Pictures of Trees

In my post on my accomplishments of the last 15 months, I listed that I joined a women's photography group to honor James by taking on something that was of interest to him. I inherited a great digital camera from him and I intend to learn how to use it. My goal is to some day be able to enter a prize winning photo into the county fair. It may not sound like much, but I am a small town girl at heart and the fair is a big deal in small towns.

In March, I went to my first meeting and quickly discovered I was in over my head when the other women started talking about things like "aperture" and "shutter speed." I have no idea what aperture means and I didn't realize that you can change the shutter speed or that you would even want to do that. I can turn on the camera and take pictures that sometimes turn out. (I could read the little book that came with the camera, but where's the fun in that?) Not to be deterred, I signed up for yesterday's photo walk at Hoyt Arboretum. It was a beautiful day and it was nice to be outside in the fresh air. The Arboretum was very peaceful, but unfortunately, most of the blooms had already dropped from the trees and I found I could only take so many pictures (145 it turns out) of trees before I started to get bored.

Of the 145 I took, I really liked the following four. And I did learn something: when it is light out, you are supposed to lower the ISO. No clue what that means, but it's still good to know.

Well, this explains it

I recently discovered that I am missing a glove. It seemed odd to me that I would take one out of my pocket, but leave the other one. But in all fairness, I have been pretty scatterbrained since James died, so I thought it was entirely possible that I took one out, got sidetracked and forgot to take the other one out. I think I now know how my glove went missing:

(Let me help).

(Success!!)

(She can't see us now!)

Now if I could just figure out what the little monsters did with the other one.

Today's memory brought to you by Alan Jackson

I grew up in a household where country music was pretty much banned. There was no discussion as to why, this is just how it was and we just went with it.

When I went to college, I lived in a sorority with several women that loved country music. After months of hearing it come from their rooms, I realized that I actually liked it, much to the utter disgust of my father and brother. I am not a total disgrace, however. I don't like the old school twangy crap, just the modern "new" country of the '90's and today.

One of my favorite country songs is "Chatahoochie" by Alan Jackson. No matter where I am or what I am doing, I cannot help but join in when he gets to the part that goes "I settled for a burger and a grape Sno-cone; dropped her off early but I didn't go home." This is especially bad when I am out in public since, as my best friend's dad once put it, I cannot carry a tune in a bucket even if someone puts it in the bucket for me. James finally decided I am completely tone deaf. (This is why I don't watch American Idol). James on the other hand could sing. He lettered in choir in high school. I never sang much before him. Unfortunately for him, I sang a lot when we were together.

One night, he was at his computer doing his thing, and I was at mine doing my thing. I had my MP3s on random and "Chatahoochie" came on and I sang it from beginning to end. When the song ended James said "hunh. You finally learned the rest of the words." I was confused by this. He thought that since I always joined in at the same point, I just didn't know what came before it. I told him that I've always known the words, that was just the point where I could no longer contain myself. The next several times it came on, or I played it on purpose, I started in from the beginning, just to prove I really do know all the words.

The song came on today at work. Recalling this memory made me laugh. And, yes, I did join in. Quietly though-my co-workers have to listen to me jabber on all day. They deserve not to have to hear me sing too.

Accomplishments

Today was a slightly better day. I don't know what exactly happened to take me so far back, but it does feel like I may (hopefully!) be at the end of this latest wave of grief.

I know that although it may not feel like it at the moment, I have made progress in the last 15 months and today I tried to think about and focus on that. Here is what I have accomplished:

* I have gotten out of bed every single day, even though there were certainly days I did not want to.
* When I felt I wasn't getting the support I needed from the bereavement group I was attending, I created my own group that meets once a month for dinner.
* I fixed the drain in the bathroom once and for all.
* I achieved my goal of becoming a volunteer project leader for an organization that I volunteer with regularly.
* I am not a natural leader but I am getting better at leading the group.
* I have managed to keep several houseplants alive for 15 months, with only one casualty.
* I have managed to take pretty good care of the dogs.
* I have disposed of not one, but 2 dead mice without freaking out. (My co-worker thinks its funny that I make sure everyone knows I did not freak out).
* I joined a group for women learning photography so I could honor James by taking on something that was of interest to him.
* I found out that I was in over my head with the photography group, so I registered for a class. It starts in June. I am still going to the group meetings in the meantime.
* I took a vacation.
* Last May, in a week's time, I raised $400 for the American Heart Association Heart Walk. So far in 2 days this year, I have raised $150. In this economy, I am thrilled.
* I no longer freak out about things I would normally freak out about. I just deal with them.
* I spent 13 months planning a wedding I did not get to have followed by 15 months of grieving. I have not completely cracked and I am not being medicated.
* I have realized that I am a much stronger woman than I ever gave myself credit for.
* I have realized that I am very well liked in my own right, and not just because I was a package deal with an awesome man.
* I have never lost my sense of humor. I have always felt that as long as I have that, I will be okay.

And I will be okay. Maybe not as soon as I would like to be, but someday. Deep down, I can feel it.

The Passage of Time

How can it be that a single day can seem so long ago and and like it was just yesterday at the same time?

