I Get It.

Jim toasting our 50th Wedding Anniversary

Thank heavens it is bright and sunny today and light is flooding through the house.

After bringing the Texas Farm Bed up from the basement Friday my head is playing one memory carrousel after another. Prodded by the bed, I settle sometimes on the time we lived in Texas
but look, we were together 58 years and that's a darn big book.
I am never sure where my "monkey mind" will take me.

Do you know that phrase - "the monkey mind"? I learned that when I was part of a meditation group. Its the time when thoughts are bombarding through you mind - and there are images flicking fast, one after the other as though the slide carrousel is stuck on go.

Lately I have turned off the television. Having the radio on in the background fills the empty house with voices. That's a comfort and does not demand much attention. I can work without being distracted. Anything that helps me stay on the daily, weekly, schedule ahead list is welcome.

So it does not surprise me that I am turning the post about the bed I wrote the other day into a spoken story. I think it will work. I think I can do it without choking. Will take it for a taping later this week. Why? Because I believe its relevant to the way change and loss can effect your thinking.

Grappling with grief drops on all of us at some time or other. How you handle is is your choice but I read anything that comes my way hoping to learn something from other's experiences that will help me on my journey.

Grief is not something you get over, I have found that out.  The only way I could get over this ache from head to toe would be for Jim to walk through the door. But that said - I know I have to try to learn to live without his physical presence - to come to a time when I can turn down the volume on grief so that I can get on with my day -

For me, I like having things that are connected to Jim around me. Otherwise, I am afraid that I will lose him. And, you can bet I am going to try everything I can to prevent that.

I am trying not to talk about the sadness I feel as much as I did earlier on - but its still there.  You don't talk about the headache once you take an aspirin - but often times you still have the headache.

And right now - I am headed toward March 6, the second anniversary of Jim's death - so my skin is thin and emotions are very close to the top.

Today I really got it. This is my problem.  

Jim and I were a "we" 

for a very long time - 

I do not like being a "me" -

--- half of me is missing.