A Day in Grief Hell, Part 2

OK ... dinner has been cooked, and eaten.  Son #3's movie has been watched (though not entirely followed by me).  One glass of wine has been slowly consumed (over 2 hours for one glass of wine?  That should totally say something!).

And now Son #3 is enjoying running through and totally destroying my home playtime with Gabby.

The sigh has been sighed.

And so begins .... the backdrop of my day (a.k.a. Part 2).

     Before I begin .... let me just add ..... that I just this second turned on what is usually a very humorous show, "Scrubs".  And am really not believing that a doctor just walked into a patient's room to tell the patient's wife .... that her husband is about to die.

Welcome. To. My. Hell.

But I digress.

     I am going to Mardi Gras this weekend.  It will be my second time to go.  The first time was in February 2007.  

You know ...... that year.

     Yes, Jim and I attended Mardi Gras with several friends and we had a blast.  I was surprised, because I never would have guessed that he would agree to go.  He was not a "party person", let alone a "Mardi Gras person".  I am not either, but he had me beat.

     But he said yes.  And so we went.  And we had fun.  Here is some evidence:

     After we returned -- very, very tired -- our friends who "hosted" the trip asked Jim, one week later, if he'd like to go again.  I didn't think he would.  Seriously. 

 

But he said yes .... much to my shock.  I mean, we did have fun ..... but he really, really, really was NOT a "party person" and so I had assumed that he had checked "Mardi Gras" off of his list (I'd say "bucket list" but that would be way too morbid, wouldn't it?).

      Anyway, fast forward to October 2007.  I went to Oklahoma with Daughter #1 for a weekend.  We went shopping with my mom and my sister, who was also in town for the weekend.  And, though I wasn't looking, I found a fabulous dress for the next Mardi Gras.  It was on sale and it looked great on me (according to Daughter #1, my mom and my sis ..... and yes, even to me).

So I bought it and brought it home.  I told Jim about the dress, but wouldn't show it to him.  I told him that I would surprise him at Mardi Gras when he saw me in it for the first time.

He never did.

I, of course, did not attend that Mardi Gras with my friends.  No way.

But I agreed to go this year.  I knew that we had fun and I wanted to have fun.

And now, now that the weekend is steamrolling toward me, I am having second, horrible thoughts.

It will bring back so many memories, which can be good ... but can also be very, very bad.

And .... I will be a "5th wheel" among all of our couple friends .... no matter how much they deny it, no matter how much they love me, no matter how much they want to include me ... I am no longer one of them.

But .... I am going.  

Stupid?  Possibly.

Fun?  Probably.

Sad?  Definitely.

Healing?  Likely.

It will be a "wavy" weekend.

     And so today it occurred to me that I needed to try on "The Dress" (I didn't have the energy to go get another dress and just decided to wear that one).

"The Dress" has not seen the light of day since the day I brought it home in October of 2007.  It has hung, in it's bag, in my closet ever since.

And today I realized that I might need to try it on ..... since my body has become somewhat "altered" in the last 14 months.  And I remembered that it was pretty long so I needed to decide which shoes I could wear with it.

So .... I took a deep breath and headed towards my closet.  As I put my hand on the doorknob the tears started to flow.  I opened the door and walked into the closet.  The tears started coming faster, as did my breathing.  

I looked into the closet and saw the bag hanging there.  I paused for a moment ..... and then reached out and took it off of the rod.

I walked out of the closet, hooked the hanger on the closet door, and stared at the bag for a moment.  Probably more than a moment.  And I cried.

And then I took a deep breath .... and removed the bag.

And looked at "The Dress".  

And cried some more ..... for the loss of so many things, but mainly, for the loss of my dreams.

And then I stepped out of my p.j.s and into "The Dress".

And tried not to get it too wet.

It fit pretty well, in spite of my "altered figure".  

Jim would have loved this dress.  

He would have loved me in it.

Once I could stop crying, I started looking for the pair of shoes that I had planned to wear with it.  I found them.

And then discovered .... that I have obviously shrunk in height over the past 14 months.  "The Dress" was WAY longer than I had remembered.  And I don't have shoes that are "high" enough to make it work.

And so I decided ..... against my better judgement .... to hem it.

OMG.

At first I tried to do it on my sewing machine.  My sewing machine and I are not friends. Actually, sewing and I are not friends.

I ripped out what I had started.

And then started again.

And then gave up ... and decided to just do it by hand.

That's when I decided to do that and watch "The Bachelor".  

Big mistake ..... as you already know.

I was already an emotional mess before starting to hem it, and it just went from bad to worse.

But I stuck with it .... and finished it.

Well, sort of.  

It's a totally crappy job, but I figure that it will work for one night.

And hopefully my friends will be kind enough to NOT look at the hem .... not even glance at it ... that night.

This took up all of my morning and most of my afternoon.

And this was after I had woken up at 4:30 a.m. feeling pretty ill with what I guess was an intestinal malfunction.  

And then pretty much stayed up.  

I dozed on and off until 7:30 and then gave up and got up.

I decided that I couldn't go to work on so little sleep.

I should have decided that I couldn't try on "The Dress" with so little sleep.

And I DEFINITELY should have decided that I couldn't hem the damn thing on so little sleep.

Shoulds, coulds, woulds ....... the world is full of them.

And that, my friends, was my day ..... or most of it.

Tomorrow I have an appointment with my regular doctor for a med check.  We will have a serious discussion about the effectiveness, and ineffectiveness, of Ambien, much to the relief of, evidently, everyone who knows me.

I think it's just the stress of the medical crap in my life .... and am interested to see how things go after the surgery.

And now I will leave you with something that Jim never got to see ...... "The Dress".

And maybe, just maybe, I will come back from Mardi Gras and post a picture of me in it.

No promises.

Just a maybe.