It was 15 months ago today that I lost James to a heart attack. Like today, it was a Wednesday. I used to like Wednesday. Now they just mean another week, or in this case another month, has passed without him. In some ways, it feels like it just happened; in other ways it feels like a lifetime ago.

I am struggling right now. Last night, I pulled out the journal I was keeping at this time last year so I could see how far I have come. I turned to 5/6, and found I feel pretty much the same now as I did then. The only real difference is that I no longer feel it is a betrayal for young widowed people to remarry like I did then. Even though I don't feel it right now, deep down, I know I have made progress. I do feel hopeful that I will find happiness again some day; hopefully, sooner rather than later, but right now, I mostly just feel lost, lonely, exhausted and overwhelmingly sad. I miss him. If I really could have anything I wanted, this would all just be a bad dream.

Roller Coasters

There is a theme park in Northern Idaho called Silverwood. When it was first built back in the early 1990's, there wasn't a whole lot to it, but now it is hailed as the Northwest's largest theme park (according to their website). It really is a pretty cool place now. And, it turns out that if you know the back roads, my dad's house was only a few miles away. So, one time when James and I went to visit Dad, I took him to Silverwood.

I would say one of their biggest attractions is the Tremors roller coaster. Tremors is a wooden roller coaster that you can see from the highway as you drive by the park. Of course, James wanted to ride it. I hate roller coasters and my stomach drops just watching this one from the road. I told him I didn't "do" roller coasters and he convinced me I should take one for the team. So, I reluctantly agreed, even though I really hate roller coasters, I don't think wooden ones are safe and this one starts out with a huge drop. By the end of the ride, I was hyperventilating. James promised I never had to go on another roller coaster again and went on the others by himself while I scouted out huckleberry funnel cakes. I highly recommend huckleberry funnel cakes. Actually, I highly recommend huckleberry anything.

A couple of years later, James' brother and his family came up for the 4th of July. Not knowing how else to entertain the kids, we took them to Bullwinkle's Family Fun Center. They had a roller coaster simulator. I thought "It's just a simulator. It can't be that bad." This particular simulator had an option where you could program your own ride. James decided to program our own ride. I thought that was sweet of him. Knowing how I felt about roller coasters, it was sure to be tame. I can be so naive. He programmed our ride, and we got in. The ride started and I asked more than once why I felt I was going upside down. Next thing I knew, I was upside down and screaming my head off. That was as far as we got. I am not a loud person. I often get frustrated thinking I am being ignored and more often than not, it's just that no one can hear me talking. My brother-in-law and his family heard me screaming from outside the simulator. James was impressed that I was actually capable of being loud. After that, James promised I would never have to go on another roller coaster and that he meant it this time.

He was wrong. This grieving process is the worst roller coaster ride I have ever been on. Just when I think I am back to the platform, the bottom drops out again. Granted, that doesn't happen as often now as it did in the first few months, but now it seems to come with much more force. Today was a roller coaster day. I was strangely calm one second and literally bawling my eyes out the next. It has been a long time since I have sobbed so hard I couldn't speak. For the moment, I am all cried out and back to the calm feeling that everything will be okay-someday. For now, the roller coaster is heading back to the platform and this time, I would really like to get off the ride.

Days like today

It is days like today that make me really appreciate what it was like to have someone to come home to. Today started out like any other Monday. I got up, stumbled around the house, managed to make myself look somewhat presentable and headed off to work.

This morning was like any other Monday. We did the "how was your weekend?" thing, complained about how slow our system was, set about our tasks, and complained some more about how slow are system is. Our system really is that slow. And not just on Mondays.

Then, this afternoon, things became unusual. Our server needed to be re-started and was only going to be down for 5 minutes. Half an hour later, we weren't back up so I decided to go to lunch. I had an errand to run and I knew I was going to be cutting it close to get it done in an hour. I made it back with 4 minutes to spare, thank you very much. But, the system was still down so I took my time eating my lunch and addressing envelopes to request a couple of genealogy records. While I was eating, my friend called to tell me that we had been asked to leave our bunco group. This is a newly formed group that basically consists of two separate groups of people that are connected by a single person. Apparently, the other side doesn't like that some of us get annoyed when we start playing over an hour after we are scheduled to start and they don't want us to play anymore. I've never been kicked out of something before that I can think of, and I'm not really sure how I feel about it. James would have thought it was funny though. I am pretty shy around new people and I was just starting to warm up to the others. Oh well, we'll just start our own group.

I got off the phone in time to hear that we were going to be down for at least 2 more hours. So, basically until the end of the work day. My co-worker and I decided that we were going to make ourselves useful so we asked if we could work out in the warehouse. We then spent over an hour repackaging microphones before being told we could return to our regular jobs. Amazingly, after being down for so long, I could still remember what I was doing before we lost the server. And, even though I did not touch any sharp objects out in the warehouse, I still managed to cut my finger. I'm just talented like that.

It may not sound like much, but it was a departure from my normal routine and that is the type of thing I could never wait to get home to tell James about. I can have the conversation in my head, but I hate not having him here to share with the seemingly little things that you tend to take for granted.