unhealthy reminders

i have quite the list of things to accomplish today, including housework, laundry and cooking, all while watching and tending to my little grand daughter while my daughter works.  but i have begun the morning with some quiet time before my daughter and the baby are even awake, with some quiet time here at my laptop while i have my tea.

i spent some time researching books on self journeys and healing.  i ended up ordering five, hoping that at least one of them will speak to me in terms of finding my way thru all that i feel to get to a better a place.  they don’t arrive until thursday, but i’m eager to get reading.  i’m allowing myself to feel hopeful that i will find something that helps.  i had previously ordered a book about being estranged from grown children.  i thought it would be some sort of theraputic, but instead it was a collection of stories from other parents all going thru the same thing.  it was a heartbreaking realization that this happens to so many parents and that i am not alone in it, but it didn’t offer anything in terms of relief or finding your way in life without these people.  i want to believe that if i keep searching…i will find something that reaches my heart in mind in a healing way that will lead  me to some sort of acceptance where i can move forward, instead of feeling so stuck under or inside this dark cloud.

one thing that i feel i’ve done wrong this past year, is that i’ve managed to get pictures of my daughters and the grandchildren thru other family members who still speak to them, and i’ve surrounded myself with these pictures, because i thought it would help me to still feel them around me somehow.  its become quite obssessive tho, and now i feel like i’ve surrounded myself in my home with pictures that just make me sad to look at.  i’ve surrounded myself with what i can’t and don’t have, and i am realizing lately, that it brings me pain instead of comfort.  i have no desire to remove ALL of the pictures, but i am going to remove alot of them, and see if it doesn’t help at least a little bit,  just to not have the constant reminders in every room i walk thru.  i really don’t know if this will help, but i am going to try.

the same with my dog.  i lost him last month.  he was just over  years old, and he was my constant thru all of those years.  he was such a loving comfort thru this past year of so many losses.  no matter what he’d be there to greet me when i got home from work, always happy to see me, always loving, never judging.  i can’t tell you how much i miss him every day.  i miss him being under my feet when i cook, following me from room to room just to be wherever i was, tracking in leaves from the yard.  when i pull into my driveway now, i am immediately aware of the fact that he won’t be at the door.  when i go to bed, i’m hit with knowing i don’t have to let him out one last time before sleep.  when i wake in the morning, i don’t have to let him out.  you don’t realize how big a presence a small dog really had…until he isn’t here anymore.  he was here for me this last year when others vanished.  he was always here, and having to put him down hit me very hard.  watching him take his last breath, as i looked into his eyes and stroked that place between his eyes that he always loved stroked…is something that will stay with me forever.  knowing the exact moment that he was no longer with me.  i cry even now, when i write these words.  and i’ve done the same thing with him, as far as creating a kind of shrine for him…his ashes, pictures of him thru his life, an etched necklace made from a favorite picture of him that i wear daily, the shirt i wore the day he left, that i can’t wash because it has his fur on it.  he was such a beautiful soul…and he loved each and everyone of my grandchildren, submitting to them as babies who poked his eyes or pulled his tail.  he took it all and he loved them.  even little Theia, my baby grand daughter…he waited to meet her, and he’d sleep near her wherever we put her thruout the day in her little chair.  but it’s been a month and half now, and i can’t seem to stop feeling the deep sadness over losing him.

the loss of him came on the wings of so much other loss this last year, but i supposed there is some hope (even if very little) that things will change with my daughters over time.  but buster tho…it’s final.  he’s just…gone.  it’s really hard to not have him.

and yet i know, that it’s another thing i need to accept and move past somehow.

so many things to accept and move past.  the losses themselves feel so overwhelming.  too much in such a short amount of time. one thing after another after another…during the year of 2023.  and i laugh to think now that i thought 2023 was going to be the year i found myself and the happiness i’ve so longed for.  it was the whole reason i divorced to begin with…so that i’d have an opportunity to figure out who i am and what i mite want in life, instead of being everyone else’s person.  be careful what you ask for…i’ve heard that said.  i wanted to find me, and the result thus far is that i’ve lost so many others.  i can’t seem to get out of the unfairness of of it all.

but i’m going to work on this.  i’m determined to find my way out of this sadness.  the shrines i’ve created to keep these loved ones around me in the only way that i can, need to be removed.  they are all in my heart and i know that.  i don’t need the pictures in such mass to remember them.  so…i think today that i will at least “thin out” the pictures i’ve put up everywhere, and work to convince myself that i’m working toward acceptance instead of feeling guilt for taking them down.  it will be an attempt to remove the REMINDERS of the pain that is always there anyway, and doesn’t need reminding.

so…off i go to begin my long list of things to get done today.