Busy........ I..... must..... stay...... busy

There have been many times when I have wished that I could quit work and just enjoy life. Times thinking that I would love to travel, get to see places I've only heard about, or see people that I've only spoken with on social media sites. I wanted to spend time with friends, doing friend things. I wanted more time for church related things. I wanted to be able to go to bed when I wanted or stay up to greet the dawn if I so chose. I wanted to sleep late or spend the day in my pajamas.

 I can't do that... I wouldn't do that.. and, I'm glad.

Since my husband passed away on March 7th, I've been a busy person. I have to stay busy. I have to keep moving, only calling the day done when I'm too exhausted to keep going any longer. When holding my eyes open is a losing battle, that is when I start to slow down. At least my body does, my mind keeps going. Busy is the only way I know how to be right now, it is one of the  things keeping me somewhat sane and in control.

 When the alarm goes off in the morning, a full 3 hours before I have to be at work, I start. I'm up, I'm getting ready for work. I get dressed, I pack my lunch and snacks for the day, then I have my breakfast while I scroll through online stuff. I try, really try, to keep my mind on anything but my husband. I don't want to ever forget him, I won't ever forget him, but the pain is deep. So I send my attention off onto other things. Only that doesn't always work, there are too many things that remind me of him. I see too many things about trucking, I still get too many emails, that I just can't bring myself to unsubscribe from. I see the videos, I see the things shared by other drivers I know. I bite my lip, I take a deep breath, I move on. Its no wonder my attention span has gotten so short.

 I get to work around 7:30 and try to distract my thoughts. I sit in the break room as we wait for time to start and either talk with others or blatantly eaves drop on nearby conversations. When it is time to begin, I start moving and I do my best as long as my energy holds out to keep moving. I try to laugh, I try to joke, I try to do what I once did and get operators to laugh. I feel like a phony, but I keep trying. It keeps my mind on other things.

Four o'clock is my nightmare time. Four o'clock, is when I got the call. Four o'clock is when I found out. Four o'clock, was once the time I looked forward to every day. Now, as the hands on the clock inch toward that time, my dread begins. My heart beats faster, my breathing becomes difficult, my mind goes back, no matter how hard I try, no matter what I try doing to distract myself, I know the time.

 As soon as I walk into the house, I look for things to do. Since the weather has been nice, I have been working on creating a flower bed and filling it with good fertile woods dirt. That means hauling it a wheel barrel load at a time from where I dig it up, to where I want it. Trip after trip, I have hauled dirt. Trip after trip I have dumped that dirt into the flower bed and smoothed it out. I grow weary, I start shaking, the sweat running down my face and back, soaking my hair and clothing. Sweat running into my eyes and burning as if I had just rubbed them after having cut a pepper. I work, until I can't any longer. I sit for a while in my husband's chair, resting and watching nothing and everything. I watch the sun setting, the butterflies, listen to the birds as they carry on. Once my breathing has eased, I water all of the plants on the porch, hanging  from the porch, growing any where close to the porch. If it doesn't rain again soon, I'll be watering everything else I've planted. I keep an eye on the birdbath making sure it remains full of water.

 I'm working more with Bella now. Letting her go back and forth with me as I get that dirt. I'll start taking her with me when I walk, once I know she is really going to listen well, I hope to be able to go to the parks with her. Maybe climb Crowder's Mountain. But I want her to be easy to walk with and not pulling me or dragging too far behind.

 Once it is too dark to do anything else outside, I find things to do in here. Laundry stays done, the dishes done, my bed is always made as soon as I get out of it, but there is always something that needs to be tidied or moved, reorganized. I do obviously spend time online, but its different. Everything is different now.

 It is difficult to do the things that I once loved doing. The hikes in the woods, the photography, the time online, it doesn't feel anywhere near the same as it once did. Even as difficult as it is, I'm starting to make myself to them. I'm trying to keep at it, until I find what I'm missing. I don't know if that is possible, or if I have to find a way to reset my way of thinking and find the enjoyment that was there, the challenge and the love through a different mindset.

 As I do this, I stay busy, I have to stay busy to try and keep the thoughts at bay. If they come, they will overwhelm me and threaten to drown me. I find myself missing my husband to the point of it being nearly unbearable. So I stay busy. Even when something pops up that makes me think of him, even when a thought, a memory, a place makes me think of him. Even when I go somewhere that we have been together. Even when I walk through the garden centers of local stores and walk out without anything. I fight to think of something else. I fight to stay sane, to remain strong, to know that even as I walk, I'm not alone and somehow, some way, at some time, this staying too busy to think, won't be needed anymore. I'll be able to sleep the entire night, not waking every few hours thinking of and missing him. At some point in time my heart will begin to heal, my mind ease from its internal torment, and I won't need to stay so insanely busy.

But not yet.