Therapeutic Reflections

This little ol' blog is good therapy. I was reading over some of my older posts and while I know what I write on here isn't all happy-feeley-niceness, it has been good therapy. I have thought about the mechanism of going to see a therapist regularly and since I have so many emotions over the course of the day, I think just straight writing them down has made the most difference in my grief processing. I have hand written journals, online word processing files, and other online blog posts that never feel right to post for all to see. And of course there's my very patient friends who listen to me and accept me for me. I think that has been what I have needed, therapy-wise. I'm glad I clued into this early on.

The past couple days have been a roller coaster. After a couple weeks of having Carson in his new-to-him big boy bed (the one we could NEVER get Spencer to sleep in, so it has sat in our basement for two years), I finally decided I needed to stop staring at the crib in my room--where Carson slept. It was a little creepy without the mattress in it. So I took it apart yesterday. I cried and cried. It's totally illogical to want another child with the stresses of what I do on my own daily, I DO realize. But that crib represented so much. It represented how I feel as a woman, as a mother, it represented sex (lack thereof), and a million emotions tied to the various roles in my life. I was so, so sad to take that crib down, knowing it will most likely never go back up again. Argh.

Thankfully I didn't have time to wallow. Life had other plans yesterday.

I changed the little blocks on my mantle that I make up sayings depending on the season or birthdays, or holidays. I dusted the room and then debated what to say about the 4th of July on these blocks. Having only letters on these little blocks (no numbers) I decided that I would write out "Happy Independence Day." But somehow I didn't like the word "Day" in this saying, it just stretched out too long on the mantle. I wrote "Happy Independence." And then I pondered the rest of the day on what that term means to me.

I'll admit, I'm terrible with history. I can't remember what years which wars happened to save my life. And I understand what it meant for the US to be a free and independent nation, but it's something I can't give a dissertation on, I suppose. We use this term "Happy Independence Day" to celebrate our freedoms. But I got to thinking how amazing it is that we can be independent human beings with freedoms of all kinds--and that I, as a woman, have these same freedoms as men. What an interesting thing it would've been for me to raise 3 little boys as a widow if I had lived in an era where women didn't have the freedoms that we enjoy today. Amazing. I feel very blessed.

Yesterday's baby blahs turned into happy blahs at the end of the day as I got to go help a friend out on a project (hopefully I didn't ruin your house, H! :)). I will say that it is true, helping out friends and neighbors and getting our minds on someone other than ourselves really does turn attitudes and mentality upside down--for the better. I'm so glad my friend let me come over. Since it seems that my rendering service doesn't happen as I would like it to (mostly because if I serve, then someone is likely having to serve me by watching my kiddos!) it feels good to get out of my self absorbed bubble.

This afternoon I started looking up the cost (the worth) of these brand new medical books that have been sitting around the house that are Adam's. I haven't had the mental strength for the past 22 months to stick them on Amazon. And really, they just bug me that they are brand new--he had just bought all of his books for the whole last year of residency, right before he died. But summer de-junking is upon me and it is time. I've held onto these books for too long. I'm debating what I should buy myself with the couple hundred dollars worth of books. It should be a TV. Because that would be the ultimate in irony for my dear Adam. Sweet Adam. I hope you will appreciate my smile--my mental freedom--when I rid the house of these books.