An Open Letter to the Soul..

Have you ever felt so mad that your skin crawls? Felt so mucky that it is hard to put a smile on your face and even fake it? Felt so bogged down by life that the only thing you end up feeling in the end is numb?

I do. Every day.

          I have spent my life on the pride that I have been raised in a household that was celebrated with self expression and the ability to take up for yourself. I was raised in a philanthropical family that cared deeply in the community in which we surrounded ourselves with, but were also told to celebrate our independence. We were raised to believe in what was right, as you remember, but with a sense of great humility. So how were we to know how to balance this gift? To our parents the importance of knowing who we are balanced with a sense of great gratitude and love was of great importance; in theory, an amazing achievement; in life, not probable. So how were we to know where the balance of a gift and the love of a talent were to meet?

         

         My bossiness has been well documented along with virtues, but what has come of my amazing ability to love? I know I have plenty of it to go around; but where did it go? Everyone celebrates and congratulates my ability to lead and the “take charge” attitude that was instilled in me as a child, but where did my imaginative and compassionate talent, a greatly praised talent when I was younger, go? If you find it, can you please promptly return it?

          I know exactly the day and time that all of the ability to care left me: March 3^rd, 2012 at about 2:00 am. Does this make me a bad person? I hope not. I can only hope that after a severe bout with anger, resentment, and life that I can return to the human that I once was, before Chelsea died, or, better known as: BCD.

         To those of you that have been injured or harmed on my tirade for personal realization and the lack of resilience that I have shown, just know, that I have suffered, and that I can only claim “human”! The pain that my family and I will have to carry with us, for the rest of our time on earth, will be life long, and therefore our resilience will have to prove the same. Pray that we have the strength. Please know that my hurtful words and unkind looks are not emotions that I have control over at this point and I plead insanity! No really, I am trying to recover in the only way that I know possible.  Please know that what I have said or acted upon isn’t me, more than it is a shell of the person that I once was.

          

          Let me explain: when you have felt your worse, your sickest, most down, multiply that by 1000. Now multiply that by 1000. And you are alone, with no one to talk to and the idea that world is completely against you, and there is no one to share these sentiments to. That is where I am and have been. The biggest hole you could dig for yourself, covered with cement. Though the idea of a light at the end of the tunnel sounds amazing, I need night goggles to find a glimpse of that light. The worst part is that I have been blessed with the amazing pressure of everyone that surrounds me. Within the first 10 minutes of learning of Chelsea’s death I was expected to accept, entertain, and maintain the well-being of my entire family, all the while suffering a tremendous loss of which I didn’t have 3 seconds to process on my own. 3:00 am came quick every night for me thereafter and sleep has become somewhat of a miracle in my mind since. Taking care of a loving mother, a lost grandmother, and a step dad with a broken heart, along with the several aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, friends, and distant family, along with trying to care for the niece of the deceased and a loving husband, all while trying to make sure that you yourself ate and slept enough….well, it’s impossible. Notice who came last on that list.

         I am not making excuses for my inexcusable behavior the last few months, or my inability to filter my thoughts into more educated or respected words, I am simply asking for forgiveness for imperfections that I have no control over at this point. I can do little more than beg at this point, an unbecoming trait in me that I know is tiring. Please know that all of my bad habits (ALL) are inexcusable, but know that I am human, just as you, but that I will strive to create a more harmonious tactic in my judgments, words, and actions. Everyone experiences loss in their life, and ones that are more tremendous than the one I have experienced, I just can't seem to get it together the way most people do. Words are my only comfort. 

     
Please know that my insensate banter, my sarcastic comments, and my harsh sentiments are not a reflection of who I am, or used to be, but, unfortunately, who I have become. "But this to shall pass". Right?

         Chelsea was an enormous part of my life and the anger has settled in and made a home in my heart, which neither she nor I would appreciate. Please bear with me while I work to cleanse that hate, hurt, and anger from my heart. I will try very hard to choose my words and actions from thus forth because Chelsea wouldn't want it this way.

