Letting Go And Moving On

The last few months I have been pondering letting go of some items I have around the house that have ties to Barry, and the life we lived together.

• Our bed frame that we bought when we were first married
• Our Christmas Tree
• The Roses from the arrangements that my friend Lisa made for me for his memorial service

And that just names a few of them, well, the items that are weighing most heavily on my mind.

Our Christmas Tree we bought when the twins were just 10 months old.  It is 7.5 feet tall, 5 feet wide at the base and is just huge. It has lived in 6 houses, this one being the sixth. It has been set up for 9 Christmases, and held many years of ornaments.  Has had hundreds of Christmas gifts under it.  Has been piled with candy canes, and cursed at for being difficult to put up. Barry even made us a diagram after Christmas 2008 so we would remember how to do it.  Youd think after so many years we would remember, but we did not.  But now it is leaning a bit to the side.  The box was so torn up and taped up, that last year I bought a bag for it. I have to string the lights myself and it is a very tedious job.  So this year I am getting a new tree, with pre-strung lights.

But what do I do with the old tree? Do I keep it in the bag its in for years down the road? When Barry and I bought it, he said wed get the biggest tree possible so that we wouldnt have to buy another one for YEARS. He picked it out.  So have 9 years been enough? Should I make this the 10th year it is up?

I feel like change is needed.  I want a new tree, and will buy one, but I just dont know what to do with the old one. I feel wrong getting rid of it.  But I dont want it to clutter up my garage.  Im all about streamlining lately, and have been getting the urge to declutter and purge again.

Now I have the roses from Barrys memorial service, dried, in my closet.  Why have I kept them? I dried them all, and they sit in a basket out of sight.  I dont want them anymore.  I have no use for them.  But to throw them away would, again, make me feel guilty.  Almost like I dont respect him anymore, that I dont value the memory of that day.

Lastly is our bed frame. This I struggle getting rid of the most. We actually bought an entire bedroom set, and had matching dressers and a nightstand to go with it, which I gave to Habitat for Humanity before I moved. This was our wedding gift to each other. But the bed frame, that is special.  That is the baby making bed, where our family was started.  That bed has seen love, anger, sadness, fighting, laughing, lots of sex and making love.  It has seen everything.  And the night after Barry died, I laid in it, and woke up crying in my sleep at 5 AM.  It was the foundation of our marriage almost, and I have it in my garage right now, leaning against the wall.  I knew when I moved that I would keep it.  But here I am, almost seven months later and I dont want it anymore.  It is taking up space.  What the hell do I do with it?

Does all this mean I am moving on with my life? I dont want to "lose" Barry, so to speak.  I want to hold onto him forever.  But I can not keep all this "clutter" in my life.  Quite honestly, it stresses me out because I see more stuff taking up space.  And I do not want clutter.  I hate clutter. Yet with four children, it is nearly impossible to not have clutter, but I do my best.  And throw away crap I see lying around.  Anyway, I dont want to disrespect him.  I feel bad for wanting to get rid of all of it, especially the bed.  Its just though I dont need it anymore, I wont ever have a use for it unless one of the kids wants it when they move out of the house.  So do I hold onto it for another 10+ years? Hell no! But then there is just that tie to the bed, the one place I last laid with Barry, where I heard him snore and wanted to suffocate him, where we loved each other, and cuddled, and made love and had sex and laughed and fought.  There is so much to that bed.

I know these things dont represent him, our memories of him are in our hearts and our minds, but there are still things that he touched, things he fixed.  Hell, we were going to get rid of the whole bedroom set if we had moved to Pennsylvania anyway! I just feel like its so special now, that how could I possibly get rid of it?

I just dont know what to do.  I want it, yet I dont want it.  I need to move on, and I am afraid these things are holding me back from doing so.

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Were Moved In!

As I write this post, I am sitting here at my new desk, with a red face from crying, tears running down my face and a drippy nose. I just got an email from an old family friend and it made me fall to pieces.

I want to write a really good "Hello New House" blog post, but Im not quite sure I can yet, I want to get used to the house first. But rest assured, we are adjusting well. The kids are in heaven here, as we live in a cul-de-sac, and there is a boy across the "curve" lol that is the same age as my son. They played together all day yesterday. The street is so incredibly quiet, and safe, and I can easily send the kids outside and not worry about where they are. Plus we have two dirt lots on either side that havent been built on yet, so the kids are having a fun time exploring in the dirt, rocks and seeing the various ducks that come by. They can ride their bikes as well without getting into trouble. We will be very happy here, I can see that already.

On Friday morning, the movers came at 9AM and were finally done at 2PM. They did a great job and I was very impressed with them, so it was very very much worth the cost to pay them rather than ask people to help me. I had about an hour to myself, and then at 3PM I had more friends come over off and on and, and then we had people in the house all day till 10PM! I wont name names, but I couldnt have done it without the help of all my friends that really chipped in. On Thursday I was also blessed to have six other friends of mine come and help me with last minute packing and cleaning. I still have a lot of cleaning to do at the old house, and there is furniture there that is being picked up and donated this week, but the house is empty save for that stuff. I had to laugh a bit because EVERY time Barry and I moved together, we were NEVER EVER ready to go on moving day. Never. And guess what? I was ready to go Friday morning, everything was packed and labeled, and the movers got right to work. So TAKE THAT Barry! lol

I am still not used to this place, it feels like I am living in someone elses house. The new furniture is especially disorienting, as we have none of our familiar stuff except our kitchen table and chairs. Last night it took me awhile to fall asleep in my new bed (mattresses were delivered yesterday!) because it was so new. I was sleeping in a new bed, on new mattresses, new pillows and with brand new bedding. I wonder if I feel this way because Barry was never here. And perhaps that is a good feeling in some ways, because we dont have the constant reminders of him around every corner. This house just feels "different", it has a different aura about it...I can sense it, but I dont know what it is. I am sure it will just take us time to adjust and become comfortable in our surroundings and then it will all be good.

