Holidays

We are in the middle of a holiday season...I had my 24th Anniversary in September, Tony's 45th birthday in October, Halloween and now we are coming up to Julia's 14th birthday, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. 

As has become our new tradition, we are not doing our traditional Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving used to be VERY much based on family traditions. We got together with as much family and friends as you could fit into a home and had the full, tradition Thanksgiving meal complete with the Thanksgiving Parade and football. This is our third Thanksgiving, and we are once again doing something not traditional. I have found that holidays are hard, and I don't like doing our old traditions...they hurt. Our first Thanksgiving post-Tony, we had the entire family eat a wonderful Thanksgiving meal at the Chinese restaurant. Yep, no thanksgiving meal involved in that. We did decide to have a family tattoo at this holiday feast...it was on Tony's bucket list. Last year we went to Disneyland...for Julia's birthday and Thanksgiving. I didn't expect to have a traditional Thanksgiving meal, but Flo's V-8 Drive In had a Thanksgiving meal option. It was awesome. The best of both worlds...Disneyland and a traditional Thanksgiving meal. This year, we will be on a cruise.

Okay, before you freak out, I didn't pay a dime for this trip!! My mom has been saving and being creative for months to take us all on this trip. It will be my mom, dad, and Ben, and then the 3 of us. My aunt and uncle are going to meet us on the boat as well. So this is a nice bonus. I've been a bit discouraged because I tried to take the kids on a small trip...even a day trip...during the summer, but I just couldn't afford it. So this is nice. We get to spend Julia's birthday on the boat and Thanksgiving. This should be fun.

The next topic that goes with holidays is money. I haven't been able to do anything for these holidays and probably won't be able to do anything for the ones coming up. I have been working on my budget like crazy. Every time I think I have it perfect, something else comes up. There is absolutely no savings, and there's absolutely no extras. My parents paid for our traditional Olive Garden for my anniversary and Tony's bday (These are the only traditions I've kept). My parents are suckers...I mean wonderful people. I truly couldn't do it without them. We spent Halloween at BNC at the Trunk or Treat. That was super fun. This was the first year, Julia was able to come and help me. We had fun with our lovely Jasmine. I'll do it again next year if I can work with these two. So now we are coming up to Julia's bday, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Because of the cruise I don't have to do anything for Thanksgiving!!! We will celebrate Julia's bday on the cruise...then a family get together when we get back...then a friend party in January. So, that brings us to Christmas..... Christmas used to be my favorite favorite holiday. I tolerate it now. Although, Julia and I have been making presents for Christmas and that has been fun. We will continue doing that when we get back. My biggest problem is the kids. I hate letting them down. I know they will be happy with anything, but the mom in me knows it's been so hard for them these past few years...and it's been getting harder because there's no money for extras...so I have to keep saying no...sometimes even for some needs...they just have to get put off a few weeks...I feel like a failure. I don't really want to say this out loud because it sounds so terrible. It also sounds like I'm begging. I'm not. I just know that people have told me that they want to know. So here it is...the honest truth...I can't make my budget...one of the relaxing things I'm doing on the cruise is working on the budget again...seeing what else can get cut...I think it might be time to cut the cable...I don't know what else... I do have to tell you that I believe there are some nice people out there who will be getting gifts for my kids for Christmas!!! All I want for Christmas is for my kids to be happy, and have enough money for food, gas, and bills. So this paragraph ended up being a super bummer...sorry.

So...the cruise...this will be happy news. We will be flying into New York, and we get to spend a few hours there to see a few of the sites. Then we board the boat. We will go down the coast and eventually make it to the Caribbean...how are you saying it in your head?... We have a cute family theme going...Primates of the Caribbean...it goes along with the Kessler family Wacky Monkeys. We will also be doing a few theme nights on the boat...other than Julia's bday and Thanksgiving. I am looking forward to these. We have lots of fun things planned. Then we will get off the boat in Miami. Then we will go to Kennedy Space Center....I know!!!!...I'm so excited to get to take my family there... I got to go ages ago with Timothy and Dawn Marie Sable. It was awesome. Now I get to geek out with my family and fellow geeks (I think I brainwashed Miah into being a geek!!! Yay!!! Successful parenting). After all that, we will be flying home. I know...whatever...such a short trip...not much fun...not seeing much...boring...hehe..... Have I said lately that my parents are the greatest people on the planet?! No? Okay. My parents are the greatest people on the planet. You can ask my kids, and they will tell you Grammalicious (GamGam, Gammy, there's more interesting names) is the greatest person EVER!! I dare you. Ask them.