So if I seem covered, painful, spiteful, jealous, and alone....or just wanting to be alone, I am. There is nothing, I have realized, that I can do to relieve it. This is a pain that I must bear on my own. My nerves, words, feelings, and life are on exposed for everyone to see and hear. I write this blog for the hope to save feelings and with the hope to heal another's wounds...I hurt. There I said it. I hurt! The weight that I carry daily will never subside, I know that now, please, please, please be patient.

And besides, how do you learn to say goodbye to a piece of your heart? Please forgive and bear.

A Symbol of You

It has been a crazy last couple of weeks, so I haven’t been able to write to you in a while. I have been working on planning a 10 year reunion, a baby shower, your niece’s birthday party, playing on a softball team, and somehow managed to fit in a full course load of college classes. Someone asked me last week where I find the time for everything and I think I replied with “I’m a control freak, so I like being in control.” But to be honest, being busy keeps me from having to reconcile my feelings. So it wasn’t until a very close friend told me about her father, who has been battling cancer for quite some time that he had been readmitted to the hospital due to several complications, that I finally took the time to stop and allow myself to think of you. Not that you are ever far from my mind, but I guess I always looked at it like people die, we grieve, and then we are somehow, someway supposed to pick up the pieces of our broken lives and move on. I keep thinking that eventually, people will get tired of hearing me talk about you, or that they will start to wonder ‘what’s really going on’ with me, and the next thing I know I am ‘Lyndsey Lohan’ and everyone is encouraging me to go to rehab or to seek some sort of professional help. Ha! You once had a Lyndsey Lohan moment…but we will leave that for another day. It was on the day of the sad news of my friend’s father that I realized how badly I really miss you and that pain will never go away. That even after the hectic schedule, the endless studying, and the constant running around, that the void that you left is still there and more illuminating than ever.

Mom’s birthday was last week and we, Garrett’s family and mine, decided to give her something that would be a beautiful reminder of not only you, but all of us that love her, and perhaps bring her a little peace in the meantime. It’s one of those ‘Pandora’ bracelets, and I use the word Pandora lightly because it is not a “real” Pandora, but more a knock off, but beautiful none the same. We got her five starter beads with the intention of adding to it for years to come. We got the obvious pearl bead because it is the birthstone for the month of June, a family tree to symbolize our family, and a grandma bead (that I am pretty sure you would have made fun of because it sounds old), even though the girls call her Grammie. The other three had more to do with you than anything else. An angel for obvious reasons, a scallop shell because that seems to have become one of your ‘symbols’, and the ever present Fleur di lis. The only hiccup in this amazing gift was that she received it the day before the 90 day ‘anniversary’ (I like to think of anniversaries as celebrations and do not like them being used to commemorate someone’s tragic demise) of your death.

It is truly amazing that the very tattoos that I used to make fun of you so badly for have become the very thing that people have begun to use to keep you ever present. I used to tell you how gaudy your fleur di lis tattoo was and the fact that you put it on your left wrist was awful; “displaying your tackiness to the world” is what I used to tell you. The scallop shell you had on your thigh/hip area which would have been an acceptable area of coverage for most people but for someone that wore shorts that looked like underwear, it was almost always on display. Now I cherish these two symbols with all of my heart. I find them and see them everywhere too. The other day I was putting some stuff of Reagan’s away in her room and she has a picture of you, a small wallet sized picture, the one of you at the beach, on her bookshelf next to her bed and after staring at it for a minute or two I turned around and moved over to her TV stand and there, next to her TV, was a random scallop shell that I had never seen before. I found one in the floor of your closet the day I took mom back Savannah, the Friday after you died. I often see scallop shells and fleur di lis all over the place and at first I thought maybe it was like when you are thinking of buying something that you kind of want and you start seeing it all over the place, but I know better now.

I used to ask you why you decided on a fleur di lis and mock you for being silly because you weren’t even French. You could never give me a straight answer and you would simply shrug your shoulders and reply “I dunno, I just felt like it”, but then quickly scold me for my own horrible tattoo decision that I had gotten when I was 17. So out of curiosity I looked up what it was that they Fleur di lis stood for and according to Wkipedia (yes I know): In French, fleur di lis literally means “lily flower”, but has become a symbol of royalty because of its use on crowns and scepters, and also in religion to symbolize the Virgin Mary and the Holy Trinity. I like it.

