March 1st

It has been March 1st for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Oh joy.

I am not usually one to assign deep meaning to relatively arbitrary dates that will eventually come and go regardless of anything I do, but I cannot help hoping that a new month will bring something better for the S family than the month that just ended.

See ya February. I am not sure what in God's name we did to tick you off, but you sure had your revenge, didn't you?

February 2010 Review

Feb 1st: Jesse's grandmother passes away
Feb 14th: Failed domestic adoption of the baby girl we have dreamed of and prayed for after we are deemed an unfit family due to the fact that we are not Catholic.(This event spawned the "Life is Wonderful?" post that tormented so many people with its vague nature. Sorry about that.)
Feb 18th: Jesse's employer announces that the company is closing.
Feb 27th: Jesse's grandfather is diagnosed with late stage bone cancer; there are no treatment options other than pain relief as he is not healthy enough to sustain cancer treatment

February 2010 has earned a permanent seat right next to February 2006. I used to think Feb 2006 would always be the worst month of my entire life; the month I was told my husband had less than 5 years to live without a heart-lung transplant. I didn't think it could get much more crappy than that. Clearly I was mistaken. Or maybe not. I think we have managed to tie that degree of crappy, but fortunately we have not yet surpassed it.

There's always a silver lining, eh?

It feels pretty stupid to hope that because letters and numbers on a piece of paper have changed, our life circumstances will improve, but I suppose the human mind is programmed to look for hope anywhere it can. The end of a month of pure hell is as good a time as any to hope for improvements, don't you think?

I really have no real purpose in writing this, other than the fact that I wasn't sleeping and thought that maybe writing it out would serve to purge some of the pain and allow my mind to stop spinning.

I am now investigating grief counselors because we simply don't know how to process this much pain. Our collective solution has been to shut down and retreat from the pain as much as possible. In doing so, we seem to be shutting out all emotions, both the good and the bad. On many levels I recognize the folly in doing so, but on other levels I simply don't care. I don't WANT to feel this much pain. Ignoring it is easier than facing it. I'm not convinced that I am doing myself any favors by refusing to allow the grief its due process, but denial is all I have right now so I am going to go with it. Frankly, I'm not even sure I'm interested in grief counseling as I am sure that person would have one goal in mind; making me acknowledge and deal with the pain. Denial is comfortable right now.

Despite the grief I won't allow myself to feel, the anxiety that I can't shut out and the depression that has replaced both good and bad emotions, I have reached a few conclusions that I think are important to put in writing.

1. God does exist and He does care. He does not purposely toy with me by putting pain in my life, that is not His nature. Rather, He gives me the strength to function and will work everything out for good in my life if I choose to let Him.

2. These events will not destroy my marriage. Many couples have divorced when faced with far less than we have already faced in 12 years of marriage. We will not be defeated by pain and fear.

3. I will cherish every second of the time I have with my children. I will love them and appreciate them for every characteristic they have, no matter how seemingly obnoxious it might be.

4. I will acknowledge that, despite February 2010 and all the hell it has unleashed on our family, we are still richly blessed and have much to be thankful for.

5. I will not allow myself or anyone else to disregard my pain by pointing out that the pain of someone else is worse. If I am standing next to a person in a full body cast with only my one broken arm, my arm still hurts.

So long February 2010. I'm sure we will revisit you many, many times as the years go by and I can't really tell you what those visits might look like. It's not really important right now anyway. At the moment all I need is some closure and this felt like the best way to find it. Peace.