Almost 3 years

 Here we are back in October, the month that the life I clung to ended. David would have been 67 years old in 2 days--my old man 🧓🤣😍 And I am truly, honestly struggling to find joy in my life. There *is* joy in my life. I mean I am Jack's mom and he is full of joy so often. He finds joy in the smallest of things. At 18, he is still very much like a small child in so many ways and his capacity for joy is like that of a small child. 

But there's something that isn't working right in me. Knowing the problem is the first step. I am and have been seeking help so I can keep my head above water and not sink into the depression that constantly threatens to overwhelm me. Thanks to a great God, a good doctor, loving and praying friends, I am still over here swimming away.  

Next week, I am going to see a new therapist, one that specializes in trauma because it occurred to me (thanks to a podcast and an anxiety attack at work) that perhaps, the trauma of finding my husband cold and gray and trying to do CPR which did not bring him back then watching my kiddo have a seizure where he turned the same shade as his deceased father just a few weeks later maybe, just maybe could be considered trauma and just maybe some of my childhood trauma could be why I can't seem to cope any longer. I mean I look like I am coping most of the time. I am doing what needs to be done but I know I am not me. And I know I can't ever be the Dave and Marie me again, well I still want to be her but I know that I need to accept that I can't be Dave AND Marie. 

So, next week, I meet with a therapist who specializes in trauma and my hope is that we get to the roots of my longstanding trauma and dig out and throw away the "coping mechanisms" that a small child, young woman, and middle-aged woman built up that aren't really coping skills and are holding her back from who her creator created her to be. 

Pray for me, friends, life is unreasonably hard for me, not my circumstances that's not what I am saying. Being alive is hard for me. No, I am absolutely not suicidal. I would never ever ever do that to Jack, let alone the other people who love me so don't panic. Just pray for me to remember what I believe--GOD! He has a good plan. I know he does. My beliefs and feelings don't currently align and I am desperately clinging to the life raft of my head knowledge as I bob along on this raging sea.