4 Months

Father's Day was hard. So was the week leading up to it and so was yesterday.

Truthfully,  every day is hard.

Yesterday marked 4 full months. Too long.... and not long enough. I crave distance from this misery. Jason is the first thing I think about in the morning and the last thing I think about at night. I miss his voice, I miss his smell. I miss his seal bark of a laugh. I miss the way he always licked his plate clean and thanked me for dinner... even when I refused to put meat in my lasagna. I miss buying him snacks, just because.  I miss random texts when he saw a particularly interesting mullet and I miss him snoring so loud I would have to wear earplugs and cover my head in a pillow.

I miss him.

And he is gone.

I've come to a place where I know that... really know it. It's a new level of pain... because I want to be ok again.  I want to be strong and content and at peace. And at some moments, I am. Sometimes, I am happy. It doesn't take much to upset the delicate balance that I have, but it is there. I have to remember,  when the balance shifts and I spiral once more into despair, that I will be ok. I will always carry this pain, this longing. I will always wish things were different. But I will keep going, even when I don't think I can. Even when I don't want to.

I have to remember that happiness is 98 percent perspective.  I have to remember that if I believe I will be ok, that if I am patient with myself and hopeful for the future and accepting of my own faults and mindful of my strengths... I WILL be ok. My children will be ok. They will see their mother heartbroken and struggling... and they will see her pick herself up and turn coal into diamonds. They will have a mother who loves herself and believes in herself.

And this will teach them to love themselves... in the face of adversity, in spite of pain, in the chaos of grief. They will know that life can dish out what it will... and they can still be happy. I want them to have compassion,  for themselves and for others. To acknowledge that everyone they meet is fighting a battle of some sort. I want them to have passion. To be tender with themselves and with others. To be whole, all on thier own. To realize that contentment comes from within... it cannot be attained through money, power, prestige or (and maybe especially) the love of another. I want them to be fully aware of thier own worth.

But today, I mostly want them to clean up after themselves. ;)