No sugar coating

Mostly I just feel like shit.

I feel old, tired, ugly, disillusioned, sad and angry.

Don't tell me to see a counselor. Just don't. Because there is nothing anyone can say to make anything better.

Unless his or her child died. Maybe then we'd have something to talk about. Otherwise no.

Yes, I have lots to live for, yes I know she'd want me to keep going. I'm SAD for fuck's sake, not stupid.

I want a week off to stay in bed and do nothing.

I want a pity party and no one is invited.

There is NO right way to deal with this. There is no choice. There is just day, after day of words, and events. Some of those small. Some of those bigger.

Games pull me out of it a bit - online interactions with people in virtual landscapes who can't see me make faces at them when they irritate me, or can't see me cry when they trigger me, but who can really make me laugh even though I feel empty inside sometimes. I can log off when it gets to be too much.

Church has helped too. Theologically I'm not in agreement and I don't much give a shit. It's the experience. The motion in my heart. And knowing that I'm in a place where I could probably cry and it would be okay. I can stand and listen to the voices singing and chanting and just lose myself in the moment.

Maybe there's a theme. Losing myself. But intentional losing myself, unlike the disassociation that occurs when I walk down the street and I feel the breeze and suddenly wonder if any of this is real.

I love my kids. That is real. It is so real it hurts. I love them each so much. I wish my daughter wasn't dead. But she is. My sons are not. They are alive and I love them just as much as their sister . That is worth living for.