When Life Goes On

No wonder today feels weird. Mark died exactly one month ago. The power in my neighborhood went out and right now the wind is howling. The weather feels more real than I do this week.

I vaguely remember similar feelings after my dad died. The world feels out of touch and I wonder about the value of life. So often these days life is found in money, jobs, images, and things. I feel like Mark pushed me back out of those things. Like I'm on the outside looking at my life. Is this what life is about? What priorities could possibly matter more right now than my brother? 

I've skipped out on a lot of things recently. Family things, friend things, and church things pushed aside. My last post talked a lot about people and how important they have been, but in the same breath it's incredibly hard to sit and talk about trivial things with my mind screaming in the background, "SHUT UP, CHERYL. NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR PERFECT KALE SMOOTHIES.. NO ONE CARES ABOUT HOW EXPENSIVE DOCTOR'S BILLS ARE. MY BROTHER IS DEAD. HE SHOT HIMSELF AND YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT TRAFFIC?"

I get it. Life goes on and other people don't know or understand. My life feels stuck, like I've stumbled into a big wall and I can't get over it. So I look behind me and I see how ridiculous humanity can be. How ridiculous I can be. Our lives are not measured by the little things. They are measured in emotions and relationships. Can we build relationships with diets, bills, traffic, weather, or shopping trips? No way and to be honest, I'm tired of living that way. Life is too short to waste on the trivial and unimportant. 

My brother was 28 years old. 344 months old. That is so tiny. He spent so much of it worried about money, success, careers, marriage, and mistakes. We talked a lot about all of them. These worries are human. They are stressors. His life was more than that. My life is more than that. 

This week I miss him pretty bad. I haven't felt like cooking dinner. While making grocery store frozen pizza the other day, I felt like I should invite him for dinner. I reached for my phone before I remembered that the text would fall flat, lost in the circuits. I want desperately to hear his quirky sense of humor that put things into perspective and made the big things I fight seem small. He had this way with sarcasm. He vocalize things with this flat line montone voice and make it seem silly.

 

It hurts a lot this week because I always felt like Mark and I were similar. We got each other. We were imperfect people who knew both sides of the track. We may have picked different sides, but we got it. We struggled with our emotions, but coped in different ways. We shared blood and tears. It's so isolating and such a lonely feeling now without him. 

His hugs were weak sauce. They were half-hearted feeling one arm limp across my shoulder like a fish while the other barely touched my shoulder blade. I would give anything for a hug today. 

Grief comes and goes at weird times. Hopefully my soul finds a way to anchor back to life cause this is starting to feel really hard. 

The challenges create blessings

A long time ago my older brother gave me the best advice of my life, "If you are doing everything you can, you will not be denied any of the blessings/promises."

I shared this thought at church the other day-not really seeing it and saying it more as a reminder and comforting statement.

I'm beginning to see it.

Cameron, my hardest baby and the most stubborn kid in the world. Her firm attitude is not just for what she wants to do, eat or sit. Since her first day in nursery, she has loved church. She practically counts down the days each week. Every week that I've struggled, she is there with those bright eyes asking me if we were going to church. 

When I feel alone in my choices and desires, she's been there to carry my resolve and push me.

I've tried to introduce more of the gospel in our home and there is no resistance from Cami. She embraces it as though these principles have always been there. 

She was once my biggest challenge, the biggest fight-and now she's my blessing. 

The definition of "willful"

I don't know if any of you in the blog-verse has met my daughter, but let me tell you of her stubborn/strong-willed nature.
Although I can't prove it, I knew she was willful from birth. Child birth from start to finish was about 16 hrs including a 2.5 hrs of pushing (tmi sorry). She was pretty content to stay inside my belly forever.
Babies don't have vocabulary, but Cami always knew what she wanted and she let you know if you weren't helping her out...sometimes for extended periods of time until you did what she wanted, whether it was walking her around the apartment or pointing her to the window.
These days she has the words and a new sense of independence to go with it.
A few days ago her bath time routine became her personal mandate.
After said bath, the water drained down the tub as usual, while she held back her toys from "getting sucked in". After all the water has drained, I ask her four times to get out under the threat of time out. She does not respond.
I grab her by her arms and yank her out of the tub and the tantrum ensues with screaming, " Cami will do it!"
I remain consistent in my responses regarding not listening and getting out, while fighting to get her dressed. After 20 minutes if yelling/screaming/pulling her clothes off we start in time out and end up with her in her bedroom (butt naked) on her bed.
Then I practice the waiting game so she can calm down and be dressed appropriately for bed.
Surprisingly, it doesn't take long. I open her door and turn on the lights. Like a naked, midget ninja; she blurs passed me into the bathroom and into the empty bathtub and immediately jumps out.
After 20 minutes she was still going to get out of the bathtub by herself. She's going to be the death of me.