So much to do, so little time!

Anxiety on the receding level means action on the mommy level. Grief is still there, depression is lurking behind (in a shadow, obviously) and anxiety still has me grinding teeth and thinking stupid thoughts while missing other thoughts of greater value, but the energy to do the things of family living is returning to our family life. Luckily, I still don't have a job, though it seems possible in the future. I keep telling friends I cannot fathom how I ever had a full-time, high-intensity job AND cared for kids and home and did all that therapy for Hannah, lived with a depressed and slow moving husband (in secret he may have been speedy, I am still not sure) and...!!!...then started on therapy for me, then spousal suicide and then more therapy for Claire, then me...then arrgghhh...then I remember that I was propped up with oxycodone from November 2010 to March 2013. And then propelled by PTSD, grief, sobriety and the need to eventually get better, then ... .... .... PRESTO! I now operate at roughly 65% and climbing of who I used to be before I married a depressed! lying! manipulative! wrongly made! sort of beautiful in a flawed but beautiful manly and deeply fucked up manly way kind of man and had children with him and eventually had all my own previous flaws and insecurities meet up with special needs! Depression of self plus spouse! Life threatened babies! Death of a parent (and beloved dog)! Life in a CAPITAL L Sense, plus regular life and fell the fuck apart. Boom. Did I mention BOOM!? So now, I figure 65% operational skills is not bad, considering. People say you need a year for grief, you need a year to get equilibrium in recovery, and obviously you need a year plus for PTSD due to its earth shattering and ass kicking nature. So sixteen months since spousal death, this is not bad, not bad at all. Except ALL. Kinda bad still, honestly, but not AS bad as before. A win!

We live to fight the good fight, and smile a little today. Knowing there are more smiles tomorrow and beyond.

In the last two weeks I have spent 40 hours or so pulling weeds, been social repeatedly on as many as four days in a row, volunteered at church, co-parented other peoples' kids as well as my own, gone to continued therapy, sorted the detritus of about the last two plus years in my homey mess and recycled or tossed quite a lot of it, and been validated for how I have cared for my daughter with a metabolic disorder and CP by people in the know who say I have done well by reducing PT and just living. I have read books to my kids and encouraged them. I have loved myself, if not fully, at least I have tried, and told myself it is OK to gain weight while I am in triple recovery, and I bought clothes for me in this size, to reconfirm my affirmation. Firm is a word that partly fits, except for when I jiggle a lot. I have prayed and meditated, though not always with feelings of peace. I have felt optimism, pessimism but less so, hope, despair (natch) but then, hope some more, belief I can truly make my journals of turmoil into a book that might help others recover from trauma and despair, doubt, and, ultimately, belief, again. We have been to the zoo, swimming lessons, the lawn mower repair shop, book club, the store (too many times to count reliably) and I almost set up the computer again to receive pix so I can catch up on holiday and event posts.

Crap, I am pooped. But also, I am having some extra coffee so I can keep going.