No title today. No real story. Just feeling sad. It was a year ago today that I got my last phone call from Carri. For some reason, I never heard my cell phone ring so she left me a message on my voicemail. I've dreaded the one year anniversary of her death coming up in a few weeks but today I'm panicking that after a year my cell phone will drop the last recording I have of her beautiful voice.  Am I morbid for wanting to keep it forever?
The depression has hit me hard the last couple of weeks and I have just wanted to run and curl up in a ball somewhere quiet.
I need quiet...because inside my head I hear my own voice screaming "It's just not fair!!! Where are you?! COME BACK!!! I don't want to play this Acceptance game anymore! I'm not like you. I'm no good at letting go. I don't do yoga. I've never found my inner peace. Zen is something I've only read about. I don't know how to do THIS! Please come back...please. It's the only way the pain can stop."
Please, God, send her back or at least turn back time. Just one more minute, one more phone call, please.

A Fresh Start

I don’t know if I can write about Carri anymore. (Goodness, it hurts to even write that statement.)The last few days I keep getting this feeling that she doesn’t want me to focus on our past anymore. She never did like being the center of attention.

 I think she’s been ready a lot longer than I have for me to find my voice and live a life apart from hers.

So, Carri, I shall let you have your way. I’m going to try to be my authentic self and stop using you as a shield behind which I hide my unexciting life and I’m going to find that excitement you always seemed to carry with you and sprinkle a bit of it upon myself.

 And how about this? (You’re really gonna like this part, Carri) I’m going to write about it. All the crazy ideas, the weird dreams, the family melodrama, the soap opera that my life sometimes morphs into, all the things I used to share with you to entertain you…I’m not going to be keeping them to myself anymore like I have for the last 11 months.

I wonder how they’ll like me after they really get to know me the way you did?

Like, how will your more sophisticated friends feel when I tell them I’ve always been a little bit on the psychic side and am obsessed with dream interpretation?

How will the hardworking Moms out there feel when I admit that I feel no shame in enjoying (what’s left of) a good soap opera and that your wish for me was that I go out to New York or Hollywood to write for one of them?

Will anyone think I’m weak or cowardly because I haven’t been able to watch an episode of Desperate Housewives because it’s the final season and I just can’t bear to say goodbye to one more thing you and I shared?

Ohhhh, how about my addiction to four horoscopes a day before I leave the house?

And how I’ve always felt blessed to be a Scorpio cause I think that’s the best sign of the zodiac?

How I can’t carry a tune in a bucket but still dance around my kitchen belting out “It’s Raining Men” as if I’m on a Broadway stage?

That my kids are my whole world but this “non-stop talking” phase that my eldest daughter is going through is enough to make me double “ Van Gogh” myself (He’s the one who cut off his own ear, right?)

Will they still like me without you to put a good word in for me, Carri?

Will the Vegans dump ketchup on my doorstep when they find out I enjoy Chicken Fried Steak?

Will the intellects heckle me when they find out that this Blonde actually laughs at Dumb Blonde Jokes?

What will the Conservatives say when they discover that I’m not embarrassed to talk about the functions of the human body (I’ve got kids, for Pete’s sake) or that I think a good Sex Life is one of the keys to life’s greatest happiness. (Okay, I’ve got to admit- I’ve become somewhat  Conservative in the last decade  and can’t believe I just typed the “S” Word, myself!)

Will they think I’m off my rocker when I write how much certain colors make me feel almost giddy? (My two personal favorites are Thousand Flushes Blue and Tropical Punch Kool-Aid, not together of course)

Oh, Carri, I’m beginning to worry that maybe you truly were the only one who could know all this stuff and not have me carted to the Loony Bin.

And how bout all those people who say they never dream at night? They’re going to think I’m making everything up because I’ve never forgotten a dream in all the years I’ve been having them every night. How shocking will it be when I relate the craziness and zaniness of my subconscience?

But something is telling me you want me to do this and something in me says that I need to do this if only to keep it from staying bottled up inside. As my gassy (but classy) hubby always says “There’s more room on the outside than the inside.”

This is gonna be fun….

