Five months, pen to paper

 I've been struggling with my writing a lot lately. As always, I have so many things I want to do, but rarely find myself doing them. Lately, when I sit down to write, I'm too spent to really try to get anything out.

 What I have been doing, is living.

 It took a while to get to that point again. Right now, we at Five Months, and I'm realizing many things are better. The kids and I are getting to a spot I couldn't have concieved of a few months ago.

 Being ready for the future. I've been looking at houses now. It's kind of exciting, and liberating, in a way. Your old dreams are taken from you, but you still have new ones. Beginning to realize those new dreams are a welcome feeling. Meg is still trying to get me to buy a house close to some of her friends. We'll see.

 It's good starting to feel life happening again. When it happens, you realize how dead inside you'd become. The difference between living and existing are pretty incredible.

 You get to the point where you realize life is still going on, and your story is still being written. We still never know the ending till we get there.

 Some plot twists are harder to deal with then others, but we can still hope for a happy ending. I know I am.

 So I'm living. I'm putting the pen to paper and writing the next book in the series. I still don't know where it will take us, but I'm excited for my tomorrows for the first time in a while. I'm excited to see what the next page brings.


 On another note, as far as this blog goes, the story has been written. I'll have a few more entries here, specifically after we spread her ashes, and after the celebration of life. Those are technically the afterword to look at it in a literary manner.

 I'm going to focus on the story, the life that I'm writing now. So, if you want, feel free to follow it here.
 I don't know where it will go, but I have hope. Either way, it's being written.

                                                                                                                    -Aaron
Nothing is Trivial.

Three months, and healing.

 So yesterday made three months since Robin passed.

 I decided not to write yesterday. I decided to give it a little bit more thought, and really figure out how I'm doing. Lately, I'm less of a wreck than I have been, so I think that's promising.

 The kids and I have been doing things. Meg and I just started learning Japanese, and made a didgeridoo for her class.

 I still cry. I think that'll continue for a long time, but I feel like I'm waking up. I feel like I have my feet back under me, and i'm moving in a direction.

 We also started talking about the memorial service and life celebration today. As much as I hate talking about it, I think I've finally hit that point where I'm past thinking that ignoring it will make it better. It hurts, but we are pushing through it.

 I've also started thinking about the future, or, at least without feeling horrible guilt for it. Survivor's Guilt really is a bitch. It was worse right after, when any time something made me smile, I felt terrible and just wanted to lay down and die.
 These days, there are pangs, but the realization hit that I still have a lot of story left in front of me, and as much as I don't want to keep walking, the swamps of sorrow will swallow me it I let them.

 The pamphlet the hospital sent, said it would be something like this, though, it truth, I only skimmed it.

 After a lot of looking, and asking for advice, the most common answer I usually got was, "I don't know what to say," which I completely respect, because there really are enough bullshit books out there telling us what to think.

 My thoughts lean more towards this process being unique for everyone. I look at my family, and a few people internalized it, a few avoided it. Meg turned her focus towards hobbies and staying busy. Logan tried to understand it sweetly in his way, and I don't know what Morgan is doing, bless her baby heart.

 I got angry, and then sad. Then I felt guilt, anger again, and then soul rending depression. I waited to die, I wrote emo poems about it like I did in high school. I cried, and yelled at God. I pointed out that if He was listening this time, I still don't know what the hell He was doing. Going back to work, because I just had to look at people who far more deserved pain and death than my wife.

 Then, one day it was all a little better. God and I still don't talk much, but that's alright. I still believe He's out there, I just question why, and if He listens. I also accept that I don't have the answers.

 But, one day it was better than the day before. I also realize that I will grieve her forever in a part of my heart. The rest of me needs to try to live though, no matter how much I may or may not want to that day. I'm still here and I have shit to do.

 I started reaching out to my friends again, and that has helped me, though it does tend to be the gorilla in the room. I tend to push past it first. My friends are helping remember how living felt, and I that them daily for that.

 So, today, Three months and one day later, I guess I am getting back to living, a baby step at a time.



Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

  -William Earnest Henley

Two Months

 So,
 As of today, it has been two months. I realize, in my head, that she's gone, but it feel like every day my heart figures it out anew.

 I think sometimes, that the reason it goes like that is to protect our sanity. The things our brains can't process, it just kind of glosses over. When you try to think about it, your brain just kind of stops.

 It think it is a lot like what Lovecraft described. That some things, the human mind can't deal with, so it either breaks, or shuts the idea out.

 As far as the day to day things, life has fallen back into a more 'normal' rhythm. I'm working out again, the kids are all back to their routines.

 I just keep thinking eventually it will get better.

 I keep hoping for a text from beyond the veil. Or a voice.

 I'm not holding my breath though.

 I miss you honey.

A New Year

 2011...

 What to say about this year.

 This was the hardest year of my life so far. We started it out full of hope, and by the end, all that hope was gone.
 We started it as a family of five, a dog and three cats. Now, it's just me, the kids and the cats.

