My Dearest Angela,
You would be so proud of the day. Elliott is 5’1” tall, an inch taller than you. I told him you always dreamed of the day that your son would be bigger than you and you would have to start looking up to him. They’re both getting bigger everyday and doing so good. They are thriving and happy and making friends. They are not little babies anymore. I still take them to the trampoline park in Olympia every Saturday. We all look forward to our weekly day trip to the city and have a lots of fun. I’m glad that I decided to start taking them to Olympia after you passed away because we spend quality family time together and the kids burn off a lots of energy!
I dream of you showing me your flying moves in Heaven and that makes me smile. I bet you’re getting pretty good at flying even though you said you were a slow mover down here on earth. You said that I “would be faster than you in a day” in Heaven. That’s probably true. We shall see. Until then…
I cried thinking about the daunting task of raising our children on my own, without you. I can only try to be to best dad that I can to our children everyday; To give them the love and support that they deserve, to be thriving, confident, caring and happy human beings. That just makes me cry more because I feel like I can’t even begin to be a good dad if I can’t take care of myself emotionally. I will always remember how we talked about raising our children together and continue to try to improve myself for them and myself. I want to be the best version of myself that I can be, for me, our children and for you.
I have to keep moving. I have to keep picking myself up to do better for them and to find balance in being a dad, a father, a mentor, a teacher, a maid, a cook and a friend and confidant to them. And, hopefully that will show them a sense of responsibility and demonstrate how to be a good person throughout their lives and how to treat others. So in the end, they will be kind hearted, good natured people, who love first, for the sake of God, just like their mother did.
I write this blog to journal the trials and victories of my life and hopefully, learn to smile more and more along the way. I have never given up on myself and will push forward one day at a time. Each day, building on the day before. I will not give up on myself, my children or you no matter how hard life can be.
P.S. – We got some snow in February. That was fun. Daisy loved it and probably played outside barefoot in it. She loved the it! She made snow balls for the freezer and ate them for a week.
I miss you.
I love you.
Your faithful Husband.
I got inspired and finally put together the coffee table that I have been thinking about for a while with various parts of different things: I used a top from a collapsable table from the 1920’s that I broke down, mid century baby furniture feet from something I took apart along time ago, A short steamer trunk I paid $10 for at a sale and added rope handles on the sides. I think it turned out pretty good.
I really like being creative and making things and I always feel satisfied with a sense of accomplishment when I am done.
I feel good to be in a creative spirit again.
I am going to have to make myself move forward. I am so scared to move that I convince myself that it’s OK to not do anything again and again. I know what my future holds and I get nervous thinking about it. I need to relax and just be. I need to focus on today and not so much on how it might turn out in the future. The future is up to God. I must do what I need to do in the present and the future will come as it may.
Since Angela died 18 months ago, I have come along way emotionally and spiritually and physically.
Physically: Angela was sick with cancer for 6 years, going through every stage there is in the cancer journey. We were both beaten down physically over those years, Angela, for the first 4 years, was really knocked down because of her disabilities from her brutal radiation and chemotherapy treatments she endured over and over. The last two years is when her battle tipped the point of no return. She was able to get out of bed less and less as she got weaker and weaker.
And me, I lied in bed with her for two years, keeping her company and holding her hand, with very little exercise. I only left her side to take care of life and the kids. That broke my heart and my body down to it’s frailest point I have been to. My knees got so weak that they would buckle going down the stairs sometimes. My body ached everywhere from my joints to my back. I was in really bad shape and felt awful. Being out of shape hurts more than the pain of a 30 minute high intensity workout. Being out of shape, my body aches were constant. But, I never said a word to my wife about this. She was who I was focused on. She did not need to her my problems. I did tell her my knees were weak and they bucked on the stairs sometimes.
Today, do to my daily exercises, I have zero pain in my body. My joints are solid again and I have no pain in my body accept for recovering muscles. I have no more joint or arthritis pains, back and neck pains or general body aches. Even the nerve damage that I had in my hand is gone. I feel great and look great!
