No Small Thing

(I had a totally sweet April Fool's Blog planned, but since Fate and Karma and whoever else are still watching me like a hawk I'm going to just save that one...)

It's been a hell of a week.

Thursday night the ex-husband was in the ER with symptoms that suggested a mild stroke. Um. MOMMY SAID NO. So I was freaked out and worried and terrified of what something like that was going to do to my already fragile Bean, especially so close to the anniversary of Jeff's death. So I waited until we had more information before I said anything to her. She assumed that he was in the ER for hurting his neck (and I still haven't corrected this assumption... his neck DOES hurt). It was all fine, in his words he's "just an idiot." He took the wrong meds that morning and got a strong dose of what the stepmother takes at night.

So he's fine.
Which is good.

Then Friday ice started to fall from the sky... I got my errands done (including stopping by Twist for Cookie A's new book) and went home to snuggle with the kitties.

I didn't end up going to the party... for two reasons, neither of which had anything to do with my anxiety. First, there were eleventy-billion inches of ice and snow on the ground and I thought it might be better to not drive. Second, I was totally asleep all day. I got up, took care of grandma, went to work for a few hours and then came home and sleeeeeeeeeeept.

In preparation for the storm I bought three kinds of cheese and two kinds of crackers, salad stuff, apples, sandwich stuff and ingredients for two kinds of soup. So on Saturday I would wake up and eat an apple and some cheese and then sleep for a few more hours. Then I woke up and made a sandwich and ran some laundry through and then back to sleep.

Sunday morning I took care of grandma and came back home and worked on two papers, ran more laundry through and read and read and read. I didn't even nap in the afternoon! I also watched Lars and the Real Girl, which was good, but not as funny as I assumed it would be, and the first disc of season two of Big Love.

I thought that I was doing OK with this whole anniversary thing. (Sleeping all day Saturday should maybe have been a clue, but it WAS a snow day!!!).

Then Monday I had a hard time getting out of bed. My intention was to get up and go to the radio station for a few hours and then meet my friend K for lunch before class. I ended up staying in bed until I had to leave to meet K and only getting up then because I told myself that I couldn't have a Xanax unless I put my big girl panties on and left the house. Then I had 5 hours of class. One hour of which was spent listening to the teacher talk about a funeral she just came from. Luckily I have a girl posse at school, too. S kept me supplied with cigarettes on break and D kept me laughing.

I only have one teacher who just met me this semester and I warned him ahead of time. I'm sure he heard about it last year, he just didn't know it was me. It is amazing to me how many people knew through the different grapevines. D, for example, is married to a police officer and knew about it before my mom took me home that morning. When the officers at my house found out I was in the MSW program they called D's husband to see if she knew me. She is absolutely someone you can call at 3 a.m. with information like that, and I didn't know until recently, but she became my "bouncer" at school in the same way that Andie was my bouncer at work.

Girl Posse rocks.

I picked Bean up from her friend's house and we went home to watch Big Bang Theory. We were both asleep before 9.

Yesterday I couldn't get out of bed again. It's really a two-day anniversary... there's the day he died and then there is the next day when I found him. It's kind of a 2-day grief-for-all. I called in and slept for a few more hours. I took a shower. I watched bad TV. I didn't read, I didn't knit. It was sort of scary being back in the blank place I was last year. I just didn't want anything.

That Bad, Bad Man came over around 2, spreading comfort and joy and good cheer and Bean came home crying around 3... her boyfriend had broken up with her. (That would be the boyfriend she acquired the day before). There was much hugging and comforting, then he went home and Bean and I met Sally and Andie for dinner (Woot! Girl posse). So we ended up having a very nice evening.

I still feel fuzzy and my mind the urge to drive home and crawl right back in bed is so strong, but I'm not going to. Not yet anyway. I'm going to make it until lunchtime and see how I feel, then maybe I'll try for a few more hours.

But we made it 365 days.
And while I'm exhausted and not quite 100% I'm still standing. Still breathing, still laughing, still knitting, still graduating in 6 weeks.