LVBN

You know how when you drive down the road and people have license plates that are personalized that take you a minute to figure out? I had one of those today. I hope that my interpretation is what this guy meant....I haven't attempted to drum up what possible bad phrases this could also stand for.

This guy's said LVBN DAD

I took this to mean "Love Bein' Dad" (Let's hope I'm correct!)

I got to thinking, do I love being a mom? Yes. I do. I've however, deemed myself in the "active grief" stage of my life so I see everything with a bit of haze.

I decided that while I love being a mom, I'm really undergoing an identity crisis. I loved being a mom BECAUSE I was fulfulled as a wife and because I also walked hand in hand with my husband--working together to help me be a mom and him be a dad. All that has changed and I guess to some degree, I don't know how to love being a mom right now because I don't feel like a complete mom right now.

It's a very tough thing to verbalize. My being widowed came up with a woman I was sitting by while at the boys' swim lessons yesterday. For the first time, she didn't react like most and gush, "Oh, I'm SO sorry." She said she was sorry and proceeded to discount what I'm going through by saying, "My husband works all the time so I feel like I'm a widow." Seriously, I wanted to slap her. I mean, seriously. It's ridiculous. And I let her know it. I said, "Yeah, my husband was a doctor in the middle of residency. I know ALL about working 'all the time.' He was gone all the time. I know that. Now I NEVER get a break--my kids don't just get to go spend time with their dad in another location of the house while I do laundry, wash dishes, or take a shower." I was again stunned by such idiocy. Yet, I get that it all stems from a place of wanting to connect to me. Somehow. Or maybe in the case of this rare woman, maybe not.

Still, it's cruel.

I don't quite know how to deal with this identity crisis I'm having. I mean, I've come to terms with most all of it, but I just loathe it all. Last night was the "last hurrah" of sorts to being a doctor's wife when I attended the graduation dinner for the radiology residents. I won't ever be a doctor's wife again (unless by some strange twist I remarry a widowed doctor....) so I guess last night was like another rite of passage, another check off the list for me.

While I "know who I am" in terms of being a child of God, a woman, a mother, a nurse, a HUMAN....I don't know who I am anymore without Adam. My purpose is not the same purpose it once was. I won't ever be the same. I don't know how to fill the hole I feel in my heart, how I am supposed to patch it up and move on.

Maybe that's where the heartless "time heals" stuff comes in. But I for now I still reject it. It's like, I want something equal to the happiness I've had and worked to achieve with Adam. Adam would want that for me too. I just don't know though.

Yep. I LVBN MOM. I just have to figure out how to LVBN Melissa now. On my own.