What is MY Purpose?

I've been a Stay At Home Mom for 9 years now! 9 long years!!!

The last paying job I had was working for AAFES, and I quit because we were due to come back to the States since Barry was discharged from the ARMY. So, I was a stay at home mom from the time I was 7 months pregnant with the twins till present time.

These last 9 years I have been a Wife and all that entails, Mommy, Homemaker, Housekeeper, Nurse, Doctor, Hairdresser, Lawn Mower, Garbage taker-outer, Christmas present wrapper, everything.

I am now everything but the Wife.

And I feel lost, confused, bored...everything.

Our plan was for me to get a job once the baby started 1st grade, which is in 3 years. But honestly, I don't know that I can wait that long. I might have to though, but I refuse to put the kid in daycare just to get a job. It's a conundrum.

I don't know what to do with myself. I'm so bored. I don't think there has been one day since the family left that we haven't gone out and done something. Either we're running errands, going to the mall, going to the library, going to friends' houses, or going on field trips with my Meet UP group. The thing is, this IS my life, this HAS been my life for the last 9 years, so why am I suddenly disenchanted with it?

I feel like I am a contradiction. How can I be a stay at home mom if I don't have a husband? Well, I do have a husband, but he's been stuffed into a nice wooden box on my entertainment center, and a plastic bag filled with extras that I requested for us to go to Build A Bear. If that sounds callous, you should know I just have to joke sometimes; Barry called it gallows humor. I never understood it until he died.

Anyway, I just don't see what my purpose is right now. I can still be a stay at home mom, I don't have to work if I don't want to, but I am bored and uninspired. I've thought about looking into some sort of schooling, but I don't want to do that till the baby is in school either. I can't take time away from the kids right now because they need me. I have tons of crafts to catch up on, I have a brand new sewing machine sitting on my hope chest that I haven't opened yet and I've had for 3 weeks. I could always sew, but right now I just don't feel like it. Maybe in a week or two. I've got two years of scrap booking to catch up on too. I am however, going to get my YMCA membership back, I think working out again in the mornings will really help me out, and waste some time as well. I've been feeling the need to let the elliptical trainer kick my ass again.

What suggestions can you readers give me on how to occupy myself other than crafting and sewing? Do you think I should get a job, or should I be here for the kids? And what the heck am I going to do next year once the baby starts Pre-K? I'll be bored out of my mind.

It's almost like I need another man to take care of*....


*maybe one day*

More Questions

I realized yesterday after I had written this post that I forgot many of the other questions I have been thinking of.

Perhaps I will never have them answered, but death is a hard thing to find answers for anyway. There is no rhyme or reason to it, it's just death. It happens. Just like that saying "Shit Happens", so does death. It's hard for us to even fathom how life just goes on after that one person dies, but it does, it happens, everyone moves on.

To quote my husband:

"I think people fear death because it's an inconceivable state of existence. Dying is something we all must do, but nobody can sit around and really explain what it's like. Before the day of your birth, you can't possibly know, from a first-hand account, what life on this planet was like. Sure, you can read about it and even watch movies and listen to music made before your birth, but you have no real recollection of what it was like to exist back then. Death will probably end up the same way. The problem is that we can't seem to reconcile with that idea. We just can't wrap our heads around the fact that, after we die, things will continue on without us."

One of the hardest questions I have been thinking about is did he know he was dying? There is one moment I can recall in the hospital room that will forever haunt me, but I just can't share that right now. I'm not ready to relive it. Perhaps in time, but I don't think I have told anyone that. I've kept it tucked away in a little corner in my mind, not even thinking about it myself except in times like this.

I wonder, what was he thinking? Did he know what was happening? What were his last thoughts? Was he scared? I like to think his last thoughts were of me and the kids, but I'll never know unless I see him on the other side. I wish I could comfort him and give him a big hug and tell him it's ok to be scared, if he was. Tell him that I will always love him even when he is gone. That I'll always think about him. But then, I did that in the hospital. I did talk to him after he passed, and I did tell him all that and more.

And then I also think to myself, is he aware that he is dead? Is his consciousness still aware or is he just gone? I think maybe he is aware, but that's going into the ghost and orb stuff that I have mentioned before and don't care to get into it right now.

