Control, it's not just a word in the dictionary

I like control. Maybe my two short marriages and all those relationships in between were a hint. Maybe the fact that I wake up at 4:30 a.m. at the latest so I can drink my coffee and be in the shower at 5:30 to be at work way earlier than I need to be is a hint.  Even when I think I am going to just sit and be at work on time, it doesn't happen....I am regimented to say the least.

I need control. I am realizing here in the 52nd year of my life that I have none. People live and they die, you make decisions, people override them, you work hard to make something happen, it doesn't happen. I am not dealing with this realization of this loss of control well.

I will live with me

I'm sitting here, the night before, a year after, the worst day of my life. My mind is where it was a year ago. I'm just trying to process the year behind me. None of it has been easy. There have been better days than others. Some days are not those days.....

Me and Andy had a fight. We don't have big fights. Ok, they are pretty big, but not big like I've had in my lifetime. Voices raise, we yell over each other, but in the end..... monotone "I love you. I'll talk to you later." So, as far as fights go, I've had worse, but none that rip at my heart more.

I need to forgive.  He needs to be angry.

It's not that I want this guy who killed my son to feel peace and love, that's not it, I want to quit directing my energy toward hating him and use my energy toward the people I love and that one I miss.

He thinks it's a betrayal and I'm letting him off too easy.

I think it's a relief.

My son is dead, whether he died of leukemia or fell off of a bridge or got shot in the chest. The outcome is exactly the same.

I just can't be angry forever. It takes all my time and my energy. I loved my son and I love my sons who are still breathing. Anything that takes away from that is, in my mind, a disservice to them.  I think maybe, my son is too young to feel the drain of hate. Maybe he has never felt the lack of real emotion that hating someone can steal from you. How can you love when you hate, it's so overpowering? How can you forgive when you hate, you are so busy hating.

I tried to explain that I wasn't forgiving him so he could feel better, but I was forgiving him for me. He will live with himself for the rest of his life......and I will live with me.

Wind

I'm sitting here this morning, I've been up since about 2 a.m., but that's pretty typical of me. I am sitting and I'm listening to the wind in the tree outside my window. When I lived in NM I would sit out on my porch and listen to the wind in the Elm that was living in the corner of my lot.

Isn't that the best sound? So quiet and so calm,  if that tree could talk it would tell you that it loves the wind.

Isn't it funny how we have these things that happen outside our window, but if you think about it, that wind has been around the world. Wind doesn't have borders. Air is everywhere. That air that is blowing through the leaves of the tree outside my window here, is the same wind that blew through my tree in NM. It's kind of comforting. Like the moon and the stars.

We are all connected in our disconnection.

It's been a year

And I'm not sure how I feel about that. I feel like the feelings have faded and then I feel guilty because I don't want anyone to forget you. This is all so new to me, and so awful. Thanks Benj, for being the one to make me do this.

I wish you were a baby again and I could hug you and kiss you and you were so cute and snuggly.  You were so cute, with your bravery and your curly hair and big smile.

I just want you to know I miss you, every day. There are a thousand things I want to say to you. But mostly that I love you. I always have. I always will.

I am thinking...

...that maybe I should delete this blog. There is just so much pain here and I didn't start out thinking that this is what it would be. No one can predict what is going to happen, I didn't predict this. I apologize for making those of you who read this deal with this over and over. I remember when I lived in NM and they shot a bear out of tree with a tranquilizer and it fell and hit electrical lines. I watched that bear fall over and over and over and I thought why do they keep showing this? I don't want to see this anymore! I imagine you feeling the same way.

Purring: As a weapon.

That was my topic. It was funny, it was thoughtful, it was about my cat. Hahaha. That lasted about a day. Actually a few days. She meows to wake me up, she surrounds me in the shower, funny stuff.

I'm not funny. Sometimes I am, not often.

I really wanted to be funny, for the people who read this, because, MY GOD, who wants to read this depressing shit every day?

But I'm planning my trip back to NM to say a proper good bye to my son. On his birthday. And I realized that I don't remember what time of day he was born. I pushed him out of my body and I don't remember when. What kind of a mother am I? How do you forget that?

I found myself curled up in a ball, on my floor,  crying, and crying and wishing I could make myself disappear. But I don't, and I won't, and I will do what I need to do and it will never be enough. And then I will go on, and everyone will go on, but Benjamin, who will never go on, but he will be missed, forever.