Lesson of a Lifetime

I feel this change happening in my heart that is truly indefinable but for some reason this logical head of mine really feels the compulsion to define it.  I haven’t been the same since Carri died. What am I saying? I haven’t been the same since I’ve known her. Everything about our friendship and all our conversations whether verbal or written have transformed the person I used to be.  Now, I’m finding the exact opposite is true as well…the lack of her presence, the lack of conversation is also transforming the person I am becoming.  How is it this one person had the power to change me and my life?  I think the answer is as simple as it is complex.  LOVE.

She is the first person outside my own family that I ever loved. She is the first person outside my own family to ever love me.  It is taken for granted that our family has to love us.  For everyone else, love is an optional thing and often transient. So, it took a long time for me to trust that her love was real, that we really were kindred spirits or soul sisters. In that time we both made mistakes and hurt each other’s feelings as we tested the strength of our bond.

She taught me to open my eyes to realities I had often ignored and showed me how to open myself up to the Universe and understand that I was both a tiny part of it and at the same time I was a significant piece of it.

Without her here to talk to I thought I was losing my mind.  At first, I pretended to myself that she was just too busy to call. That delusion only got me through a couple of weeks. As the months dragged on I found myself spending my days pacing from room to room looking for something I couldn’t name but which was holding me hostage feeling the ever present squeezing of the air from my lungs as I fought against the acceptance of this new life without my best friend, my confidante, the only person who knew my stories and loved me anyway. 20 years of friendship just…over. As difficult as that was, it was the fact that 33 short years of her life were over, that she simply was no more, that I found myself struggling with bitterness about. 

There was a blackness, a hatred, a blame-game trying to point the finger at any one person or thing that could have let this happen.  It started to consume me as I researched her doctors online and stalked the so-called “Healers” websites looking for anything malicious or malevolent hidden in their herbal supplements or strange machines. I scoured the complaints listed with the Better Business Bureau and checked Blogs that mentioned any of the same people or places she had contact with during her two year battle.  I just knew that if I could figure out who was responsible for this I would feel better.

Because I HAD to start feeling better.  I knew this couldn’t last forever and I was trying to accelerate the process (I thought).

It didn’t work.  It didn’t help. In fact, it was made worse by the single-minded focus I was holding onto.  So, I stopped. Stopped looking, stopped blaming.  Then something wonderful happened.  I started to run…something that Carri had always loved doing and something I had long despised. I was always last picked in gym class. I hated the burning of my lungs and the gasping for breath that always started after just a few minutes exertion.  But I had already been feeling that way for months as a sat in front of the computer, inwardly running from the pain of losing her, so I didn’t think it could get any worse.  I hopped on the treadmill and started to walk. Within a few minutes, instead of the usual panting and boredom a surge of energy came through me and I took off running! I could hear her in my head clapping and cheering me on and telling me to run through the pain.  For the first time in months, I could finally hear her voice and feel her presence.  I ran a mile that day, something I’d never done in my life without stopping to walk.

In life, Carri had always pushed  me to go out of my comfort zone and try new things.  I was a chronic worrier and my fears often left me living vicariously through her as she attempted challenge after new challenge.  She couldn’t understand why I was afraid to drive my car down roads I’d never travelled before or why I sometimes needed medication for the depression I’d battled since I was 19.  She said I held onto my worries and fears like they were beloved Pets that were crowding me out of my own life.

After I started running, the weight started to fall off and it wasn’t just the excess pounds my body had been carting around, it was the weight of my fears.  I found myself doing new things without apprehension and without thinking and planning.  I started exploring my community and talking to new people. I joined a church.  Spirituality was very important to Carri and even though she and I differed vastly in our beliefs I know she would be proud of me.  I started looking for the passion I used to have for writing accepting that I will never write the Great American Novel but also believing, for the first time, that what I have to say is important enough to be heard and this is the forum God has made abundantly clear to me that I am to use.

I still would rather have her here than not.  I know these changes I’ve made would have happened with her here  but they would have happened at a much slower pace.  It’s a journey I wish we could have taken together. I’m still amazed at how much I’m learning from the lessons she tried to teach me before she left this earth and the lessons only her death could have taught me. 

I am alive.

It’s time to start living.

Thank you my friend.