Thoughts and an new piece of furniture

I have no idea that it’s April. For me it’s most certainly January, yet somehow it must be February because we had the funeral.
It has to be February because my black ankle boots still have burial mud on the inner-edges.
 I go to put them on for church --- I've got to sing, and I’m hurrying out the door rushing to get three kids to church, not just on time but early for practice --- and I pull up on the heel while pressing my foot down and shock stops me cold. There is the mud. I buried my brother. Everything on the earth stops, it’s just me and this mud.






Kids make noise.
My world returns.
We have to leave. We will be late. Pull the boot on.
Walk forward with burial mud on my feet.





Absolutely no time has passed.
I live in a still snow globe.

But there are all these gorgeous flowers, light and pure growing outside my window. White and yellow. A smattering of purple, low near to the ground. Beauty I can’t overlook, I don’t want to overlook. I can’t find any meaning because of them. It’s just really lovely. I feel like I’m in a dream. I’m dreaming, that’s why there can be spring flowers in January. Everything is surreal. I feel detached the way dreams do.



Somedays I can tell time has passed because I’m not an oozing sore of sadness. I’m scabbed up now. I don’t feel like crying all the time. I don’t feel like I can’t breath. I can be around people. I don’t feel debilitating pain. Instead I feel constant-hum-level aching. I can function inside that, I don’t like it, but it’s like a dull headache in my heart. I can keep going.
     In fact some days I can feel kinda normal. Some days, when I’m feeling too normal, I stop myself and say cold hard facts in my head, to see what happens to my heart. Words that feel like scalpels. But somehow sometimes feel like nothing because they are: words that don’t sound real. But they are: words that truly just are reality. “Jeremy is dead.” (I can barely type it, but somehow I can throw those words at myself regularly to see how it goes when I do.) “I am my parent’s only living child.” (It feels blasphemous to type that.)
     I don’t know what happens when I say those things to myself. It’s like part of me turns off.
     I don’t know why I spend time doing that -- I guess to try to reach a sanity point, to find the realness of now.

    But, when I have good days... I get to the end of the day, and I feel like crying…. but I don’t have any more tears. "What can I cry out that I haven’t already cried?" I think. I sit, still and aching dully, without enough pain for more.
     But then I hear someone else’s bad news, and then another someone else’s sad news. And those stories have nothing to do with mine, but parts are so clearly similar. And the second one takes my breath away -- I have no more wall up -- It demolishes me and I cry. I cry for sadness sake -- there is SO MUCH sadness. How and Why are in my tears, but I’m too tired to really ask.
     My “look I’m getting better”, my “I’m making it” --- it had felt so real. It now feels so thin and it’s been ripped straight through.


How are there flowers in January? Why is my baby 9 months old?  (I’m asking in a much more profound way than I had with my other two babies -- babies always grow too fast -- but this baby in on a timeline I can’t see or feel.) What will summer feel like? Can I be there, or will I be still standing on cold mud? Maybe next January I can get back on the treadmill. (?) Will I understand time again?


My kids have stopped talking about death. In fact they have forgotten anything happened. I tell Jasmine, my oldest, I’m having a sad day and she asks, “Because of Jeremy?” (She says his name the way all kids say it, “Germy” -- I remember my kid voice talking to him.) And I say yes. She says something about how she "kind of forgot because it was so long ago."
     All of that makes sense. She never got to know him, it’s removed from her in a big way. And to kids the time it takes to get from Christmas to Easter is shockingly long. For her, of course it was a long time ago. But when she says it, I think, “Yeah five minutes ago. What does she mean? It happened 3 weeks ago.” But then I walk past my window and the flowers tell me it’s been close to three months.


This has been the weirdest, hardest year and a half of my life. And time seems so messed up.
While I was pregnant I think I lived 75 lives during those 10 never ending months that dragged on forever. I wasn’t sure I’d live through it. (At times I honestly was not sure.) After I had Bronson I felt like time stopped, I stopped, but everything on earth is flying past me and changing in dramatic ways. I feel like I couldn’t heal, and I’m sort of starting to a little, but new bigger un-healable things happened. But how?... because time is not moving for me -- it’s just going at light speed for everyone else.


The rain is falling on the flowers that are growing right now.

I should wash the mud off my boots. But…
It’s not the kind of mud that washes off.


You walk with that kind of mud.



I really am getting better.
Only, I never really will be the same.











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Can I switch gears with you?
Can I be the girl I was yesterday, the one who didn’t feel so heavy with sadness?
Yesterday was so sunny and bright. Today is so gloomy outside. But once again, I like when the sky cries for me.
Can I show you some new stuff around here?



Over the weekend I got a new piece of furniture.