 Losing Robin, and losing Lily right before that was a huge soulcrushing blow.

 Now, the pieces are mostly picked up, and things are starting to get back to normal. I have to say I'm glad the holidays are over now. Thanksgiving was a wash. Christmas was good, but tough emotionally.

 Last night was more difficult than I expected it to be.

 Meg wanted to stay up until midnight, and she did well there. She was, surprisingly, in a good mood the whole evening. Logan passed out in a chair around 10, and Morgan went to bed at 8:30 like she usually does.
 After the kids were all in bed, the realization crept in that I was starting this new year alone. Not alone alone, but without Robin. When I talk to her pictures, and meditate deep in my memories, it's almost like she isn't gone, just not here presently.

 Last night I felt alone. Facing a brand new year as a single father is intimidating. We had been a team for so long, and it's shitty to think about a whole year of good and bad that I don't get to share with her. I thought about everything we shared this past year. The parts where we really lived, where we took hold of live with both hands and lived it hard were really good. Those memories overshadow the sickness. I wish we had done the whole year like that, but when you are holding on to hope, you expect it will end well.

So we have a new year, fresh off of the bad end of last year. All I can do is try as hard as I can to make it not suck. It's already starting out better than last year, because we have already hit that low point. Every day since then has been steadily better.

 So, with that in mind, I kissed all my children. I said my prayers over them, and went to bed.

 I don't know what this year will bring. But life is going to get what i'm going to give it this year, no matter what it does bring.

'Tis the Season

 So,
Christmas, and the upcoming new year have been tougher than I'd expected. I'm not sure what I expected, but it was good, and I thin it sucked because it was good.

 Robin always loved Christmas, I think because she enjoyed giving things to others so much. She really loved it after we had kids. When we were poor(er) we always made it a point to get stuff for the kids, usually at the cost of something for each other.
 When we were doing better, we did the same thing. Her delight in giving rubbed off on me too. It's just something she enjoyed. Even towards the end, as sick as she was, she wanted me to load up a visa shopping card so she could buy me a present, and I wouldn't see the receipt.

 Just another in the long list of things we never got to do.

 But I focused on the kids this Christmas. I got them the things they asked for. Through the generosity of a lot of people I work with, presents from a mysterious Santa arrived at the house. So the Christmas for the kids was pretty big this year.

 We talked a lot about the real meanings of Christmas, and Christ's Sacrifice. We also talked a lot about feelings and enjoying the Holidays, even without Robin around.

 I've been focusing on trying to be patient with the kids. I don't know how I could possibly do it without my Mother-in-law. I feel bad that we are such a burden, but she has been a real blessing.

 The biggest change I've noticed in myself lately, is that I'm praying less. I start to, and then the feelings creep in. Bitterness, anger, sadness, disbelief, others. The feelings wash over me. Sometimes I yell. Usually I cry. Then it's over. I tried to pray, but didn't get very far.

 What I do find myself doing is talking to Robin. She doesn't answer, but I imagine her there, listening to me. I tell her about the things the kids did, I tell her about the things I did at work. I tell her about the things I want to accomplish.

 Then I feel like an ass. All we wanted to do was grow old together, and be those cute, in love old people.

 But you can't always get what you want. All you can do is move on. I think once the Holidays are over, it will be easier to deal with it again. It hurts now though.

 Soon it will be a new year though, and it can't come soon enough.

Merry Christmas

What a change from last year.

 Last year we were still figuring out her surgery, chemo schedule.

 This year, she's looking down on us from Heaven.

 I'm not sure how emotional it will be tomorrow, because Christmas was always Robin's favorite Holiday. We always managed to do it up pretty well, so I decided to carry that on this year.

 I focused on my children, because I wanted to show them we can still go on and enjoy it, and give to each other, even with it being so different. It will be rough, and I've been pretty depressed lately, but we are gonna make it through.

 I feel for all my friends deployed over Christmas, and all my friends who are going in to work tomorrow, instead of being with their families.

 The suck is still the suck, even if you are stateside.

 I'm sitting down to a little bit of Christmas cheer, and eventually sleep will come.
Tomorrow I'll enjoy my family, and I'll see what the future brings.

 2012 is going to be a better year, even if the world ends, or we have a zombie apocalypse.

16 years. (1m10d)

 Today is the anniversary of my first date with Robin. It was in 1996. I don't think either of us knew what we were getting into. I certainly didn't

 Sixteen years later, after almost 12 years of Marriage, 3 beautiful children. After joy, pain, frustration, fear and sadness, I still love her.

 You never know what you are in for when you open your heart to someone. I found the love of my life.

 Too bad true happiness can never be in this world. True passion burns so hot that the gods become jealous and take it from us.

 That's the writer in me saying that, but it's true.

 Shakespeare agrees with me.

 I miss you honey. One hundred years wouldn't have been enough, so I can only be thankful for what we had.

 I'm sorry I took you to see Beavis and Butthead, but I was am, and will probably always be, a jackass.