I haven’t been writing. It hasn’t been good for me. My new coping technique has involved constant activity. This is the first day I’ve just sat down in months. Literally.

I haven’t slept all night in months. I try to, but every noise wakes me up and then my brain keeps me up. It’s exhausting. During the day I find things to keep myself busy- jobs that must be done now-or lists to make- or items to cross off the lists. The irony is I never understood why my father in law was always on the move… I get it now.
Quiet times makes for a loud brain. And it quickly fills with beautiful memories. Which leads to tears because there are only memories now. Which leads to this incredibly frustrating anger. I am not an angry person. The emotion itself is one I’ve always had to stretch to understand… I have known people my whole life with anger issues- it’s almost their default emotional status- and mine tends to be… contentment. If that can be considered an emotion?

Lately I just feel this anger bubbling inside me. And it’s not at anybody, but fate. Or maybe God. Or life. It’s not fair that Curt is gone. I feel like my body starts to vibrate with this intense feeling and I might just explode. I don’t know how to make that stop. Or if you are supposed to just ride it out and assume it’s part of the ride of life with grief in it. To be clear- the angry shivers I get never progress past that- it’s just not in my nature. One time I ripped a poster I made for a school project when I was mad and the intense regret that filled my soul afterwards led to me never acting in anger again. Seriously. I was in second grade at the time.

We have his house on the market. I stopped by and did yard work yesterday and paid myself in perennials dug up at his house. The lilac tree that was tiny when Vince and I started dating is now taller than the house. The glass ‘pond’ my mother in law and I made when I was 17 is still there, covered up by weed blocking fabric. The creek all the cousins (including my kiddos) have spent hours at throwing rocks, looking for fish and being kids in runs through the back providing a soothing background music. The porch we’ve drank tea, cocktails, beers and ice water on a hot day is sitting there waiting for the next family to make memories on it.

I hope that with the sale I’ll get a little more closure. Or maybe with more time. I just don’t know. But I do know my house and the cabin is going to be amazing with all this time off I have this summer. Keeping busy, crossing items off the list as fast as I can add more on and somehow finding time to make new memories with my sweet babies…

Five months out. Still waiting (but not idly) to wake up.