Christmas Part 1

Carol died in March of 2007. That holiday season was very hard. Carol loved Christmas and the holidays. She had a ton of decorations that are all in boxes over the garage. Each year I would take them down and she would pack stuff up around the house and put holiday stuff in it's place. Then afterwards, she would put it all back away and I would heave it back up in the rafters.

The year Carol died I couldn't bring myself to decorate. For one, I had no idea how to do it. She always did it. Her family always has a gathering on Christmas eve. It has been a long standing tradition for a very long time. I knew that I would be encouraged to attend. I didn't know if I would till a few hours before it was time to go. I ended up going and it was very difficult.

The next year I decided to go to vegas. I kinda liked it actually. There are very few people there during Christmas and the rates are very good. I almost thought about making this my new tradition but missed seeing everyone.

This year I felt ready to bring everything down from the rafters. I had shared with some friends that I was going to decorate this year and every time I saw them they would ask, "did you do it yet?" I finally got it all down and started going through everything. My god did she have a lot @#$%! OMG! I have no idea what half of it is supposed to be used for! So I gave up and just put up the tree. Carol liked the tree most of all.

The tree came up and I hung the ornaments all by my self. I had never done that before. It was kinda fun. Then I got all excited about wrapping presents. Before I knew it, the tree was full of presents.

The morning of Christmas came and within a few hours, the front room looked like a Christmas bomb had gone off! Through all of it I never felt sad.

So it is time to move on. Time to let go. Time to heal.

Good bye.

Anger Part 2

Anger is important to the grief process. The expression and feelings help heal the heart and soul. But it is also the most dangerous part of the grief process. Anger is like fire; it is important but very dangerous. Anger can be used to help heal but must be controlled during the healing process.

So it is with an angry heart that I write this. My anger wants to give details and lash out. It's good that I can feel it and express the feeling. Fire is used to clear brush away from a home. But if not watched carefully it can also burn down the house. I don't want to burn down my house.

People will say things because it is a nice things to say and it helps them feel better. Both the person saying it and the person hearing it. Words become meaning when put to a test. It is during the test that the persons meaning is shown to be true or just empty getures. Rather than hurt the person and tell the truth they lie until it is put to the test. In the end, it still hurts. That is not to say the person doesn't still care or love the other person. It just means they didn't want to hurt that person at that moment. Or it was a simple easy thing to say and never ever thought it would ever be put to the test.

What was said to me was put to the test.

I am not family.

Workshop Sat at 9am (TIME UPDATE)

For anyone interested I have been asked to do a workshop on being a caregiver. It is at 9am Sat local to the area I live. If your interested and want to attend, send me an email and I'll give you more details.

Happy Thanks Giving everyone. I am grateful for the love and support of all my friends and family. It's taken almost three years to say that and mean it. Time truly takes time...

Kel

Changes

I've decided to continue to blog. However, my blog content is going to start to change be less interesting for some of you. My life is different today than it was 5, 3, or 2 years ago. Grief has become less of an issue in life today than it was a year or 2 years ago. Even though grief is less of an issue I still miss blogging my thoughts, relationships with friends and what I'm doing.

I'm going to make some changes to the blog layout. Change the main header and some of the description content. I will start to make the transition from a survivor of grief to a normal everyday guy who is in a 'on again - off again - on again' relationship, working, and going to school. I'm not sure what would be inviting to people to come and read. Sounds sort of dull to me but writing is still a therapeutic experience for me. A part of me missed writing how I've been healing and progressing but my life has changed so much that it has become more about living than surviving.

The orginal purpose of my blog has changed. I thought about creating another blog but decided to keep this one and hope that the people who read it will forgive the transition from a grief survivor to an everyday normal kind of guy.

Kel

"It's Complicated"

On Facebook (Which I'm on BTW http://www.facebook.com/navykel) there is an option for relationships. I'm tempted to put "It's Complicated" there....

Darcy moved back in and is in the process of looking to buy a house. You would think in times like theses that buying a home would be at a premium. But actually it's not. The only options for homes under $250k are ones that are owned buy the banks. The conditions are deplorable. Every home she has looked at is going to require at lest 10 - 30 thousand to repair. So in the mean time, we are back together while she looks for a home to buy. It's complicated....

Single Again Part 2

Insanity is repeating the same thing over and over again expecting different results....

BREAKTHROUGH

Before Carol died I had plans. I had goals. I had dreams. When I moved in with her in 1997, I was full of dreams about doing this or doing that. My mind was always coming up with this idea or that idea. Most of it was nonsense but once in awhile I came up with something cool. It was this drive that lead to me going to school to get my MBA. It was this drive that lead me to a job fair that lead to a job in software development. Up until Carol died my mind was always thinking about something.

Then it stopped...

Gone...

Empty...

Nothing...

Like a channel has gone off the air and all you hear is static. I learned to live with it. I was given an opportunity to return to my old program and travel for them. I was able to capitalize on my experience and on site support for problems or issues that would come up time to time. I have a very broad skill set that enable me to travel and do multiple task normally associated with different people. I would sit and wonder to myself sometimes, "what happened to my dreams, goals, and plans"?

I would think about doing this or doing that but there was never any energy behind it. No motivation or creative ideas that would come to me like opening a water facet. I had given up, resigned to the fate of going through the rest of my life this way. I wasn't happy about it but my attempts to force the issue failed every time. It was just gone.

BREAKTHROUGH

My program recently laid off about 50% of our team. I was fortunate to dodge the layoffs but it got me thinking about what I'm going to do now? There is a good chance the contract will extend three more years. I started thinking about what can I be doing to be in a competitive position in three years.

Before Carol died I had flirted around with the idea of getting my PhD in Information Technology. I would come up with crazy ideas of what to do research on and I wanted to teach at a university part time. But the time and commitment was too much for me to realistically take on with Carol being sick. After she died I thought about it some more but I had no drive or ambition to do anything. Plus my mind had been short circuited from the loss and I knew the academic demands would be too much for me. So I gave up and moved on.

Recently I have been talking to people about it again. Still no spark but at lest I was talking about it. Then things started to happen. Slow at first but as each idea start to spark another idea it started to take up momentum. I looked into a couple of local PhD programs but they all wanted GMAT or GRE scores. I looked at a few sample test and felt a wave of disappointment. There is no way I could take or pass these exams after being out of school for nine years. It would take me a year just to get up to the point of maybe, just maybe getting the score needed.

Then I remember talking to an online university while I was still with Carol. I found the original email and asked if the person was still there. She was and we started talking again. Before I knew it I was submitting my application for the PhD program in Information Technology with an concentration in Project Management. I start November 8th. There is a high probability I can complete my dissertation by December 2011.

That's not the best part. The best part is once I started thinking about going back my mind seemed to break free and ideas started to come to me. One built on top of the other. Before I knew it I had a clear idea of what my thesis will be on. For the first time since Carol died I feel normal again with respects to how my mind worked.

I have dreams again...

I have goals again...

I have ambitions again...

I am alive again