmas Eve. I’ll be really glad when both are done.

Like last year, I’ve volunteered to bartend at the Legion so that the canteen manager can spend the day with his wife, kids, and grandkids. I have no one really to spend it with, so it just makes sense. Canteen manager is also one of my closet friends, and the one that held me together the first few awful months after J passed, so this is one small way to thank him for his support. I was invited to dinner with a friend at his mom’s house, but I just don’t like the ‘fifth-wheel’ feeling. I don’t think I’ll be as emotional on Christmas as I was on Thanksgiving; we celebrated the holiday, but it just wasn’t the big, commercial deal that so many people buy into. We celebrated it for what it was; Jesus’ birthday, and the beginning of possible change for the world.

Day after that, I start re-training for school bus driver. 7am. Gawd. On one hand, I suppose it’ll be good to get back to a routine, get out of the house, go to work. I have to admit, though, that’s it’s been really nice to take time off from the world, run my own schedule, do my thing at whatever time was convenient for me. But I suppose it’s time to re-enter the world, figure out what’s next. Bus driving will be short-term. I will not let my degree go unused much longer. Just a matter of finding someone willing to let me get my foot in the door with the obsolete experience I have.

For some reason, I’m really missing my kids and grandson this year. Maybe it’s because daughter and grandson were supposed to be here for Christmas this year, and it’s his first one. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but it did hurt when she told me that she wanted him to spend his first Christmas with his local family. Oh well; I suspect I’ll get over that too. Like there’s a choice…

I was talking with another local the other day that’s been walking the grief journey also. She started about 8 months before me. The subject of sex the first time after losing your loved one came up. We both agreed that it is perhaps one of the strangest emotional experiences to have. Part guilt because you’re not with your spouse; part relief that you can still feel, and need, and want that closeness. Part worry that you’re gonna just tear up whoever is the first ’cause it’s been so damn long, but not really caring if they can walk or not when it’s done!

Yes, it was a relief to know that I’m not completely emotionally dead. Do I want a relationship with this person? No, I do not, at least not at this point. In order to give your heart away, first you must have one to give. As mine is still in pieces, albeit bigger pieces than they were a few months ago, I would say I don’t have one to give at this point in my life. I’m ok with that. Emotions are such messy things anyway; better to just share the sex and call it good. I’ve got too many other emotions going on in my head on any given day to throw a new relationship into the mix anyway. I like the current arrangement, and he’s not looking for a messy emotional relationship either, so at least for now, it’s a good setup for both of us.

A Step Backwards

Well, I finally did it. Went down to the bus barn and got my job back as a school bus driver. Feels like I’ve come full circle from 2000; living alone and haulin’ kids. I think perhaps the worst part is that I did go to school, I did graduate, yet all I’m doing is haulin’ kids again. Yep; it’s grinding on me. At least everyone will quit bugging me about going back to work now. Maybe I’ll look up my friend C on the University website and see if he’s got any cool classes he’s teaching next semester. That might help.

I can honestly say that once I dump all this stuff I’ve got, I never, ever want to be so loaded down with material possessions again. I’ve never had a lot of stuff, and this is just overwhelming. To date, I have sold both boats and the Maverick. Got what I wanted for all of them, too. Still got folks bugging me about his guns, and a couple people that just won’t leave me alone about his truck, even though I’ve made it clear that I’m keeping it. It’s too good of a truck, and owning a truck up here is pretty much mandatory.

Called the airline and fortunately the tickets that I bought for J and I last year are still good. I’M GOING TO MEXICO!! I can’t wait to get into the warm darkness. My friend down there is already setting me up with all kinds of things to do, and I get to stay with her, so it’ll be a fairly cheap trip, but most welcome. I’m toying with the idea of taking some of J’s cremains with me to scatter on the Sea of Cortez. I did promise him that I would, so I guess I gotta do it, but that will be a hard one. Maybe I’ll do it on our anniversary. Get some closure.

Been asked out on a date. Part of me wants to go really bad, I gotta get back into life even if I have to force myself out there. Part of me just wants to come home and tell J about it and have a good laugh like we used to.

