Passion

I was talking to my friend today, I love her because she always shows me a different perspective on things that I haven't thought of.  "Is this all there is?" I asked her. It goes back to my basic question of what do I do now? What do I do without Dan? What am I going to do with the next 60 years of my life?  60 years would put me at 97 and frankly I don't want to live that long, 90 is just fine by me, so I guess that's only 53 years, not nearly as long. What am I going to do for the next 53 years?  She stole a line from my therapists (my friends do that a lot because I have smart friends) "Well I think your doing it, you just keep on living every day."  I can be pretty snarky with her because she loves me anyway, "Really? if this is all there is it's a pretty lame existence."

This is a pretty lame existence, what the hell is the matter with me? I have a great life, I have a great family, friends, child, house, job, I have everything going for me as people say.  I have a dead husband too, that really puts a big damper on things. "Something is missing" I tell her, you know like Dan, my soul mate. "I don't fill fulfilled, there has to be something more out there"  she gave me a very therapisty answer, maybe she should go into a career a one "So you need to be married to be fulfilled?" Yes/ no/maybe.  Its not just being married, it's not just being a "wife", I can't just go out and marry any old body and fill full filled again. But yes being married to Dan, living life with my soul mate, being HIS wife. Yes, I found that very full filling, I loved being that, I loved being a wife and stay at home mommy, loved it, I guess you could say it was my passion "Ok well what about Baby Girl?"

Here's where grief gets real. Here's where life gets real.  I love Baby Girl to the core of my being, I would hope you would know that even if you barely know me. She is my everything, I would gladly give up my life to save hers, gladly without any reservations.  As much as I love Dan and miss him, my true other half, the person that full filled me, I would do just about anything to get him back, I would open the hell mouth if it would bring him back (why yes I did watch Buffy today). The one thing I wouldn't do is choose him over Baby Girl. If I had to choose, really choose who got to live, Dan or Baby Girl, I would choose Baby Girl. Dan would tell me I made the right choice, Dan would do the same.  With all that said Baby Girl does not full fill me.  I don't think she can, that's not her job, her job is to be my child not my partner.

Here's another thing about Baby Girl, she has a life. She's only 10 and she has a life. She just went to the beach for the weekend with her friend. It was last minute so I had no plans.  She had a fantastic time and I got a much needed break from parenting.  But I found myself wondering what to do with all this free time. It made me think about five or six years from now when she is a hard core teenager and all she ever wants to do is hang out with her friends not her boring old mom. Soon after that she will move out, go to college, get married. That's all how it should be. I had planned on seeing the world with Dan at my side when our kids had grown up.  I can't always live my life for Baby Girl, she can't full fill me. "But she used to full fill you?" my friend asked. Well no, not exactly, she used to make me happy, absolutely and she still does, even when shes sleeping right next to me so close that I don't even have room to turn over like she is right now, because she missed mommy when she was at the beach.  But that's not the same as being full filled.

I always imagined myself with four kids and the husband that treated me like a princess. We were on our way to that goal, it abruptly ended with that whole death thing. Now I don't want it anymore, its not the same.  I don't want four kids without Dan, I don't want two without him. I would highly prefer his help with the one I got. Here's a secret that I would hope is obvious, solo parenting is hard. Dam hard. You have to do it all and you have to worry about it all. You have no one to split it with, the worries, or the joy, or the fun. And that in itself kinda sucks up all the fun stuff about parenting, its hard to just hang out and have fun with your kid because you are two busy parenting.  It's hard to go on fun adventures because you are too busy figuring out all the logistics of it to do the fun stuff.  It's hard to play with your kid before dinner when you are always making the dinner, it's hard to have your husband play with the kid while you make dinner when he is dead.

"I guess I don't have any passion" I was telling my friend, you know something you are passionate about, something you are on fire for, your cause, your group, something you are excited about, something that lights a fire under you.  "Dan always had the passion, Dan had more then enough passion for both of us. Dan's passions were good ones too, serving God, helping people, speaking for the trees and the animals. I liked his passions and I believed in them, and I believed he could really make a difference. I was perfectly happy to go along with him and help him with His passions, honestly it was easier for me that way then I didn't have to come up with my own. So why don't I just continue on with his passions then? Uh well I don't really have a good answer except that grief won't let me. I can't explain it but I cant do the same things we did together, they aren't the same anymore, their is no joy in them, no fun, the passion disappeared with the life that died.  Nothing works the same or feels the same anymore.

So I guess I need a passion to have a fulfilled life. To make the next 53 years not so boring and mundane.  I was thinking about this after my friend went home.  I have lots of hobbies, though those don't act or look the same anymore either, I have lots of stuff I like doing, again they aren't the same now, I have stuff I look forward too, also not the same as it used to be.  But passion? eh. I don't know. So I was thinking what do I spend most of my time doing. Taking care of Baby Girl, well we already decided she doesn't count as a passion.  You know what I do alot of, grief. I do a lot of stuff with grief. If you look at my face book feed it is mostly posts from my various grief groups and I read them all. I talk about grief to pretty much anyone who will listen. I write about grief all the freaking time.  I asked my friend the other day what I should blog about that night and her husband said "well do you have to blog anything at all?" No, no I don't, no one is making me, I just like to do it.  I like to write about grief, I like to write about my dead husband.  I guess maybe it helps keep him alive for me, If I'm writing about him, then whoever is reading it gets to know him.  Several friends are trying to convince me to write a book. I always shoot back with "but I'm not a writer" but these days it is the thing I do the the most that I enjoy.  So maybe writing a book about grief will be my passion. Is that weird and twisted or what?

P.S. If I did write a book I would feel the need to be concerned with spelling and grammar and well that sounds like work, so I don't know if it's worth it.

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