Well .....

..... I am home from Camp Widow.

I'm glad to be home.

Glad to be sitting here with Son #3, watching Jimmy Buffet and chatting about nothing in particular.

Glad to be back in my own familiar surroundings.

But sad.

Sad to have had to leave all of those wonderfully amazing survivors.

Sad to leave so many friends .... some new, some not-so-new.

Sad to leave so many people who "get me".

Sad to leave so many widowed people who blog for the same reason I blog: because I have to and because I know that my writing will connect with one person out there. Maybe only one, but if that's the case, then I have not gone through this hell on earth for nothing.

Sad to leave people who understand that just because I blog about one crappy day, that doesn't mean that I'm going to off myself.

Sad to leave people who laugh at the same "dead spouse comments" that no one else dares laugh at.

Camp Widow is the one place in the world where I feel that I totally belong. The one place where I can totally be myself and not worry about what other people think.

The one place where I am not criticized for what I write in my blog.

Instead, I have complete strangers come up to me to ask me if I'm Txmomx6. And when I say yes, they thank me so much for my blog. And tell me how much they relate to what I write. And they ask me to please not stop writing.

They bring me to tears.

Because I do think about stopping.

I don't feel that I can be as free anymore about what I write. The only place I can do that is on Widow's Voice ..... because most people who love and care about me don't read that.

Isn't it ironic that the people who care the most about you can be the ones who sometimes hurt you the most?

I know that I am loved.

I know that I am cared for.

I know that people worry about me when I write.

I wish they wouldn't.

We widowed people who blog usually are feeling just fine once we "vomit up" our feelings on the keyboard.

We move forward.

I write because I need to write.

I write because if I didn't get some of this gunk outside of me ..... I don't know what would happen, except that it wouldn't be pretty.

I rarely know what I'm going to write about when I sit down at the computer.

It just pours out.

It's very strange but very, very therapeutic.

Someone who loves me very much asked me when I thought I'd stop.

I couldn't answer that.

As long as I feel that this helps me and that it helps another widowed person ..... I will write.

Yes, it may upset those who love me.

It may upset some (or all) of my children.

And yes, theoretically I should put my children first.

But if they have to have a grieving mother who has no outlet (an outlet that seems to come very naturally to her) .... then they'd have a very different mother.

Or maybe ..... they'd have a dead mother.

They'd certainly have a mother who felt as if the death of her husband was totally in vain.

Instead, they have a mother who blogs.

They have a mother who feels that what she's gone through matters.

To someone.

Yes, she sometimes blogs about her children, though she's trying to not do that as much.

But sometimes my grief and my parenting are intertwined, as they are for some of the people who read this blog.

And sometimes the actions of my children are caused by the grief that is buried deep within them .... even if they don't realize it.

And other parents of grieving teenagers need to hear that they are not alone and that someone else is dealing with the things they are dealing with.

Yes, she blogs about the raw emotions, feelings, thoughts and actions that grief has brought into her life.

And if she's not a good mother for that .... then she is what she is.

But she also thinks .... shame on you, if that's what you think.

And if that's what you think ..... try walking in my shoes for a week.

Or just a day.

And to every one of you who came up to me this weekend .... to thank me, to tell me that you could relate to me, to encourage me .... to just say hi ..... thank you.

I can't express to you what each of you did for me.

Except that you took me from that place of doubt, of guilt, of thinking that I should quit ..... and you lifted me up.

To a place of knowing that what I feel matters.

What I write matters.

And that we WILL survive.

One breath at a time.

Happy Sunday, Peeps.

:)