Early early this morning it hit me when I realized what the date was. April 4th. Check out this post I wrote October 5th. Little did I know that when I wrote about losing my best friend, I actually would just a mere 5 days later.

It is exactly six months ago that Barry came home for the very last time alive. It was a Sunday too. October 4th he came home about 6PM, and we watched as he pulled his Kenworth into the driveway. He didnt come out of the truck to see the kids because he didnt want to get them sick. So the last time the kids saw their daddy alive was on the evening of October 4th as he waved to them from the cab of his truck. Shortly after that, my friend Sara came over and watched them for me, as I brought him to the ER from which he would never return. Six months that we have been having a real live nightmare.

And all I can do is sigh.

To celebrate our new home, I am making a VERY un-traditional Easter dinner as our first
official meal here. Im actually making Barrys famous spaghetti. I havent been able to make that since before he died, so we havent eaten it in probably close to 8 months if not longer. Weve had spaghetti once since, that a friend brought over, but I just havent had the courage to do it. He made the absolute best spaghetti, nothing topped it. And now I am carrying on his legacy by making it. Im looking forward to eating his spaghetti actually!

I hope everyone has a Happy Easter! I am overloaded with Cadbury creme eggs, as my kids have decided the dont like them anymore! And in Barrys words..."Communists!"

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Were Back!

I apologize for my absence and lack of writing.

While I thought I would have all the time in the world to blog while we were in Florida, i did not have much time at all.  We were so busy.

We had a wonderful vacation.

two weeks in hot, sunny, Florida.

Walt Disney World, NASA, Gatorland, Cocoa Beach.

Putting my feet in the Atlantic Ocean was one of my highlights, as was seeing Eric, who was Barrys squad Sgt when he was in the Army years ago.

Spending a day with an old friend, and dinner with another who has promised to come visit us next summer from Tampa.

I am tired and exhausted.  I took over 2000 photos.  Probably spent that much money on souvenirs, food, etc etc.

The kids are back in school, tomorrow will be our first normal week back. Back to routines, to schedules, to normalcy.  To rain.

Waking up Thursday morning to a wall of fog outside my window was monumentally depressing, as Wednesday morning I woke up to sun.  Left Orlando and it was 90F outside.  Got home late Wednesday night and it was 60F inside my house.

Weve spent the weekend adjusting.  I promise to write more.  soon.

But I am tired, and emotional. Missing Barry so much right now.  Today I took a scalding hot shower and sat on the seat in the shower with the water cascading above me.

The water was so hot it was scalding.  But it felt good as I cried buckets into my hands.

I was sad because I was told I needed to lose more weight.  Yes I know that. But almost 90lbs in one year is pretty fucking amazing.  And even more sad because I know the size I am now Barry would be a total horn dog teenage boy with me. He wouldnt be able to keep his hands off me. But to everyone else I am still fat.

I need to go catch up on Glee from while I was gone, and then off to bed early for me.  I do promise to write soon.

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Six Months Later

Right now at 9:30AM as I am writing this, 6 months ago Barry was completely "normal". He was alive, and joking and telling me he loved me. And then he died a mere hour and a half later. I am trying not to dwell on that today, but its hard. I am going to keep busy and run some errands with the kids.

I had all these grand plans to write a post about how he died because I figured six months would be a good date to let it all out. No one asked me to, no one pressured me to do it, but I decided not to do so because I am just not ready. I just cant handle the emotions that come with talking and writing about it. It is going to wait for another day, if i am ever ready that is.

I find it so incredibly hard to believe that six months have passed already. It seems a lifetime ago, yet it was only six months. And look how far the kids and I have come in just six months! I have done so much more than I thought I ever would do, and Ive come out ahead most of the time. Time is flying by so quickly, and while I am thankful for that, I am also sad. As I told someone not that long ago, I feel like I am holding him clenched in my hands as tightly as I can, but no matter how tightly I grip my hands together, some of him is bound to seep out like little tiny grains of sand. I hold on as tight as I can to the memories, but as time goes on, I am so afraid I will forget him. Not necessarily him, but his little nuances, things he did and how he was. In the grand scheme of life, 11 years with someone is not that long considering we live for almost 100 years. That would only be 10% of my life that I spent with him, and it doesnt seem like it was nearly enough. I wanted 80%.

I finally started to write in my journal. I have no rhyme or reason to what or when I write, but whenever it strikes my fancy, I write down memories I have of him or us, things he told me, things he did as a child etc etc. Its for the kids mostly when they are older, so they can read about their daddy, and for me too, so I dont forget the little pieces of him. I only have one entry so far, but its a start, right?

I am starting to get choked up writing this, and Id like to keep it together today, so I am going to end this now. I have grocery shopping to do today, and still feel like I need to get this house into order because I took four days off this week when we went on vacation. Were almost all moved in, but there is still a lot of work to be done around the house organizing and unpacking.

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