Few things and a lot of jumping around.

I saw ostrich racing two weeks ago, so that was a thing to cross off the list. Actual horse jockeys riding ostriches… it was funny and weird and I appreciate my friend who got me out, bought me some beers at the local racetrack, and we had a good time. I then had some very, very sad days afterwards.

It was just, I think, the first new thing after Lucas was gone. Just a thing I did that he never did or saw. First in a long line of those.

That a good thing can be devastatingly sad for that reason is the no fun part of all of this. And I don’t feel guilty about having experienced something he didn’t. And I’m not sad he missed out-it is just that it highlights the long line of such firsts to come and I really just had to come to terms with that.

It was a few days where I went- is this the exhaustion and sadness that you need to push yourself through and that gets better by waking up early and exercising, or is this the exhaustion and sadness that requires treating yourself like you are sick and taking to your bed and sleeping a lot? And at the beginning it is impossible to know which of those two options it is- neat!

So. I did one day of cleaning and exercising and getting up and forcing myself to do it. And that made my hands shake, so that can’t be good. So I then gave myself 3 days of “taking to my bed” and sleeping and resting and sleeping some more to see if that would solve it… and I’ve been okay on the energy and mind front since then. So it was the second kind. And I’m through it now. But I was only giving myself a set number of days to trial that technique- because that could be counterproductive if it was depression.

Anyway. All that being said I am okay and it’s been a goodish week this current week, all things considered.

In other news:

I’ve been helping to treat lice on my cousin’s kids- two memes about that for your viewing pleasure.

Is it fun? No.

Is it satisfying to know you can help during an awful thing? Yeah.

And it is a stressful thing that is ABSOLUTELY made better or worse depending on the energy you bring to it- just like literally EVERY SINGLE SITUATION ON THE PLANET.

Instead of bringing the energy of stress/annoyance/ etc,. I try to bring calm and humor and peace to it and the kids return that in kind- hell we’ve had some really good and fun conversations during lice treatment too, and I think it’s because I am very intentional in how I bring myself to the situation.

And also a (very different) weird thing happened.

So my girls took me out to this local tea house where you get to pick your own teacup to use from a bunch of vintage ones on a shelf- so cute. What does my eye go to immediately?

This beauty. Does that look kinda familiar to anyone? Because it should.

IS THAT A PARAGON TEACUP ARE YOU KIDDING ME.

So yeah- this is the black base color version of the $250 Paragon teacup I sold on Ebay a year or so ago. Just sitting on a shelf… being used in a shop.

So I had a long conversation with the owner, told him about it, what it was worth, that after Ebay fees he’d make about $180, and all about bone china (he asked), and what the info on the hallmark meant… and then I paid him $180 and just bought it to sell myself. Not to make anything off of it- it’ll be a wash really- but because I could do it easier and I have all the needed skills to do so, the owners were nice, and also because hey, look at me, marginally excited about a thing for the first time in a while and willing to indulge that. (not all Paragon teacups are worth that much- I feel necessary to write here)

And so that’s how this whole thing started and now, on August 10th, I’ll be doing an event at the tea house where people come in with their teacups and I’ll tell them info about them and some concept of what they’re worth. Kinda an Antique Roadshow-esque event. There is already a flyer. They’re calling me a Teacup Expert on the flyer- which, I’ve had many titles during this lifetime- that may be the weirdest yet.

Life is a funny old thing, isn’t it?

I’ll let you know how it goes.

In other, other news- I started back at work for my day job. My bosses are being full on amazing on giving me the freedom to do it how its most useful to me, and not pushing for what is most useful to them, if that makes sense. And it adds in more structure to my days (good) and it feels okay. I needed less of the aimless drifting I was doing.

And now, hard 360 and back to talking about grief: my therapist wants me to write a lot about how I’m looking at and dealing with grief. She knows I process through writing, and I do feel like I’m being very intentional about how I’m looking at my grief now. A couple of the things she wants me to explore more- here in point form and this may be WAY too much or too Woo-woo, so just bear with me:

• Common messaging for those grieving is to cry as much as you need and scream if you need to scream. And I don’t suppress it if I need to cry, but I do minimize my crying. I am (this is 100% true though it sure sounds like it isn’t) allergic to my own tears. Tears set off my eye eczema immediately- Like I can feel my skin hurt as soon as tears start. Isn’t that so fucking weird? So no constant crying for me, not like I want to or even feel the need for, and instead I am focusing on a really peaceful mind and staying as dry eyed as I can.
• As for screaming- I screamed like I’ve never screamed before for about 15- 30 minutes (my recollection of those first minutes is, thankfully, pretty foggy) when it first happened. And now something in me just knows that screaming after that first time would be counter productive.
  • I kinda went back to the advice from the midwife Ina May Gaskin (of The Farm and that one book on childbirth that did NOT fucking need some of those pictures) that screaming is not helpful for the body or to get you through. It is weird, but some of the advice for getting through labor is, I find, some of the best on how to get through these earliest stages of grief.
• I am really, really peaceful in this new stage of my marriage. I know his spirit is out there and somehow helped/is continuing to help me. We are spirits driving a meat suit, and I’ll see him again once I’m done with mine.
  • This sounds insane but definitely doesn’t feel like it from this side of it all. I still love him, and he still loves me, and therefore I can make it through. What’s that Priciness Bride quote- “This is true love- you think this happens every day?” It’s like that- whatever form it is in, I’ll take it.
• I don’t get messages from him or draw connections on my own without a peaceful mind. Too much sadness or anger or annoyance or avoidance (through doom scrolling on my phone) interferes with my level of connection to Lucas and the universe. (Very much that adage of “you can’t see a reflection in boiling water.”) So I meditate, and take walks, and sit outside with a stilled mind and work hard to find calm and peace- and damn is it really helping on a multitude of fronts.
• I continue to study how other cultures deal with death and grief as it’s fascinating and getting out of the narrow window of what American culture tells us is the “right way in how to process grief” and it seems important and is keeping my interest to learn more about.
• I have (in the last week) gone from seeing all of this through a lens of what I lost to now view it through the lens of what I had. Let me try to explain.
  • I had a love like that for 25 years. How lucky. How thankful I am.
  • I currently still have that love in a different form. How lucky. How thankful I am. Sure I miss touching him… but I got a quarter century with him in one way and this current stage in another. That love is a good thing in my life, not a bad thing in my life.
  • I went from being the miserable wretch that lost all of what I had in that love… to the person who can stand tall because I had/have it. It was/is true. It existed in the world. I truly do feel that way and I can be okayish in this half life because of that change in perspective.

Anyway. That’s all a bit much… so how about we end on a different note.

Cats are the flipping best. This is how I sleep each night now.

Except when he gets up at some point to do this EVERY single goddamn time I forget to close the bathroom door.

DAMN YOU, CAT! (But also- Suzanne get a cat already, you.)

Till next time, y’all.