I have been telling myself for a while now that I would sit down to write a new entry in my blog. I have intentions of doing it more, but sometimes my thoughts seem so jumbled and it's hard to know where to start. I will be lying in bed about to drift off and I think of something profound that I want to write, but by the time I wake up, I can't remember what it was.
I find myself 37 years old, not knowing where I am headed in my life. Don't get me wrong, I AM EXTREMELY BLESSED and if you know me, then you know that most days I spend my time LIVING MY BEST LIFE. I have my family, my friends, I own a house and car, have 3 college degrees, and some pretty dang adorable "fur babies", seriously have you seen them?
I certainly thought by this point in my life, I would be married and have a baby or two. There is nothing that I have ever wanted more than I have wanted to be a mommy. If I am 100% honest every day that passes that I am not a mom, my heart breaks a little. What if I am too old to have that dream come true now? Why hasn't the one thing that I long for happened yet? I have ALWAYS believed what is meant to be will be, but I would be lying if I didn't question this all the time. Some of you know that I had weight loss surgery about two years ago, but you might not be aware that having a baby was the main reason I had it done. Being overweight can be the reason a woman has trouble getting pregnant. Having the surgery was/is one of the very best decisions I have ever made. I cannot begin to tell you how much better I feel, how much happier I am to be 130 pounds lighter than I was the day I went in for surgery. I do want to lose about 40 more pounds, but I am very proud of how far I have come already. I have had some people say (both to my face and behind my back) that having surgery was "the easy way out". If that is how you feel, you are certainly entitled to your opinion, but you have no idea what you are talking about. I have and continue to work hard; this is a lifestyle change that you have to be committed to for life! If you haven't been in my shoes, if you haven't been overweight, your entire life, if you haven't spent every year since 5th grade trying a new diet then you have no idea. If you ever have any questions about it, before you judge, please ask me, don't just assume.
I had a stranger (presumably, I guess it could have been someone I know hiding behind a username on the internet) contact me recently. "He" proceeded to tell me that he had read my previous blog posts about Jack and that I shouldn't be writing stuff like that. He said that what I wrote about shouldn't be posted so publicly, but...
#1 Sir, although I owe no one an explanation, I have every right to write WHATEVER I want to, in MY blog, and if you have a problem with what I write, it's very simple.... don't read it. Grief is strange, and if my blog is one of the ways I choose to grieve Jack, then that is what I will do.
#2 This blog serves a few purposes: It's a way to write out my thoughts, and it also is written on the off chance that someone who is going through something that I have been through and needs to know that they are not alone.
I also had a friend say two things that caught me off guard.
1. She said I was struggling because I am still in love with someone that had died and
2. she asked me something that made me stop and think. She asked me, "If things between me and Jack were bad the majority of the time, why was I (still) so upset about his death?"
My immediate thought was that I didn't actually know the answer to these questions.
I know that it was a genuine question, and I will admit it made me think about my answer. The short answer is that no matter how much of an ass he could be, I truly loved him. My relationship with Jack was rocky, to say the least. When Jack and I first started dating, we went to dinner with one of my friends. She told me later that she watched him the whole night. She said it was as if, in his eyes, I was the only one in the room. Many days over the 3 years that Jack, and I dated (on and off) he didn't even love himself, much less have the ability to love someone else. But on the days that Jack loved, he loved me hard. When it was good it was terrific, and when it was bad it could be really bad. Jack very rarely slept at night. He would stay up most nights, but he would come to bed at bedtime and lay with me (and the dogs) until I fell asleep, even if we were mad at each other, he would give me that time of us just laying together quietly and I cherished it. It is hard to explain this statement, but I tried so many times to save him from himself.
What most people don't know, is that I feel very guilty about Jack's death...
Deep down, I do know that it wasn't my fault, and it wasn't something that I could have physically stopped. Jack struggled on and off with drugs. 99% of the time I enabled this behavior, if simply just by ignoring the fact that it was such a problem. Within several months two of Jack's friends (who were also heavily into drugs) died in (separate) car accidents and he was clearly upset at the loss of them both. We were arguing about the pills he was taking (I didn't know specifics because I chose to ignore the problem). This moment plays over and over in my head ALL THE TIME! That night I looked him in the eye, and I told him "You know why both of them died in these accidents, and you are STUPID if you think that it won't happen to you too unless you get your life together and stop choosing drugs". I guess I hoped it could be a “teachable” moment. Little did I know that exact thing would actually happen. I will never actually know what caused his accident, but I feel some sort of guilt daily. My heart hurts every time I think about saying that sentence to him. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that drugs are the reason he is gone, honestly, I don't know the answer to that, and truth be told, I don't want to know. I know in his mind he was fighting something within himself that I couldn’t understand and taking pills was his way of trying to escape that.
Jack always told me that he didn’t want to live anymore and that no one would even notice or miss him if he was gone. That really hurt my heart every time it came out of his mouth. I swear it couldn’t be further from the truth. I know many many many people that miss him constantly especially me!
When Jack and I were together I poured a lot of myself into him. I think I hoped that I could save him (although if I’m honest, I’m not sure from what), not change him but save him from himself or save him from the demons he seemed to be fighting daily. In that moment I thought, if someone doesn’t know why I would be sad that he’s gone or still love him as much as I do, they should feel lucky that they haven’t had to feel that pain yet in their lives. It is a feeling I cannot put into words. All I know is that out of nowhere it hurts, you find yourself catching a glimpse of something that makes you think of them, and it instantly give you a sadness that only someone who’s felt that before will truly understand. It is something that I can’t put into words, and let’s face it we all know that I have lots of words to say (haha). No matter how many times he hurt me, what I wouldn’t give to hear him tell me that “I was his pumpkin, and he was my Jack-O-Lantern “one more time. 🎃
The weirdest things make me think about him and randomly cry...
- Driving down the road in the rain: we had a huge fight one night and I left his house in the middle of the night in the pouring rain, now driving in the rain makes me miss our stupid fights.
- The song "You should be here" by Cole Swindell playing on the radio, but not for the reason you think. Cole Swindell was the only concert Jack ever went to and that is something that we did together. He was so happy that night and we had such a good time.
- Peanut Butter, Pepsi, cookies and cream ice cream, a Jack-O-Lantern (this was an inside thing), the movie The Incredibles (it was his favorite). The list goes on and on.
I truly believe that Jack sends me little signs here and there. I am thankful for them, especially on the hard days. Yes, I am still sad, and I probably always will be on some level, but I am ok, I am learning to live a life that he is not a part of. There is no blueprint for grief!
His mamma is gone now too and there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about them both. I never imagined that I would love his family as much as I truly do, especially his mamma. If you knew her, you know “she didn’t like anyone” 😛 but somehow, she liked me. She never hesitated to scold me just like she would her own children. Every time she would call me, she would say “Hey little girl” 🎀I will always cherish hearing her say that and the nights I spent with her at her house. I became very close with his mom and his sisters. I believe that his mom loved me almost as much as she loved her amazing daughters. Not even a year after his death, she passed away too. I cannot fathom the pain that the girls are in every day, with their parents and brother gone, but I do know that I miss them both dearly and I always will.
Yesterday I woke up with them on my heart. I decided to go to the cemetery and have a picnic, just me and Bentley. It stormed, but that didn't stop us, I sat there in the rain and talked to them and ate my lunch. If that is the only way I can see them now, then that is what I will do!
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