I have come so far since she died I can hardly believe that I did it. Walking on the beach helps a lot to keep my legs moving and to process my thoughts in peace. And, my daily training exercises have strengthened and straightened my frame back to where it should be. I look like an athlete again. I need to gain at least 10-15 more pounds of muscle. Right now I weigh 169 pounds. I think around 178-180 pounds is a good weight for me. Maybe in a year from now.
Emotionally: I still cry everyday. But, now my crying is down to crying for a few minutes at a time as my emotions flood over me, when it hits. And, when I go to sleep and right when I wake up, I cry. I used to sob uncontrollably and don’t remember it ever stopping. It just seemed to go on and on and I had no way of controlling or regulating it. I couldn’t smile then or look at myself in the mirror. Looking at myself just made me more sad. Today, I smile a lot. I strike up conversations everywhere I go – I make myself be social. I force myself to talk to people. I let go of my anxiety and just let life happen. I feel like I am getting closer to who I used to be; A happy, positive and sweet person. That makes me happy because that’s who I’m supposed to be, It’s who I was born to be.
This process has me reflecting on my past of who I was, who I am and who I am to be. I have figured out that I have always had some sort of avoidant attachment style in past relationships, in tasks, goals, projects etc. This is something that I’m going to have to work on to understand why I have these behaviors. It has been with me my entire adult life. It’s time to figure out how to move past this condition, alone with my thoughts. The good thing to come out of this behavior pattern is that I am hyper independent and need no one for validation or acceptance. It’s for the best that Angela told me not to re-marry. I need to focus on myself and my children and the rest will follow. I don’t need any distractions. Elliott does say he “wants a mother”. It makes me sad that they don’t have their mother to kiss and coddle them anymore and show them all the affection that a mother offers her children. I do try to make up for their lack of a mother the best I can. There is no substitute for the real thing. They’re both happy and thriving in life though. I thank God for that.
I am in control of my emotions. I don’t cheat people and I am the keeper of my being. I exercise self control and I respect myself. I do not give in to the impulses of the world and I think about my long term self, how I see myself and who I want to be. No one can drift me. I am only controlled by God and myself. No other has influence over me.
Spiritually: I have come a long way. I have been focusing on my intuition and what God is telling me in my heart. I am growing everyday, reflecting on my emotions and the depth and sense of myself. My family’s new beginning has shifted my heart. It was shattered into 1000 pieces when Angela died. I keep my heart open and allow God to provide. I thank him and honor him for the life he has given me and my two beautiful children and the roof that he provides over our heads.
With Angela, we grew together in the knowledge and wisdom of Heaven as she grew weaker and weaker. I watched her slowly disappear. That made me really sad to watch my best friend slip away. At least God gave us 6 years to prepare for her departure from this world. I can’t thank Him enough for those years. They were the most important years of my life to prepare me for my future, alone without my best friend, my wife, my partner.
I feel like I have had a breakthrough of my inner self, my inner knowing. I helped hold Angela up through all of her sick days. I cared for her every single day. I loved her every single day. I cherished her every single day. Now, I must hold myself up. It is me, that I must focus on to strengthen myself and grow. It is me, who has to help me. I have no one else to rely on, encourage me or tell things to. I can only rely on myself to build myself back better.
writing helps express myself and release emotions that need to surface. I don’t try to hide my emotions anymore, or hide behind them. I feel much better as a result. In my mind, before Angela died, I suppressed my emotions and bottled them up. As a result, I was often sullen or moody, lost in my own thoughts and pain with no outlet to release them accept though my reactive emotions.
I buried my emotions a long time ago. That didn’t work out for me.
I have figured out that I have some sort of fearful avoidant attachment style with an empathetic slant toward my partner (I have a very heightened sense of feeling other peoples emotions who I am in the presence of). I feel what they are feeling. I see it and feel it. I have a strange condition. In the past, I pushed others away when I felt fear of rejection or abandonment to protect myself. I am still trying to figure out why. I have an idea though. I pushed some good people away from me and that makes me sad that I did that to them.