Have I ever mentioned that figuring out your ‘new normal’ after losing your spouse really, really sucks?

…yeah, it does. Big time

Dreams

I had the strangest dream last night. Dreamt that I was diagnosed with cancer and would die, except the cancer was very slow-moving and would take another 30 years to kill me. It wasn’t too hard to figure out the corollary to real life when I woke up. The entire dream, though, I had the same fear and sadness that defined my life last year while J was dying from cancer. In a constant state of fight or flight, yet not knowing who or what I was supposed to be fighting or flighting from. The feelings were so real, so vivid, that I carried them over to the day when I woke up. Total, complete anxiety attack. Yet while I was in the midst of the attack, my brain was processing the dream and figuring out what lesson my subconscious was trying to send me.

Pretty much, it was this – if I were to die today, would someone be able to step into my life and close up my final business, or have I left a mess much like J did? You would think the answer would be yes, I’ve made it easy for my Personal Rep to take care of my final business, but sadly, that’s not the case. I don’t even have a will, even though I’ve seen the mess it creates when there are no well-defined instructions for the survivors to follow. If anything, I’ve created more of a mess in this house than I have cleaned up, and I would feel sorry for the poor soul that would have to muddle through this horror flick that is my home.

I’d say it’s well past time for the clean-up crew (of 1) to show up. Don’t want anymore nightmares like last night. Starting the day off with an anxiety attack is just not the way to go…

Happy Lights and Roller Coasters

For those that may not know, a happy light is your basic full-spectrum lightbox. Used in the winter time for sufferers of SAD, it can work wonders on a brain deprived of the usual amounts of seratonin due to lack of light. So why did I wait so long this year to start using mine?

I bought one back in ‘02 when I first heard about SAD, and it really helps. Usually within just a few days I’m back to full energy. But for some reason this year, it sat in the closet forgotten, until yesterday when a friend stopped by for coffee. She started talking about her happy light and how she and the dog are using it every day and starting to feel better, and it clicked – “Dumbass, why aren’t you using yours?” Ok, so I started my happy light therapy today. Should be ok in my head in a few days.

Survived Thanksgiving. I actually stayed in the house with my ghosts all day. Got past J’s birthday too. Had a few 7 & 7’s in his honor, but that was about it. Now I just gotta get through Christmas and New Year’s; maybe then I’ll be back on track. Actually for a few weeks I was doing pretty good; started working out at the gym using a personal trainer, bought a treadmill (and was actually using it!), and just slowly making long overdue changes. Then I got to this week -

Started off the same. No indication that there was an emotional roller coaster waiting for me later in the week. Then Thursday came around, and there it was – my own personal grief roller coaster, just sittin’ there waitin’ on me. And really, it’s not like you have a choice on whether or not you take the ride; you’ve already bought the ticket, and when it shows up, you have no choice but to get on the damn thing and hang on. At least I’ve gotten smart and I now keep a huge supply of Kleenex’s in the house for these ’special’ days. Not sure what triggered this one; probably the deluge of ads showing happy husbands buying their happy wives that penultimate Christmas gift, which according to the commercial, makes everything just about perfect. Thank God for Tivo. I am now recording all shows that I like to watch so I can watch them later skipping through all the merry, fu*&cking, happy Christmas crap.

So, here I am, struggling with yet another wave of grief that’s as fresh as the day he passed away, except this time grief for my best friend and my dad have joined the chorus. Great. Thank God for friends. One stopped by for coffee on her way to work, and another called me when I snuck into N.P. for pizza and beer and talked me into meeting him for a beer at one of the local watering holes. He didn’t even care that I hadn’t showered or even brushed my teeth either (that’s a really good friend!). We sat and talked over a beer, and without him even knowing that he did it, he pulled me off the roller coaster that I was stuck on.

I’ll say this again – thank God for friends, especially the ones with the patience of Job. No matter how many times I have to climb on my roller coaster, they are always there, waiting for me to get the strength to climb off. Sometimes they just simply yank me off, which is ok too.