difficult things and better days…

After having had what seems to be WEEKS of just feeling crazy emotions all over the place, tonight I seem to have found a sense of calm again.  And it is weird, because though I have managed to accomplishh some difficult things in the past couple of days, things are FAR from settled and there is still much to be done. But, maybe, just taking a couple of steps is enough to see me back to making forward progress for the moment.

Yesterday, after having made several trips to the tag agency (the place in Oklahoma where you deal with tags and titles….commonly known as the 4th level of hell) I FINALLY found someone who knew which forms I needed to fill out to have the titles to our cars changed from my husbands name to my name.  It is so weird, (and forgive me if I’m repeating myself) but we have probably owned 15 or more vehicles in our 35 years of marriage and in that time, I cannot remember there ever being vehicles that were not either in my name alone, or in both of our names. The titles tend to end up in the name of whoever goes and pays the taxes and title fees and that has always been me. But there were just some weird circumstances that caused both of these to end up in his name, so it required a bit of finagling. One car automatically went to me, the other should have required my children to fill out an affidavit, but when I told her that one of them was traveling and I would have to wait  until he actually came home to our town to do this in a few weeks, she seemed to just want the whole thing settled and out of the way, so she waived the affidavit.  I should have the new titles within the week.

For some unknown reason, that left me very upset, emotional, and tearful the rest of the day, and unable to sleep last night. Or maybe it was the thought I what I had to do today, but anyway, last night was a BAD night. I ended up taking xanax at 4:00 a.m. and that is first one I’ve taken since a week or two after his death.

So, after weeks of my father in law trying to retreive the gun my husband used to commit suicide with, only to eventually be told that even with a letter from me, I would have to come down to the police station to retreive it. And then weeks of me trying to do just that, and being given the run around with only one person able to do that and he was never there, I called on Monday and scheduled an appt. with the Chief of Police for today.  My sister in law went with me, but I did the talking.  I politely informed him that someone in our family had been trying to retrieve this weapon for 2 1/2 months, that it was an expensive weapon that I have every intention of selling for a fairly decent sum of money, and that I either got the frigging gun today, or my next stop was going to be the city attorneys office and the next after that to the judges office (who is a family friend, who I probably should have called 2 months ago, but he has already handled some things for me, so I hated to bug him.) Anyway, it was AMAZING how quick he found the right person, got him there, got the gun and gave it to me.  Of course, they had replaced it into the case that he had carried it out to his car in, and of course I had to identify the actual gun, and of course I fell apart at that point. Totally and completely fell apart. I managed to get myself together again long enough to sign at least nineteen forms and walk out of the office and then the building with a modicum of my dignity intact, until I got out the door and then I once again fell apart. Do you KNOW how much I HATE crying in public????? You have NO IDEA. So, I all but RAN to my sister in law’s car and of course it was locked and I had to wait for her to catch up, which she did as quickly as she could, but ot quickly enough for me!  My body couldn’t seem to decide whether to cry so hard that I couldn’t catch my breath or have a panic attack where I couldn’t cry but couldn’t breathe either. Weird feeling.  But when it was all over, I was actually calm, and I’ve remained that way the rest of the day.  I would say that the reason that I’m okay is that I DID fall apart, but I’ve been falling apart almost daily in the privacy of my home and my bedroom ever since the wreck, so I don’t think that was it. I don’t know exactly what, but this just seems like I’m heading back down a road toward healing, rather than feeling like I’m slipping into some deep abyss that I may never climb out of.

Speaking of the wreck, the insurance company called today and told me that they are indeed totaling my car and made me an offer.  I was actually pretty surprised, but their offer was actually pretty decent, so I’m probably going to counter offer, but if all I end up with for the car is what they are offering, it won’t be bad.  So, I guess when my oldest son gets here, I will be buying a new car.  He has got to be the best car bargainer I have ever met, so this is one time that I will basically tell him what I think I want, and let him take it from there. 

My neck, shoulders and arms are still really, really sore, but I do think I see some improvement today over yesterday, so that is encouraging.  All in all, it has been a difficult couple of days, but yet I FEEL better. Go figure…