Another question I have is Why did he leave me? I don't want to be angry at him, but I get so frustrated and overwhelmed with what I have been left with. I have seriously never dealt with so much paperwork in my life. Piles of it, and more coming. And then there is the stuff around the house that I haven't a clue on how to do...my brother in law had to teach me how to thread the weed eater! I don't know how to fix anything (thank you to Amazon for the books I have on the way for that) either. But perhaps the biggest stress for me is the responsibility. Now I myself am the sole provider and caregiver for our four children and 3 pets. I have the weight of the world on my shoulders and it is very heavy. I have to provide financially for the kids and myself. I'll have to buy a house by myself, maintain that house. I have to maintain our vehicle too. I haven't the foggiest on how to hook up our entertainment center, so when I do move one day, who's going to do that for me? (I told my sister last night that I would just toss everything, and start from scratch and have the Best Buy guys come do it for me! haha).

I'm the one who's going to have to teach the boy all the stuff his daddy wanted to teach him. I'm going to have to screen potential boyfriends, lol, for the girls. I'm going to have to say to them at all the important milestones in their lives "Your daddy would have been so proud of you", especially when they get married. I'm the one who's going to have to say to our grandchildren how awesome and cool he was, and how much he would have loved them. And I'm the one who's going to grow old without the love of my life.

Not to throw a hiss fit temper tantrum, but I just don't want to! I don't want to do all this on my own. I want to stomp my foot and yell at him and say "WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME! WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME SO UNPREPARED? WHY COULDN'T YOU TEACH ME ANYTHING MORE? WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME? HOW COULD YOU LEAVE ME WHEN YOU LOVE ME SO MUCH?"

So I'm not sure if I am angry, I don't feel angry, just frustrated and overwhelmed. I don't want to be mommy and daddy, I want to be mommy and wife and his lover.

I just want him back.

Questions

What I have really been pondering since Barry died is WHY and HOW.

I look at his pictures, and I can't fathom why and how. Why did he die? How did one person that loved life so much just die that quickly?

How does that happen? I just can't believe that he is gone. I know he is, but I can't believe it. Even looking at his pictures, he just has such a strong force about him that it doesn't make sense. One minute he was here and looking into my eyes, and then he was gone. His life extinguished like a flame just went out. Poof, he's gone.

I don't know that I will ever understand the how and why. I don't think it is even possible for me to really verbalize how I just don't get it. I don't understand!

He was such a wonderful man. He sacrificed everything for us. He loved us, provided for us, he was my life! So why did he get taken away when he was loved so much? I can't help but feel the tears roll down my cheeks as I write this. It figures, the ONE day I don't wear waterproof mascara, and I cry.

Is it ever going to be possible to know why and how? You never think something so tragic can happen to your family, but then it does and you're left dumbfounded. I wouldn't say I am in shock anymore, I know he isn't here anymore.

This morning my cell phone rang at 7:30 AM. I seriously ran to the phone, due to my typical response when he would call. But it was his ER doctor. Not Barry. At least I don't jump for text messages anymore in the morning. I haven't really felt his presence lately, not for quite awhile. But I know he's still here because I now have interference on my phone that I never had before he died. Yeah, I know you're all laughing at me. Go ahead, laugh. I know what I know. The funny thing is, I was talking to someone last week on my old cordless, and it was really really fuzzy, and I could barely hear her. When she came over, she brought me a brand new cordless from Office Depot, as a gift. Well, guess what? There is fuzziness, really bad interference, on this phone too.

I talk to him often. I say I love him mostly, but I still talk. It helps sometimes just to say it.

On that note, I'm off for now. Today I get to go to the hospital and drop off paperwork and pick up paperwork. I get to fax copies of the death certificate to 3 different places. And I was on the phone all morning again. I must have gotten like 5 phone calls and made the same myself.

Is this what Desperation feels like?

I don't think that anyone who hasn't lost a spouse truly knows what it feels like to feel this way.

I thought I was doing ok. I thought I had done all my grieving the first two days when i was at the hospital, and when my mom and sister were here with me. But then starting Monday, I was composed, getting everything done this past week, just plugging away. I didn't even really cry when we planned his service.

And now I feel desperate. I know I have to be mommy first, but how hard that is. I want to grieve, yet I don't want to grieve. I'm in denial because now it setting in, the finality of his death. He is gone.

I feel like I am grasping at straws. Or an even better analogy would be that I feel like I am in quicksand, and not able to find a branch or vine to grab ahold of to keep me afloat. I don't know where to go to make myself feel better, to feel happy. I don't know how to move on from this tragedy.

Sometime this week I will be finding some counseling for the kids and I. Or a support group, or something. We really really need it.

