I Know What I Know aka Long, Rambling Rant

It's been a rough week, thus far and it's only Wednesday. I've been crying in my coffee and in the brownies my hubby will take to deer camp (so, sorry if they're salty love) and behind the sunglasses I'm wearing even though it's not at all sunny. My cats just look at me curiously and I'm just seriously thankful that their presence means I'm not ranting and raving to myself.

I was feeling fragile, as in wanting to be alone in my quiet house, so it was probably not a good week to decide to take on Picture Project 2010. But - then I was alone in my quiet house and that seemed like the perfect thing to do since we are fast approaching 2011. Well, I realized that I never completed Picture Projects 2008 or 2009 either. What that means is that I have approximately 1200 photos in albums that need captions and another 900 pictures that need to be organized in albums. What that means is going back to 2 years ago and chronicling what has happened in our lives month by month, milestone by milestone, memory by memory. I'm a linear person so I wanted to start with the oldest album and work forward. I wanted to, but the thing is that I couldn't.

It's no surprise where I left off. August 2008. Powers Lake. Family vacation. The last family vacation with my mom. Her life ended a month later. She's not in many of the pictures because she spent most of the week sleeping while the Olympics kept her company and the rest of us tried to have a "normal" vacation. Even before writing it in black and white here...now, I realized how utterly ridiculous that was. There was no semblance of "normal." I didn't have the strength to put words next to those pictures, and I'm just not sure I ever will.

I picked up the next album. I opened it and I froze. As hard as it was to see my Mom frail and weak and bundled up in knit hats in the dog days of summer, it was even more terrifying not to see her where she would normally be. Holding hands with Miss Bit in her purple princess regalia making the trick or treat rounds, or wearing her reindeer antlers in the family picture beside the tree smiling with her eyes. I leafed through the album, and I felt like I was seeing so many of these shots for the first time, and feeling this loss like it was brand new. It's no surprise that I didn't make much progress.

And I guess that the impact of taking this on, made me question if I've really progressed at all in the grieving process. I feel like I'm right back at shock and denial, and that's stage 1. I know. I know. I may be a linear thinker, but grief is good at throwing curve balls often when we least expect it. The stages are not straight or undeviating or predictable. I can know this, but it still feels like stuck.

And so I made the executive decision to leave the last 2 years of my life sprawled out all over the dining room table while I lost myself in baking and daytime drama for a half hour. As I was mixing the brownies, I learned that the matriarch of this riveting show I sometimes tune out with has brain tumors. It is the week before Thanksgiving and Stephanie is going in for gamma knife surgery. I totally lose it. I lose it because exactly 3 years ago my Mom had the very same surgery the day...THE day...before Thanksgiving. I'm crying and laughing at the same time because this just seems like a rather cruel joke. The kind doctor puts the metal helmet on her head and tells her she will feel like herself the next day. Sure, that's true. My Mom was up stuffing the turkey the very next day. We were all so damn sure she was Superwoman and those damn tumors didn't stand a chance. Stephanie asks what they will do if the gamma knife doesn't work. The doctor tells her that there are many other options. To that I say bullshit! Not good ones.

All I know is that was the last turkey my Mom ever stuffed.