So how do I choose joy? Well, I decide not to feel like a failure and accept the wonderful things that people do and give me to help my family. I try not to focus on the have nots and focus on the haves. I love on my kids...all of them...even the bonus kids, and I allow them to love on me. Weirdly enough, I have had random love being poured on me lately. It's been kinda weird...it's been awhile...I kinda felt forgotten...but not anymore...focus on the good. So that's it. Life is hard. Choose joy. Laugh as much as possible.                             JOY

Ode to my Car

Ode to my Car

O car, my car.
My precious Christmas gift (or was it Valentine's Day) car.

I loved you fiercely until the day I got you back after being stolen.
Before you went on your unplanned journey you only hurt my leg;
It wasn't your fault your pedals were weirdly aligned.

When I got you back, though you hurt my leg and bum.
It wasn't your fault some hoodlums broke your seat.

I fondly gave you back to my man since he gave me a new,new-to-me car as a gift.
You took care of him greatly by guiding him back to you by blaring your alarm when he couldn't find you.

I lent you to my son. It wasn't totally my desire. but you helped me to teach him how to change a tire.

Then one day my precious man had to leave.
And I felt like I needed to give you away to help me grieve.

It is with tears that I give you up.
You were loved by many. You were used my some. The memories are wonderful.
Thank you, my dear Christmas car.

Neverending Story

I have felt recently the need to write on a few topics. I also feel like it's all on never ending story of widowhood that nobody really wants to hear. It's sad, depressing, makes people feel guilty. But my brain has to get it out. Once again, this is for me and my sanity, but feel free to read it...as long as it's without judgment.

1. My health super sucks. I have spoken of it before. Recently more and more people have seen my weird health problems. It's much harder to hide it lately...I used lately because I've been writing recently too much recently...and it was bothering me...recently...off topic. I've had random bouts of vertigo, weird pains, spontaneous nausea, moments of paralysis, and my favorite...my body choosing to just shut down...I go kinda comatose until my body decides to work again. It's awesome. It's also hard to explain. It's very random. I regularly need a day to recover after a full day of activity...sometimes after a few hours of activity. Sometimes I even need a few hours to recover after my body has shut down. So this is life. I take vitamins, medications, but my physical activity is declining due to pain and exhaustion. I have been told a lot of my health is because of stress. I'm not quite sure how not to be stressed as a widow and single working mom.

2. I often have feelings of failure. My counselor/therapist/friend says that I need to start showing myself grace since I have no problem showing others grace. Easier said than done. I feel like I neglect my kids at times because of work and/or health. I feel like a failure at work...I feel like I mess up quite a bit. You can't see most of what I mess up on, but I get frustrated. When others do notice when I mess up, I fight the stupid feelings of just wanting to give up. Almost every time I mess up; however, is because of health. I messed up today. What you don't know is that I had to fill out papers once again to declare my husband dead. Even after 2+ years, it still hurts more than anything I have ever felt. Even after 2 years, there's still more times I'm going to have to fill out paperwork to say that my husband is dead. It never seems to go away. And it always hurts...which sets my health off...and I end up in bed trying to recover from the shock and pain and stress again...which makes me feel like a failure because I can't handle it...and then I neglect my kids...which makes me feel like a failure...which makes my health deteriorate again...which helps me forget important things I'm supposed to be doing...which makes me feel like a failure...vicious cycle.

So there you have it. The never ending saga of Joy's widowhood, health, and failure. How do I choose joy? My remembering that most people don't expect me to be perfect...I know I do have some people who do want me to be perfect...but I will focus on those with grace and love. I will enjoy my kids. They are super awesome and amazing. I thank God for them and their understanding of "mom sickness." That's what they call it.                             JOY


P.S. Don't get me started on the stress that comes from money...or lack of. That topic might be next.

Grieving in Reverse

I have decided that I am grieving in the wrong order. I know. I know. There is no order. But I am finding myself finally doing what quite a few widows do immediately following the death of their husband. I am going comatose. Okay. Not really. I'm just suffering desperately from depression. All i want to do is sleep. I read a story once where a new widow did just that. She had friends and family over to take care of everything, and she stayed in her room and slept. I was intrigued by the fact that I didn't want to do that immediately following Tony's death. (I had a hard time sleeping. I kept waking up, realizing there was no snore...that it was real...panic a little...) At the time of his death, I realized that family and friends wouldn't be around for long, so I needed to use them now. I also realized that their were many of Tony's kids who were in a bit of pain and didn't know how to deal with it. So I had other things to think about...other things to help me heal...other people to focus on. Now, two years later, I am alone, and I want to finally do the sleep thing that others did before me. It's hard to do the sleep thing because I HAVE to work because I NEED the money to pay for expenses. There are no exceptions. I don't have a second person's income. I don't have another option for bonus money. This is it. So I get more depressed because I don't have time to be depressed. I get depressed because my life is focused on needing to work, so I can feed my kids...and sometimes take them to do fun things to take their mind off the fact that they are fatherless...yes, they still do have a problem with it. We talk about it. Then I get home from doing fun things and kick myself because I didn't really have the money to do it. So then I get depressed because I spent money that I didn't have...to do something that my kids needed to do...that doesn't really sound to others that my kids needed to do it. When you take the kids to Disneyland (which you used to call home away from home) and don't really enjoy it, you know you're depressed. It wasn't the people. It wasn't the lines. It wasn't even the money. I just felt like I would rather sleep at the hotel...which is weird because the beds weren't that great.