And with the pictures, I had to move them last night. My sister told me it was OK. I just couldn't stop glancing at them. My eyes were constantly drawn in that direction, and it was too hard to look at him. So I put them all into a box, or out of my line of sight in this room so I wouldn't see then anymore. I feel incredibly guilty for doing that. I want him to know I still love him, but it's just too hard.

Today my in laws are coming again. We have two full days with them, and they leave early early Tuesday back to Pennsylvania. Today I have to clean out my husband's truck. It's being picked up tomorrow late afternoon. I'm sad, and relieved at the same time. I don't really want it here, but it's like the one final reminder of him. How can it not be? It's like the big elephant in the room that no one wants to mention, but you can actually see. This huge white kenworth is sitting outside on my driveway. It's an eyesore. It's painful to look at. But then again, I will be sad to see it gone because that means he is never coming back home in that truck again.

I've been told I should write a book about my experiences. Maybe one day. I think he would encourage me to do it, and be so very incredibly proud, but how sad is it that a tragedy like this has to happen to make the words flow from my head into my fingers and onto the keyboard.

Numbness then Anger

I am numb. I feel like I just have no emotion right now. Nothing but anger.

Yet I feel guilty for laughing with my sister, for giggling into the nighttime as we talk in bed beside each other, laughing at funny things and how I talk when I am half asleep. I feel guilty for being normal, for going about my day without being a snivelling mess. I'm so used to being by myself with the kids that I feel ok with him not here, but only because i am used to it. He's hardly here most of the time anyway, I just miss talking to him! And I just feel guilty for feeling ok with that.

I feel guilty for not breaking down when I was planning his service and picking out his urn. But I did cry when the funeral director told me they had his body and he would be cremated today. And I did cry when I read his obituary in the paper. I am even ok a bit with seeing his pictures now. Last night I put together his memory board and it was ok, I was just fine with doing it. I got a little teary eyed, but the crying now happens only when i remember little things. And I feel guilty for not sleeping in his t-shirt last night. I felt I was ok to use my regular pajamas.

I cleaned out part of his truck this morning. I was laughing at some of the stuff. He was looking for his black beanie cap and didn't even know where it was. I found it. I also found bottle after bottle of half used water, gatorade, powerade, orange juice, and diet coke. He was notorious for not finishing what was in a bottle. And I probably found close to $60 in change, if not more. I'd say closer to $75.

The things I miss are how I won't see him standing at his sink anymore shaving his head and beard. How i won't hear him laugh. How I won't see him smile. HOw I won't get another text message, phone call, email. How I won't get woken up by a bbm or text saying "time to get up baby".

I'm having so much trouble coming to the finality of it all. It DOESN'T seem real. How can someone who loved life so much be here one minute and gone the next? Why? I feel like this is all a bad dream and he will just pop right in here and say hi. It doesn't make sense why he is gone. WHY WHY WHY ">WHY WHY.

And besides numbness, I have been ANGRY. FUCKING ANGRY at him. Why did he leave me so unprepared? Why do I have to shoulder all this responsibility right now? He was going to put more RAM in my computer, but who does that now? Who is going to hang up the bike hooks in the shed and fix the coffee table? Who has to get the brakes fixed? Who's going to remind me to check the fluid levels in my van? Who's going to put in the weed eater thread. Who's going to hang up pictures? Who am I supposed to talk to when I have a problem, when I don't know what to do about something? Who is going to help me make major decisions? Who IS going to make the big decisions? Who is going to fill in the holes that the dog dug? Who is going to hug me and kiss me and love me? Who is going to smack my ass again?

How on earth am I going to do all this? how? I DON"T KNOW. He never showed me how to do it! I dont know when to check it, how to check it, how to do any of it. I absolutely hate with every fiber of my being, the fact that I am being stuck with this responsibility. I don't want to deal with it. I don't want to be a single mom, I don't want to be a widow, I don't want to be financially responsible for 5 people and 3 pets. I DON'T WANT TO DO IT. I am so furious right now, so angry that I just want to scream and yell and ask him why he did this to me. Why didn't he think to prepare me more for anything?

Yesterday I was so mad that I had to buy outfits. That I had to buy everyone new shoes, each girl a dress, me some pants and a nice top, myself a new coat, the boy pants and a dress shirt. And when are we ever going to wear this crap again? Do I really want to wear the funeral clothes again? I know we probably can, but still. UGH.

I am just so angry. So very very angry.