Here’s the story.
When we moved here I stuck my desk top computer up in the guest room and haven’t turned it on. I really just use my laptop.
But then for Blake’s birthday we made him a home movie for his present. And I needed a program I have only on my desktop. So I got that old boy down from the guest room and plopped it down on the kitchen counter.
Once that happened I realized “Hmm. yeah I could benefit from using this thing. And well it’s not going to ever get used in the guest room closet.” So then the whole mental process began. “How will we use? Where will it work? How did I make it look good?”
It was very obvious to me it had to live in the reading room. It’s really the only thing that made sense functionally and visually and spatially.
Initially I was looking for a desk. It needed to be a very short desk. Craiglist, VarageSale. Most desks are not short….
On Saturday morning I ran to ReStore as soon as they opened. (Saturdays are very busy, if you want to get the best bet you need to get there early before stuff gets bought up.) And I found a very cute, pretty-small TV armoire. No small desks.
I went back and forth for a bit while I looked around at other stuff. It wasn’t what I had initially planned for. But it was exactly the right size. And it was in very nice shape -- it wasn’t a “must makeover because it’s nasty” piece. It could be madeover, but doesn’t have to be madeover. Which is perfect because I really didn’t have time to makeover anything more right now. So I called Blake, sent him a pic and we pulled the trigger. It cost a bit more than I like to spend on used things (and I usually only buy used things. I love saving some cash) -- it cost $65 -- but the fact that it checked all the boxes so nicely made it very worth it.

Once I got it home I LOVED it. I’m So glad I got this instead of a desk. I love that I can hide it all away with the doors.
I actually really like it being a wood tone, not pained. (For now anyway -- you never know when I’ll get struck by the bug to change things) But it feels really library-ish. I go back and forth on the hardware. But for now -- it’s good. (If I change it I’m guessing the wood underneath will show wear -- so I don’t want to mess with it.)

The piece is really perfect for the use as well. It has a built in power strip to the side and a pull out tray at the bottom. It’s actually much better than I had initially even hoped for.

And another cool feature (I have yet to figure out how to use yet) is that the drawer below’s face flips down. I assume it was where the VCR/DVD went and that way the remote could work. I wish My printer was small enough to go in there. But it’s not.

Once Blake and our friend carried it in for us. (Thanks guys! They said it was shockingly heavy -- must be well made.) I wiped it down really well with baby wipes (it was VERY dusty) and then I set some of my stuff I had laying around up there to style it.

     The basket on top, is from Target, and it was on our bookshelf but looked kinda silly there. It’s perfect right there. It’s full of craft supplies for the kids. And I gotta be honest, I like it being up where they can’t reach it.
      The vases I’ve had (thrifted. The tall one has been spray painted saving it from 80’s peach) and was this close to giving away to a thrift because I had no spots for them -- till now. Phew! Good save.
     The jar is one I painted a while ago.
     The books -- one was thrifted (“Birds”) (just cause I like big pretty books around) and the others are sentimental from an older friend. I love them up there.
   I had the baskets that are underneath laying around doing nothing -- they are perfect there. I’m guessing they will hold books or craft stuff. (But I’ll have to watch for baby-proof-ness, sooo…)

I put a lamp in the inside because it’s quite dark in there, and Pinterest gave me the idea. I feel like I need to look for a better one -- but I had this one laying around. (It has one of those “Hollywood Bathroom Vanity” lightbulbs in it….because that’s all I had -- but it’s nice because it’s not blinding.)

I hope to put a piece of hardboard (with fabric on it) or bead board (Painted nicely) in the back to make it look finished and without that whole in the back.


Anyway, since adding this thing to the room -- I feel like the space is amazing. Before it felt unfinished.  Now it feels just right.

It’s marginally crowded in here. But for me it’s perfection. I wanted it to feel like a homey tiny British (I don’t know what that means, it feels right though?) library -- my own little nook to drink coffee, or more appropriately tea, and read and feel hugged by the space. My own little introvert haven. And this piece of furniture took the space there for me.

(By the way. I’ve struggled to enjoy tea for years. I just really stinking like coffee -- it’s hard to switch. Well recently we were given some Bigelow Vanilla Carmel Black Tea and I actually really, really like the stuff. I like it hot or cold with nothing in it. That’s a major win in my book!)

I went and angled the couch out. The furniture fits the space the same either way -- the angle feels better. And it also gives me better access to the kids’ table for school time.
And of course we’ve been in here working on our new school books I mentioned. (Those are still quite the hit and going very well.)
By the way, aren’t those kids’ wooden chairs nice? Those are also from the friend with the books. It’s so nice having those in here instead of the bright plastic ones. That also really helped up the feel in here.

My school bookshelf is looking a bit disheveled. I need to do the clean out thing. (School tends to make me just set stuff up there in a hurry and let it get gross.

The art easel is kinda just floating in front of stuff -- but it works -- and the kids have been using it a ton since the room’s makeover.

I’ve been using the room a lot more too. I’ve actually been doing what I wanted to do -- sit in here at night and read to get my introvert fix. Cozy alone time.
I even sneak in here durning the day from time to time when I need just enough quiet sitting alone time in order to be a mom again.

I’ve definitely been learning something about myself in this house. I can live with a messy house. But I thrive in a thoughtfully completed space. I feel myself being myself in spaces that have the purpose clearly thought out, and masterfully designed. I can see myself accomplishing there. And when it’s all lined up just so -- I have the follow through to keep it nice. If it’s anything short of “just so” I don’t ever feel the need to clean it because it’s not working right anyway.

My house is finally getting to the stage where a lot of places are “just so” --- so I feel like I’m finally thinking straight (well at least as far as day to day duties go) in here. I still really crave getting a few more places settled into the right spot for me -- stuff like coat closets, the out-of-the-way but functionality-contributing places. Someday I’ll get there.



Anyway,

That’s all for now.
I’ll talk to you guys later.

****By the way, I have this sneaking fear that I somehow missed a comment recently and didn’t reply to it. I tried really hard to reply to them all. I definitely read and treasured them all. But if I missed one, it wasn’t on purpose at all!