She's fine. Don't worry about her. She's still gets a tree. I brought the stupid thing up myself. Only two strands of lights work, so I choose not to plug it in. Leah and her cousin Toby decorated it, so there's five ornaments on the top half and thirty on the bottom. And I like it that way. She still gets to do lots of Christmasy things, but a lot of them aren't with me. I have to thank my family for helping her have a great Christmas because I just haven't been up to it.
I'm not a super hater, but yes, the season is hard. I've been dreading it for a looooong time now. Brad's birthday is Christmas eve, so that's something else I get to deal with. I still love Christmas. I really do. I just find myself with little energy for the trivial things of the season. I only brought up the tree. I didn't even open the rest of my decorations. And we've done a few seasonal things. Just not two a day. We do have an elf of the shelf who has toilet papered our house, and hung Leah's underwear on the tree. (she'd be super embarrassed if she knew I told you that.) Leah will have a great Christmas day with a decent amount of presents. Not thirty seven. Santa's not bringing me any. I'm on the naughty list. And I'm okay with that, too. Because I spoiled myself rotten this Christmas (I'll tell you about it later) I've just cut back and I'm caring very little about the tiny things, wanting to focus most of the tiny bits of energy I do have on the Savior.
I have been writing though. My book is ALMOST done with this second phase. (there's still one...maybe two more phases to go through, but they shouldn't be so hard.)
My writing group is in full swing working on next years Teen Author Boot Camp. (check us out at www.teenauthorbootcamp.com We're so awesome you'll probably pee your pants)
I've been busy with getting my house ready to sell. BIG, huge, scary step!!!!
And I've been doing lots of hard things, which has probably contributed to the little black rain cloud that's been hovering over my head lately.
I sat down with some of Brad's friends that were with him when he died and we went into detail. Lots of detail. I asked every question I could. We looked things up on the map. I wanted to know exactly what happened. It's not that I didn't know...I just didn't know every single detail. The only time anyone really told me the story was the day after it happened, and we've all learned that I was insane then. At least I wasn't so crazy that I have completely different memories from the actual reality.----- oh wait!!!
I spent some time writing Brad's story, wanting to get every detail just right so one day, when Leah asks questions, I'll be able to answer. I think I'm going to edit it and post some of the story on the blog. But I won't do it now, since you're all so chipper with holiday cheer and all.
I finally cleaned out his closet. A project I've been dreading for 10 months and 11 days. It was hard. But good. and then really hard. I listened to quiet spiritual Christmas music and just dealt with it. Leah was gone and it was nice to be alone. I would go through, folding shirt after shirt doing fine for about ten or fifteen shirts and then, for reasons I don't understand, one would just hit me and make me stop. Sometimes for a while. My amazing mother in law--best quilter in the state, possibly the entire country is going to make Leah and I a quilt from his clothes. There is enough shirts and jeans to make a large quilt front and back. Maybe a few of them. I'm so excited that she's going to do that for us. It will end up being one of the most special things we have.
I supposed I could've just pulled all the clothes down, and shoved them in large bags. At times, I even imaged Brad rolling his eyes and telling me I was being silly and just SHOVE! But it just wasn't the right way to do it. I wanted to fold his clothes. All his clothes.
One last time.
It took hours. And it was a good thing. One of those scrub the wound moments, ya know? Sometimes I think I suppress things too much. Mostly because I'm a retard and have an extremely hard time with my emotions in front of other people, so it's nice when I do have some time alone to allow myself to feel it, and deal with it and cry for twenty minutes over a red aeropostale shirt.
I think I need therapy.
So, all in all, sorry that the blog has been slacking. I feel it too. I was wondering the other day, why I was struggling so much (besides the fact that my dog is super sick, going crazy and running away, and I had another funeral to go to--this makes four close, sudden, tragic funerals I've had in the last year and a half.) I realized just how much writing this blog is my therapy. I'm going to try to be better. But, as much as I think I'm busy right now, things are about to get a whole lot busier!!!! (in a good way)
Merry Christmas!
