How did we get this far?

We've reached January. January is the worst month of all the months, I pretty much hate it. I had hopes that I wouldn't hate it this soon but that appears to not be the case. 

Baby Girl has been sleeping light and restlessly that last week or so which is unlike her. In fact my typing woke her up so I moved out to the living room. I wouldn't say that Baby Girl could sleep through anything but she is a pretty heavy sleeper. She slept through her Dad dying after all.  It's a good thing he didn't die this week I guess, she would have totally woken up. She also has had a hard time falling asleep the last couple days. Last night she told me something was wrong but she didn't know what, something didn't feel right.  The last few mornings she has woken up and said her tummy hurts.  I know this, unfortunately we have played this game before, her anxiety is getting the better of her.

Yesterday, (was it yesterday? seems like longer then that)  was January 1st, 2018. 2018 means three years since Dan died. It feels like someone is ripping my guts out and like I want to puke all at the same time.  It's a fun feeling, I hope you never have to know it.  Baby Girl woke up and immediately said her tummy hurt.  We aren't big new years eve partiers so she went to bed only slightly later then usual, so that wasn't why her tummy hurt.  We went to breakfast with Grandma and Grandpa. Baby Girl insisted her tummy hurt too much for her to eat and after much corrosion from grandma and I she swallowed a few bites.  Then she needed to use the restroom. No big deal, she is plenty old enough to do that on her own. But no, she insisted I go with her. As I was waiting for her I took a heavy sigh, I knew exactly what was happening, It was going to be one of those days.

Even three years later she still has those days, I still have those days, she doesn't know to pin it on her father but I do. Anxiety is going to eat her alive today. It tried dam hard, she tried dam hard not to let it is an unfair fight. All day long she needed to be right by my side. If I got up to get a glass of water she would ask in a panic what was I doing. I tried to get some work done, it's hard with a ten year old sitting on your lap.  I tried to get her to go play and she wouldn't. she wouldn't even watch TV, she needed to be with mommy no matter what mommy was doing.  Even my friend who was over commented on how Baby Girl must be having a hard day. Later in the afternoon we were invited to go on a hike, she was excited about it, she was actually excited about something so we went.  We had a good time but once again she wouldn't let me out of her sight, If I got more then a few feet behind her when we were walking she would stop and say "mommy, come on mommy" I think I heard that phrase 5,000 times in our hour hike.

I hate days like these. They are stressful to me because I feel like there are only so many times in a day I can say 'I'm right here, mommy's right here' before my head actually explodes.  But at the same time I know it's not her fault, I know shes not doing it to annoy me, I know it's not fun for her. I can imagine how she must be worried I am going to fall of the side of the cliff beccause I am certinly worried that she will. Because we know, we both know, people die in an instant, daddy died in an instant. It can actually happen. Then I feel guilty that I'm frustrated with her, that I need to be more compasionate and understanding. And underneath it all I am just pissed off that we have to deal with this. That this is our lives now. She never had anxiety before, I never had anxiety before.

We got home and I was telling my friends that Baby Girls anxiety was huge today. I don't know if its because she realized it was January or if it was because school was starting the next day, or maybe she had a memory of her dad and she just really missed him. It was probably some combination of all of that.  Then it struck me. I told my friends Baby Girls anxiety was huge that day, and it was. At the same time though it was miniscule compared to the first year after Dan died. Even the first two years.  She gets anxiety like this now every couple weeks or so. In the beginning after Dan died it was every single second of every single day. Literally. I did not go to the bathroom by myself for over a year. I started making as easy food as humanly possible, one because I didn't have energy for cooking in general but two because I needed to get back to Baby Girl as soon as humanly possible. The three feet away I was from the living room to the kitchen was too far for her. She couldn't see me so she was afraid. Most of the time even if she could see me but couldn't reach out her hand and touch me I was two far away.

I was remembering all this, and how truly bad it was, how I'm not even kidding about how she needed to be able to touch me at all times.  How getting her to go to school was a miracle in itself because that was hours that she wasn't near me. Then the thought occurred to me 'I don't know how we ever fucking made it through that' I don't know, I don't remember, we just did I guess. The sun rose and fell regardless of our anxiety.

One of the most common questions people ask me as a widow is 'how do you do it, how do you survive, how did you make it day after day when your heart was continually ripped out of your chest.  How did you deal?'. Even new widows post this question in my widow groups (i'm starting to realize I'm not a new widow anymore. WTF how did that happen? thats another blog).  How do you do it.  Sometimes I come up with a quippy answer. Drugs (as in medication), therapy, lots and lots of alcohol. I had no choice is one of my favorite answers.  Sometimes I say something like 'well its hard not to feed your child when their poking you in the ribs and screaming their hungry'  But the real answer, the really real answer, is 'I don't know. I have no fucking clue, I'm just as shocked as you are that we made it this far.'

Really I have no answer. Baby Girl has days where her anxiety is high, I have days when my anxiety is high, if were both on the same day Lord help us, but it's not like it was. Even bad days aren't as bad as those days in the first two years. I have no answers, I don't know how we made it, I kinda wish somebody would tell me cause I would like to know. All I know is that were still here, were still breathing, were still living, were still working our assess off to get through each day.  We still would rather have Dan back. I don't know how we got here but were here.

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