sleeplessness part 2

This is another confession post. I haven’t been able to write the rest of the vigil story (full of beautiful grace moments) for you because, every time I think I am ready, I pour another glass of wine to dull the pain in my body. To close the fear of crying so hard that I’ll stop breathing. The overwhelm of being a single mom. Losing my best friend and partner in life. Anything to make that reality less real. Yesterday marked month four since I lost my love. And the summer weather has turned to the rainy fall weather along with the pumpkin spice lattes marking a new change in our lives.

Savannah leaves for university next week. I am spending next week with the girls’ teachers writing IEPs and SLPs for their homeschool/blended programs. Our new normal will start, which we’ve avoided completely since we lost Ken. I filled our summer with trips and outings and long time friends who I don’t see often enough. But come September 1, everything will start to settle into a routine, without Ken, and I’m so scared. Scared that I won’t be enough for the kids, and also, scared that he’ll be disappointed in how I am doing things or have done things.

When I imagine the routines I want to have in my life and instil in my children, I imagine Bible Study, and prayer, and reading of good books (along with the fun novels) and long thoughtful walks in the forest, and filling journals with thoughts and prayers and hopes. I want to be the kind of mom who makes breakfast AND dinner (not just dry sugar-cereal and spaghetti with sauce from a jar). I want to bake yummy things for after school, and volunteer for the community kitchen. I want to have a home they want to bring friends to, and I want to be present to them.

But. I am avoiding my life so much right now that I haven’t even vacuumed my bedroom floor since Ken died. All the things got piled in my room over the various times people came to the house and I can’t get to my office desk on the main level, or walk through my room without bumping into some box or basket that needs to be cared for. It is too much. Too much to make it like it was before - to see Ken sitting in his recliner in the corner of our room taking his blood pressure while he listens to Dwell1. Too much to remember all the paperwork for surgeries that I would sit at this desk to make appointments and review bloodwork.

But except for grasping prayers when I need a parking space, or am afraid of towing a 20 year old trailer on the Coquihalla (and yes, I did have a tire blow on the Coq AND managed to change it with the help of Savannah and Ken’s brother drove out to make sure it was tight enough), or when I can’t find my keys…my prayers have been selfish and I’ve been avoiding talking to God. Because I’m angry. And I don’t deal with feeling anger. It feels sinful. So, to avoid feeling what is in my body, I pour a glass of wine. Yesterday, I poured my first one just before 4 pm. By 8 pm I was in bed because I knew I couldn’t keep going this way. I woke around midnight and tried to pray but found I could not.

I used to be able to feel the Spirit so quickly and easily, but I note that my anger that Ken is gone is at God for letting him get cancer that was not supposed to take him in six months. I’m so angry at God that I’m avoiding him by drinking a bottle of wine every. freaking. night. And I know I don’t need to. I know that I can go without it - I went to Bible Camp and lived the life I wanted to, with prayer and Bible Study and great talks with my girls (and lots of tears that I didn’t shy away from) but the ease of numbing and not feeling what is in my body has overtaken my desire to be in the Spirit.

And intellectually I know that God can handle my anger, and understands it and can help me heal through this process of grief. But maybe avoiding healing by drinking is my way of showing God (and the world) how unfair it all is. No one would deny that the burden of suddenly being a single mom and losing my best friend in the world, well, it might be okay to want to numb from that pain for a while.

But I just can’t do it anymore. It is not what I need. It is not what my body needs. It is not the model I want to be for my children. It is not what I wish for my life. I’m still not sure if 100% abstinence is what I am called to, forever. But it is for now. As much as I want to escape the aches and pains in my body and soul - I know this hurt will stay stunted in my heart until I stop running away from it.

So, my friends, please encourage me. Help me through the 5 o’clock hour. Send me a text to see how I’m doing. If the weather is nice, take me on a bike ride or a paddle board or kayak so that I am doing something IN my body that feels good. Gets me out of the house. OR drop in and help me lay out the pickleball court in the gym or hang the cafe lights so I have somewhere more inviting to move my body. Text me a verse that God puts on your heart.

And please pray for me. “For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”2 Pray that I’ll find comfort for myself in the healing work of the Holy Spirit and not just the knowledge that Ken is no longer suffering in body. That I’ll learn to listen to my physical body’s needs (and eat more than once a day) and not try to medicate with too much alcohol so I can disassociate from my body. Pray that I can learn, with my children, how to live in a Ken-less world and somehow that we will thrive because of what he gave to us when he was here.