So here I am. Wading through a new step. Feeling like I should have done this a long time ago...mostly because I don't want to do it now.

How am I choosing joy? I am taking my meds, vitamins, etc. I am going out with friends. I am ignoring the money problems (I wish I was joking. Some day that's going to come back and bite me. I'm trying to have joy now, though, so...) I am loving on my kids. I am talking to my therapist/counselor/friend. I am reading. So, I'm back to kinda trying to choose joy.                                JOY

Health

I haven't written in a long time. Mostly because my health has been terrible. The other reason is because I feel like I'm such a downer...telling everyone that being a widow doesn't get better...at least not in 2 years...in some ways it's worse.

I've had bad health most of my life. In the last 7ish years, I've had to schedule my daily and weekly plans to make sure I had enough energy to do any activity and enough time to recover after. When Tony died, my health improved...it felt weird. I had the normal grief health problems, but the chronic health problems were gone. I thanked God constantly. It was so nice not to have these health problems after so many years. Then, at almost exactly the one year anniversary of Tony's death, my health deteriorated. All the old health problems were back. This year, as we were moving closer to the second anniversary, my body started to just shut down. I kept having all these really random problems with my health. I finally found out that your body can grieve as well as your mind. My body was grieving. It was terrible.I haven't experienced anything to awful with my health...ever. Now my body is back to normal...the normal of before Tony's death...the normal that included chronic health problems. My newest one is an eye problem. After complaining for many years about my eyes, my eye doctor finally told me that I have eye damage that can't be repaired...if something doesn't improve, i will go blind. One eye is already starting to go blind. Yay!!! I don't really want to talk about it.

So there's the update. How did I choose joy? I don't really anymore. I just make sure I wake up at least once a day, and eat once a day. That's it.                              JOY

2015

Last year, I made some New Year's Resolutions. I looked over them. Now let's evaluate them.

For the first time ever I made New Year's Resolutions. Here they are.

     1. Go to at least 2 Giants games.

     2. Take a nap instead of working.

     3. Take a nap at work (I will clock out.).

     4. Wake up at least once a day.

     5. Eat at least once a day.

     6. Use the bathroom at least once a day.

     7. Get a tattoo.

     8. Dream about getting a house.

     9. Save at least $1 a month.

     10. Have a car that runs well (A/C, heater, power steering, and defroster).

     11. Work out at least once a week.

     12. Eat at Johnny Rockets at least once a quarter.

     13. Come up with 2 more resolutions.

There...15 resolutions for '15.

Oh, I just thought of another one.

     14. Choose joy at least once a month.

Now I only need one more. Cool. How about...

     15. Eat chocolate every day.

I had no problem with 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, and 13.

I didn't do 3, 9, 11, and 15.

I don't know if I did 14.

I was just going to re-write these resolutions out for this year, but I don't think I'm going to get a tattoo this year. I'm going to stop at 2 for awhile. I also don't want to think about getting a house...or moving...or anything that has to do with that. It's too stressful.I don't have money for a house, and moving expenses would take out the rest of my savings. My savings are quite low after all of the unexpected expenses.

This year has been interesting. I had my first alone trip. I made it to the year anniversary of the death of my husband...and survived. We moved into a house. Julia got sick and spent over 3 weeks in the hospital. We missed our summer concerts. Family and friends got together and sent us on vacations including seeing One Direction in Boston! We spent Thanksgiving in Disneyland. I invited family over to my place for part of Christmas. Now I'm having my first alone New Year's Eve...and I'm okay with that.

