Cloud of Uncertainty

Today was a busy day at work; we have an important meeting tomorrow with a new group of business partners so today will be nuts.  The day before is always crazy – last minute changes to PowerPoint presentations, last minute changes to hand-outs, new hand-outs being created and copied, last minute questions about process that need to be worked out, yada yada.  It’s all a lot of work in a very short amount of time.

I’m thankful, sometimes, for days like this.  It keeps my mind busy and focused on something other than the not so warm and fuzzy stuff – the Easter dinner/impending would-be 80^th birthday for my mom, my impending birthday that I will be celebrating without her.  Rob wants to be with his family the week after Easter – which I understand since he doesn’t see all of them often at all –  and I don’t know if I’m up to it; he offered to take the baby and go on his own so I can be alone but I don’t know if that’s the right decision either.  I think he will go with or without me, which kind of makes me angry and I feel kind of unsupported by that fact.  But still, I apparently have a decision to make. Do I stay home, all by myself and deal with the left-over feelings from that weekend or do I go, be surrounded by people and probably (for at least some of the time) put on a happy face and pretend that I’m okay when all I want to do is sit by myself and cry. All the while also trying to come to terms with the fact that she won’t be here for my birthday the following weekend, which is also something I am trying desperately to not think about.  I don’t know what the right answer is and I’m afraid that no matter how much I think and this and look at it from every which angle I can think of, I won’t come up with the right answer. 

The uncertainty that this has caused in my life was unexpected; I didn’t think that something as simple as a family vacation would come into question just because my mom is no longer here.  Other things – like whether or not to celebrate her birthday – seem normal to contemplate, but not this.  I didn’t see this one coming.  We were supposed to go to Florida in February but it was postponed and his family completely understood; I’m very lucky that his family is so wonderful to me and have welcomed my family into theirs (his sister and her husband came to the wake and sent beautiful white roses, too).  I think that there is a part of me that’s afraid to go. Afraid to see his mom, have her look at me and ask me how I am, knowing that there is a high likelihood of my breaking into tears as soon as the question is even posed.  I am tired of crying.  I know that it’s part of the process and that, if I don’t, I will end up breaking down into a messy puddle somewhere TOTALLY unexpected and inappropriate like the middle of the food store when I see her favorite ice cream or at a table at Cracker Barrel where she insisted they didn’t make ‘real’ chicken and dumplings.  But I’m tired of feeling this way – tomorrow it will be two months – I feel this overwhelming sadness sometimes that is just too much to bare and I wish I could make it go away more than I wish to hide under my desk and cry. Which is quite a bit some days.