The Experiment: Day 208 ~ A Quiet Peaceful Day and A Few Things I Have Learned…

My tiny girl Delilah asleep in my lap…

Life is settling as life does after a loss. I know that there will be moments that I am sideswiped again, it will rise and take my breath away. But as I sit here at 8 p.m. I am feeling quiet, and peaceful. It has been a better day.

It started out hard. One of the things that I have discovered is that I cannot take melatonin. I know that it works for some people but I tried it 4 different nights, the last 3 in a row. I tried 2 different types, first a fast dissolving tablet and the last 3 nights a liquid sublingual form that my therapist takes which works very well for her. Not only did neither work for me in terms of helping with sleep but last night I had terrible dreams all night long which can be a side effect of taking melatonin and when I woke up at 7:30 I was wrung out, exhausted, agitated, and on the verge of what could have been a serious bout of anxiety. I was having none of that, I had to nip it in the bud. I was really tired, I wanted to go back to sleep but I was starting to have the very early stages of shaking. If you have ever experienced the anxiety based shaking where your body shakes so hard and uncontrollably and doesn’t stop for hours despite medication, hot showers, and everything else under the sun you know you don’t want to go there. I took steps!

I got up and got the pugs out to the potty, got them their breakfast and then heated up my neck wrap that goes around my shoulders and is heavy, weighted with clay beads. I’ve shown it here before. You heat it in the microwave and I liberally drip lavender oil all over it before heating it. It is so soothing and relaxing it saved me from a seriously uncomfortable event. I made my coffee, and then I sat here, unsettled, and sad. I made it past the bad time but it looked like it was going to be another really hard day. But then through the grace of dear friends and loved ones things turned around.

I talked to my best friend Jeff. Things started to ease a little. And then I had an hour long conversation with one of my closest friends in Belgium via Facebook live video chat. This was a godsend. The thing is that she is almost my age and has suffered through many things that I have emotionally. We have had very similar, and yet different, of course, circumstances in life but talking to her both made me feel less alone as well as realizing that in life we all have problems, and heartaches, and things that we are afraid of. But we do the best we can. We go out into our gardens, we soak up the sunshine and tend our flowers, we spend time with our animals and with each other, we do our work in the world even if we can’t get paid for it in the way that we had hoped we could, we do work that matters, that makes a difference to us. We do what we can. Talking to this dear friend changed the whole tenor of the day.

As the hours went along I ended up having talked to a handful of people, all with vastly different life situations but all with their own problems, hardships that are difficult to cope with, and yet all doing the best they can to survive, to go along, to make each day the best that they can. And I realized that yes, I have had a terrible loss, it will take awhile to get through this grieving process, and yes there are things that I am afraid about, but I am blessed in so many ways and the way to get through the hard days is to count my blessings and to do the things that I can do. And so I am, I am trying.

By early afternoon when the sun had still not come out and it was still too cold to sit comfortably on the deck I curled up in the big chair with my sweet pugs and watched the last 2 episodes of the series I have fallen in love with and been binge-watching since Saturday night, “The Durrell’s of Corfu” (It is free on Amazon Prime.) based on the books of Gerald Durrell which we had read aloud to our homeschooled children and loved dearly. This series is such a delight, I cannot recommend it highly enough. The thing is that there are only 2 seasons out and I have now finished watched them. As I watched the last of them this afternoon tiny Delilah slept in my lap and little Pugsley snuggled into my side. Afterwards I took a little rest with the babies. It was a sweet, soothing day.

Now it is evening. Late afternoon I took the little ones outside and checked my pot garden. I got their dinner and made mine and then I watched several videos on YouTube. I just relaxed. I did not feel upset or depressed, I simply felt as though I were moving through the hours as best I could. This was an improvement. I didn’t need to set the world on fire today, I just needed to get through the day a little easier than yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that. Now I think each day will get a little easier. Tomorrow I have therapy and errands. I am hoping to sit for awhile in the sun.

I am so deeply grateful for the dear friends who have been so present in my life through all of this. Who have called and written, sent condolence cards and little gifts, who have been very present with me through it all and not just in the ways that they have helped me through this loss but because they have shown me, by example, that we all have hard things we are facing and getting through all the time, and that we do survive, we support and love and help one another, and then we do the best we can to get through. My friends and loved ones are doing this, and so, too, am I.

Tonight I will have to find something else to watch. I am going to miss the Durrell’s but they, too, helped me these last days. Oh and Sunday night Rachel and I watched the amazing “Loving Vincent,” and I can’t recommend it highly enough. It is just an extraordinarily beautiful film and really something you should see if you not only loved Van Gogh’s work but like to see artfully done films. The whole thing was done as paintings but it is animated in a way that seems real too. Hard to explain but just gorgeous.

My little ones are here with me now. They have been moving through their own adjustment without Tanner. We have been finding our new normal, what life means with just the three of us. We are finding our way. We are making it through…

The Experiment ~A 365 Day Search For Truth, Beauty &
Happiness: Day 1 ~ Introduction To The Project
“Do or do not. There is no try.”
Yoda