I've got through many stages of grief this year. I thought I had made it to acceptance. It felt good but scary. Then...I got to take the wonderful steps backwards and experience grief all over again...right from the beginning. I bargained with God again...although I really didn't do that too much at first. I got to be angry and then depressed again. I missed Tony so much that I sobbed...big, fat, ugly cry tears. I got to experience that moment when you see/hear something and turn to tell your main man...and then realize that he's not here...and hasn't been for almost 2 years...and realize for a moment you got to be married again to your soulmate...sweet, amazing misery...but I got to feel that feeling of being married again to the man I met at 18 and was with until I was 40...that was actually quite amazing...it was worth the pain...I'd love to have another moment like that...it was actually awesome enough that it didn't even feel that painful.

I decided that I'd end the year with things I'm thankful for and then some resolutions.

I'm thankful for my family and friends, my church family, my Relay for Life family, the SF Giants, One Direction, my new-to-me car, a house to live in, my daughter being alive, my daughter not having brain damage, an amazing trip to Boston, getting to see Rachel, the 1D boys loving on my girl, Harry Styles flirting with my mom, family time, Legoland, Disneyland, Flo's V-8 Cafe's authentic Thanksgiving dinner, awkward and loving it children, my kids' friends, a job that's mostly enjoyable, crafts, diet coke, uncrustables, random strangers who make our pictures funny and awesome, the colors orange and purple and probably teal/turquoise, glow in the dark, iPhones, toilet paper, contact lenses, sensitive skin soaps and shampoos, computers, pets, backyards, heaters, air conditioners, electricity, my son who helps me be a working, single mom, humor, my therapist/counselor/friend, cameras, adult coloring books, books, Domino's, etc. I'm going to stop there.

Resolutions for 2016:

1. Wake up at least once a day.

2. Go to 2 Giants games.

3. Eat at least once a day.

4. Work out at least once every two weeks.

5. Take my vitamins at least 4 times a week.

6. Love my kids.

7. Survive...this one is optional...jk

I don't feel like doing any more resolutions. I hate them. This year they are making me feel depressed, so I will stop.

I've gone over quite a few different things in this blog, so I will stop this also. How did I choose joy? I wrote my thankful for list. I made resolution...yes, they were easy...but I did it. I survived last year. So there you have it. I probably forgot a lot of stuff..but oh, well.                                                                                JOY

Circle of Grief

I really like making my blog titles to remind me of songs or movies or stuff like that. It makes it more enjoyable...at least for me.

I got slightly excited and a bit weirded out by feeling like I was making it to the acceptance stage of grief. I was told that I could take a step back and go back through all the stages again or do all the stages but in the context of acceptance. I was totally excited about that...read with sarcasm. So, I decided that the beginning of grief was really fun, and I missed it so much. I decided to visit it again. I am all the way back to the beginning. I have had the absolute agonizing physical pain that comes with grief. I begin the think, which turns into wanting to cry, which turns into wanting to sob, which turns into the ragged-horrible ugly cry, which turns into the stabbing physical pain that just makes me want to scream out loud in agony. I feel the need to pace...the last time I did that was at the beginning of grief...by beginning, I mean the first week through the first few months. I didn't think I would ever go back that far. I feel really lucky to get to experience this again...please read with extreme sarcasm.

I believe it has to do with the holiday. It also has to do with feeling inadequate being a single, working mom. It also has to do with memories that keep coming up around this time. It also has to do with the neglect I've been feeling towards the insurance company. The only problem with the anger towards their neglect is that I am beginning to neglect my kids because of being a single, working mom...which makes me angry at myself...which makes me think back on what I had before...even when I had to neglect the kids with work, they still had dad to be with them...now they don't have either of us. Before you all start saying, "No, you are doing a great job.", you need to know that I am back to losing my relationship with my kids. We are still doing fine, but we aren't getting to hang out as much. They aren't sharing as much. I don't really have that much time with them. I'm having to re-evaluate my life and my commitments. I think I'm going to have to give up part of me to make sure that I don't lose my kids' part of my life. I'm nervous about what I will be giving up...what the consequences will be...but for my kids well-being, it should be worth it. I only have two teenagers for 7 months total, and I only have 5 more years until both my kids are adults. I think I can survive this. It might suck, but I think I can come out on the other side alive.

Anyway, grief is fun. I was just going to write my blog about how it's been at least a year and a half...suck it up...get over it...quit being a baby and get on with life...you have work and kids and friends that are being neglected, get a grip... Now, I'm just going to ignore most of that and get back to just trying to wake up at least once a day, eat at least once a day, enjoy my kids as much as possible, and survive. Sorry to disappoint everybody, but acceptance doesn't happen quickly, grief doesn't end miraculously at the year-aversary or at the year and a half mark, and maybe not even at the two year mark. I think I'm the most disappointed at this fact. I was looking forward to acceptance...kinda.

So how do I choose joy? I don't know.                                                JOY