Thoughts on Graduation

Sue's oldest child graduated from high school last night. It was so emotionally draining that I'm spending some time resting this morning. It was a wonderful night, and I was so proud. I'm not sure I've ever felt quite so proud. However, when facing happy life events, the grief is always there too.

All day yesterday I was humming a line from an old Queen song that says "pain is so close to pleasure". I understand what that line means now. I'll try to explain my pain/pleasure: 

I am SO PROUD of Sue's boy! So much pleasure! But Sue would be proud too, and she's not here to see this. PAIN. Look what he has accomplished! He has such a bright future ahead! More pleasure! But she will miss all of it. Ouch.

It's hard to put into words how daunting it is to think of all the milestones we have ahead: more graduations, first big jobs, weddings, babies, holidays. She won't be here for any of them. Not one. She never even got to see any of her kids get a driver's license. 

But here I am, watching, enjoying, being a part of her kids' lives. Why am I here and she's not? Why did her body get sick and shut down and I'm healthy? 

I don't know.

I do know that one of my biggest goals in life is to step in and feel all the emotions she would feel. I will take the pain so I can have the pleasure. 

The pain is overwhelming. But so is the pleasure. 

Gettin' Stuff Done!

Well that was a whirlwind of a weekend! 

Friday night we had the Battle of the Books. We didn't win, but we had fun.  Then Joe, Natalie and I attended the church lock-in. It was an overnight activity with play practice, movie night, popcorn, a loud, rowdy game of hide and seek, and finally sleep for our youth group of 12-14 year olds. Natalie then spent the rest of the weekend with her cousin at college for Little Sibs Weekend, and Ben went to a birthday pool party for a friend. On Sunday we had church, an Easter egg hunt, Sam went to a friend's house, Joe and I grocery shopped, and Natalie came home. Honestly, I was completely exhausted by last night.

Since I was at the Lock-in, I didn't get to do my Saturday morning walk.  I did do my run on Friday morning though! (That might have been part of why I was so exhausted by about 10 pm at the lock-in!)

Today, after getting all the kids dropped off at school, I went straight to the gym and did my run. I wasn't really wanting to, in fact I was downright crabby. But once I was on the treadmill it was okay.  

I made a good food decision by having a reasonable lunch. I nurtured myself by going to my therapy appointment (during which it was pointed out to me that I'm not doing a very good job nurturing myself--more in that in a later post).

I'm tired and ready for bed. Tomorrow I'll have yoga, and I'm already looking forward to it!

Goodnight!

Ready For Battle

Guess where I am! I'm at our very last middle school Battle of the Books meeting! This is good news for a few reasons:

1.  Our big battle, the thing we have been working toward since November, is tomorrow!

2. We are making team t-shirts tonight! So exciting!

3. I'm really super tired of being the Battle of the Books team leader. I'm really, really over it.  (Oops, this doesn't count as good news I guess)

4. I repeat: it will all be over tomorrow!

Today went well, mostly. I took the day off from exercise, and that made me happy. I got a lot of stuff crossed off my to-do list, which also makes me happy. I didn't make any good food decisions. I ate lunch at Wendy's and got a chicken sandwich with fries. I guess I could have gotten two chicken sandwiches and two orders of fries, so I guess we can count that, right?

I didn't nurture myself today either. I'm not doing so well with that goal lately. Tomorrow probably won't be any better though, because it's going to be a BUSY one. In fact I'm not sure I'll have time to post tomorrow night. I'm chaperoning an overnight kids' activity at church (and that's after the battle of the books). 

Tomorrow is my running day, though, and I definitely will be doing that first thing.  

Have a good night, and wish me luck!

And Also: Fitness!

                          A selfie.

I wrote a post about Sue earlier today but I didn't touch on how my day went with fitness and my goals. I started the day with my second run of the week. It went well and I'm not feeling sore at all tonight.  Yesterday I thought about maybe going to Zumba after my run, but today I realized that was completely insane! I was worn out after that run! 

So instead I went home, showered, and headed out to Costco, Kohl's, and Michaels to get some shopping done that I've been putting off. One thing I picked up was some new socks. I needed some for running and some just regular ones. I also bought a huge package of toilet paper (aren't you glad you read this blog?). 

This evening was full of homework, dinner, dishes, chores, and a treat: the kids and I watched Fuller House together on Netflix. It's very corny, but very cute. 

I can't think of anything I did to nurture myself, so that will be next on my list before bed. I just got a new meditation app on my phone, and I think I'll go try it out.  Tomorrow I have a day off from exercise and I'm looking forward to it!

Have a great night, and thanks for reading!

Hidden Happy Surprises!

This is a picture of me with Sue at a work party
when we worked together at Ford

I have written in this blog before about hidden grief land mines. They are little triggers that I don't see coming, that make the grief come to the surface and feel very painful. Today I want to talk about what I've decided to call "Hidden Happy Surprises". Fortunately this is a phenomenon that is happening to me enough these days that I needed to name it. This is a trigger that makes me think of Sue or my dad, but instead of feeling very painful, these experiences make me feel happy.

Today I hopped into my car while out running errands and turned on the radio. The song playing was called "The Freshman" by a group called "The Verve Pipe".  This song and band was at its height of popularity in the early to mid-nineties, when Sue and I were working together at Ford Motor Co. When I heard this song today, which I hadn't heard in years, I remembered a friend and co-worker of ours named Rob.  Rob loved this group with his whole heart. He had gone to college with the guys in the band and was so genuinely excited about their success that he would talk about them often.

Sue, upon first hearing about the group, mistakenly called them, "The Verve Pipes". Rob quickly corrected her. It was "The Verve Pipe," not plural.  The next time she referred to them as "Verve Pipe". Rob corrected her again. The word, "The" is part of the group's name.

Then it came flooding back to me that after that initial exchange, Sue went out of her way to always, ALWAYS refer to the band as either "Verve Pipe" or "The Verve Pipes". At first Rob would nicely correct her, and she would nod and say, "Ohhh, right! The Verve Pipe!" only to turn around and call them "The Verve Pipes" or "Verve Pipe" an hour later. It drove Rob crazy. It was such a stupid thing, but she continued annoying him this way for YEARS.

As I sat in my van, reliving all of this in my mind, I started to laugh. It was just SUCH a Sue thing to do. I laughed, and I laughed, and I laughed some more.

Somehow this memory triggered me to feel so happy instead of so sad. It's weird how this happens, but I still have a smile on my face because of this hidden happy surprise. I'm so thankful that I got to have Sue as my sister. She made me laugh constantly.

Tuesday, March 15

Today was kind of a low-key day, and I liked it! After dropping the kids off at school, I paid bills and did a bunch of paperwork. I took some time to read...a lot of time to read (hello, nurturing!). 

I made a good food decision by limiting my portion size at dinner. And this evening I went to yoga.

Tomorrow I'll do a run and I'm debating going to Zumba afterward because I miss Zumba but don't want to miss my running workout. Is that crazy? I'll let you know tomorrow how it goes. Goodnight!

Monday, March 14th

I'm sore. It was a good day, but I'm sore. I dropped all the kids off at school and went right to the gym. I started on week three of my couch to 5k training. It felt great while I was running, but tonight I'm feeling it!

After the gym I took the dog to the vet, then came home to do some cleaning and work around the house. After the kids got home, Ben and I did a kids' yoga video together.

My cute yoga partner 

I spent some time reading today as my nurturing. I made so many good food decisions I can't even list them all!

It was a good day, I got a lot done and did a great job with my fitness. I'm just hoping the soreness goes away before tomorrow.

Have a great evening!