The thing is that your tattoos have become quite the celebrity. I think they give people a little something to hold onto to help cope and perhaps keep you close to their hearts. And when I say that they are everywhere, they are everywhere. Your tattoos have become quite popular, sadly though, I see it as comparable to an artist’s paintings being worth more after they are dead or a musician’s music skyrocketing to the top of the charts after an overdose (bad analogy). But I guess to me it doesn’t matter the reason, as long as they remember. 

Because while the craziness of life will go on, you will never be far from my thoughts and even closer to my heart. 

A "Quiet" Weekend

We decided to pack up the car and make for Savannah for the long weekend this past weekend. We decided to take the route through Georgia's desolate farm lands to get us there quicker and because we seemingly have had better luck not getting lost on this route than you ever did, we figured it was a good choice. We didn't, however, take into consideration that we would be stopping at the most ingenious Arby's in the world in Thompson, GA, the place where "nobody knows your name" and everyone moves in slow motion. I believe I walked out of that place with fewer brain cells than when we had arrived. None the less, we made pretty decent time and arrived shortly before 10:00 pm.

The weather was perfect on Saturday and so we decided to head out to the beach early, so as to beat the insane traffic that would surely come with a holiday weekend. While this wasn't our first 'real' trip to the beach, it was our first official one. With the impending tropical storm, Beryl, looming right off shore, the waves were amazing. Garrett, Brandie, and the crew joined us not long after we arrived. We were having a great time hanging out, playing in the water, and messing around in the sand with the kids. But there was always the thought in the back of my mind that you were supposed to be there. I thought about all of the times last year that you would ask the night before what time we were going to the beach the next day and I would say around 9:30 or something and you would reply, "Ugh! Why so early! The ocean probably isn't awake then!" Or how the next morning you would reluctantly and painstakingly wake up and mosey into the car with your 1980's sunglasses on, that you would have no doubt criticized me for wearing, for the sake of being too lazy to try to find a parking space at the beach or being too cheap to pay the meter (please refer post "Wash before applying"). Or how once we got out there and would start generously applying sunscreen that you would proudly announce that you didn't need sunscreen because you wanted to get a tan but then be dumbfounded a few hours later at how you got burnt. You would lay out your towel, put on your sunglasses, hook yourself up to your iPod, and then drift into some sort of sleep, until you would randomly pop up with an opinion to the ongoing conversation. This was an amazing skill you had. We would all think we could talk freely, assuming you were asleep, and then BAM! there you were adding your two sense. We would later learn to start mouthing the words or signing our meaning, as if we were trying to be quiet around a baby.

Sunday we went over to Garrett and Brandie's for a BBQ. During a light conversation on the back porch with Brandie and I, mom mentioned the little rhyme that your grandmother had taught you when you were about 3 years old. Mom told us about how you would place your hand on your hip, shake your finger, and say:                                             "I'm a cute little girl,

                               with a cute little figure,

                                but stand back boys,

                                until a I get a little bigger"

You would do this for people everywhere you went, soaking up the attention you would grab from it. Even then you were a dramatic show stopper.


We had to leave on Monday, but decided to go to IHOP for breakfast with mom and Sophie before we hit the road. I know how much you loved that place and it was a little strange to go eat there without you. After breakfast we said goodbye to mom and got on the road. Somewhere between Statesboro and Macon, while Reagan and Jared slept, it hit me. The thing that was bothering me so terribly bad all weekend, the one thing that had me sitting just a little off, the thing that I suddenly realized that was missing from this weekend that would have been present had you been there. A throw down argument/yelling match amongst you, mom, and I. You know the one I am talking about. It would inevitably happen every time the three of us were in a room for more than a few hours together. It would start small and then explode and end with one of us storming out or slamming a door. An argument so loud that earshot meant that you were within a few miles of us. But it didn't occur this past weekend...and do you know, I felt truly lost without it. I allowed the emptiness of the moment and highway 16 consume me.

Yes, it was a quiet weekend, but the silence was deafening.