maning up





I have been putting things off lately. I just don't want to do them. I don't want to do laundry (my mother in law did it for me and again I say "what am I thinking moving out") I don't want to clean. I don't want to blog, I don't want to work on the new house. I don't want to do anything. Sleep I could definitely sleep. In case you don't know this is very unlike my character. My friend once called me "a special kind of J" he was referring to a personality test where a J is a get things done kind of person. a do it now kind of person. The special part is because he thinks I'm drastic even for a J.  Sometimes I think he regrets that his wife and I are besties. I've also been making him fix a lot of stuff since Dan died. He didn't make out very well in this deal.

Dan was the opposite of a J. Dan was a P. I really truly considered Dan's procrastination abilities his worst trait. It drove me crazy. At the same time it was good for me because it forced me to relax. I'm getting off topic.

One thing I put off was Halloween. Baby girl loves all things Halloween and all things scary. She insisted I put up the Halloween decorations at our knew house. So we had decorations but no furniture. Priorities. I like Halloween, but I'm not really into scary. Like at all. I hate scary movies. Dan loved scary movies. One more way they are exactly alike. He used to say "I can't wait till baby girl gets older and I will finally have someone to watch scary movies with" and I would reply "Sounds like a great idea to me, you two knock yourselves out."  They never got to watch a true scary movie together.

So Sunday, the day before Halloween I was feeling guilty that we hadn't done any Halloween things, because like I said baby girl LOVES Halloween.  I heard about a "doll asylum" where they put baby dolls in Halloween type scenes.  Thinking baby girl would of course love this I tried to find some friends to go with us. ....... not a single kid wanted to go see creepy dolls.... Really I don't think any adults wanted to either but I guilted two of my sisters into it and we kidnapped my brother in law. It was pretty awesome. More on the quirky side then actual scary. Most kids probably would have been scared. Baby girl thought it was the coolest thing ever but not scary at all. Dan would have loved it and I told baby girl how much fun it would have been with Daddy. She did what she does with all things dead daddy related, ignored me. That one is just too scary.

Then on a whim we went to a haunted house. I asked the the ticket taker how scary it was and he said on a scale of 1-10 it was a 9. I said oh baby girl that sounds to scary we better not go. Really I thought I would be more scarred then she would. Then the ticket taker said they had a kids version. Great I said lets do the kids version. I was scared, aunties were scarred, uncle was scared. Baby girl not scared at all. we came out and she said "mommy that was not scary can we go back and do the grown up version" Uh NO. but this is where it gets tricky like always. If Dan were here the two of them would have done the haunted house and I would have waited outside sipping coffee. If Dan were here he would have said "your right baby girl that wasn't scary at all lets go back and do the grown up one" and they would have.

If Dan were here I wouldn't have had to guilt aunties into going with us, we would have had Dan. Dan and baby girl are supposed to do scary together. Like a special bonding thing between the two of them. Dan's not here, They will never watch scary movies together while I take a luxurious bath. Instead, like all things, I am going to have to man up and watch scary movies with baby girl when shes a teenager. I have to do it, because Dan can't, even though that was the plan, even though he is supposed to, even though I don't want to, even though he did want to. He's dead. That doesn't go away. It doesn't go away after the funeral, it doesn't go away after 6 months or 1 year. It doesn't go away after 21 months. It doesn't go away when baby girl is a teenager and I actually let her start watching scary movies. Number 100,023,4567 that Dan is supposed to be here for,

I wrote a book about my grief, you can read it here: Carry on Castle

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