After Angela died I had no choice but to face who I am and deal with it. Besides loosing my wife, I mourned my past as well. Everything that I tried to push down and hide away and pretend it wasn’t there from long ago. It didn’t work and I have lived my life in discomfort as a result. Trapped in my own head. This really took its toll on me. But, I needed to go through it to get past being stuck in my head. I could no longer avoid my failures and disappointments that I created on myself. I cried and cried and cried over it. I feel much better mentally as a result. I don’t make decisions with my emotions but I am an emotional being and I no longer suppress them. I certainly have a better understanding of myself today. God did not give humans emotions to be suppressed.
Releasing my emotions has really opened my heart up and has made me more in-tuned with myself, my heart, my mind and my conscience. I do feel like my writing is getting more expressive and flows smoother as a result. That’s good. That is progress I can measure.
I do hold myself up high and I feel good about myself and I sing in the car to myself when I am driving. I’m glad that I’m back to that point. I didnt sing in the car for a long time. Life smacked me down and my will to express myself was smacked too. Maybe, my new car helps with my singing. But, so does being happier. I feel like I am waking up to being alive again.
But, It’s been 18 months since Angela died and I’m still actively trying to sabotage myself from moving forward. I can’t let myself be my own enemy, my own competition of complacency. Somehow, I try to block my own progress. This obviously has to do with my avoidant behaviors.
I control who I am, my thoughts and behaviors according to God’s morals. But, I must learn to conquer my mind. I must follow my heart, not my wondering thoughts and emotions. I need discipline. At least I have forced myself to complete one writing assignment a month. Good or bad, I have completed each one of them. I do need to go back and proof-read all of them and need to re-write some of them. And, I need to start working on the website, one of these days, to make it look professional and useable just in case someone is interested in it. I need to make it presentable and inviting and finished.
I just went back and read my blog from two months ago and I think I’m in the same stagnant spot of growth that I was then. Nothing has changed??? I can’t go months without some sort of focus on improvement of myself. I started a to-do list today. Now I just need to read it and complete it.
I need to snap myself out of my funk and put myself in a position to start achieving and embracing the future and the positive. It always helps me to write (even though I seem to try to avoid it). I feel better afterwards. But, I am at a place where I finish a blog and I feel drained afterwards and then go into this weird thing where I try to avoid opening my blog again. I don’t want to see it. I need to figure out why I’m doing that and put an end to it. It is making me yo-yo up and down, emotionally and work related. I need to be steady and consistent. Like I said a few months ago, I need to be writing a to do list everyday, and completing it. That’s not to much to ask of myself is it? I am too ADHD to remember to do things if I don’t have a list. And, if I do have a list, I will then do everything I can to not look at it.
I do write in my journal everyday, jotting down ideas and notes and inspirations. My hand writing doesn’t seem to be improving though. I can still barely read what I wrote sometimes, even when I am trying to write it to be able to read it again later. Apparently, I need to go back to the basics in the hand writing department. My chicken scratch is longer going to work for me if a can’t read what I wrote.
I’m gaining mental clarity toward the things that I want to create. My passion is rising and I have a lot of ideas floating through my head. I have been feeling more energized and ready to take on the future. I need to get my drive movin and out of first gear. I need to put myself in a position to start achieving and embracing the future. Doing nothing is a sure way to get nowhere.
I am a good communicator when I speak but I need to continue to focus on my mind set, my emotional intelligence, my conflict resolution and my communication skills – listening and expressing what is needed to be said, but, especially annunciation and speech patterns which take practice. That is why I talk to myself out loud; to practice my speaking habits. I do think my speaking has gotten better as a result. I probably come off as a tad strange sometimes in public when people hear me talking to myself. No worries. I’m OK. I think I am. Hopefully! I am. I know I am. I feel myself heeling. I can see the result of my efforts. I can only continue to try to improve on myself each day and the rest will follow.
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