Moving Along...

I really appreciate your indulgence in letting me just vent and get it all out this week. I really hope that once May is over, that I will really be able to start my journey, for lack of a better word, back. Those who know me well and see me often will wonder what I am talking about...that I seem normal and fine for the most part. And I have to say I feel mentally healthy even through this grieving process; and it has also been a self-discovery process for me. But I am far from normal. Of course, I can distract and avoid with the best of them and between that and just doing what must be done day in and day out, putting one proverbial foot in front of the other...well that *seems* normal from the outside.

The last year has been painful and the grief and sense of loss has affected me in so many ways and on so many levels that I will be self-analyzing that for years to come :) I try to take it in stride and small doses when I can handle it, but I do feel broken (again for lack of a better word)....forever scarred almost as if my mom were surgically removed from my heart and I am left with lingering pain and a BIG scar.

I am just really ready to start to recover...I have tried to be kind to myself and give myself a full year to experience the loss and grieve for it, but I want, I need for it to be time to start making my journey back which I am fully prepared to give myself at least another year for that journey.

Working out is helping me alot; it really frees up my mind while my body is working so hard, to just have thoughts and experience them without consciously filtering them as much as I normally would...I am a true control freak to the core and even tend to control my thoughts :) So, this morning, my friend, Misty, was teaching the spin class, and she used a song that most of us know...it's a bit older...but the lyrics really sum up how I have made it through the toughest, darkest times in the past year. Don't laugh, but it's the All American Rejects, "Move Along"...some of the lyrics are "when all you got to keep is strong, move along, move along like I know you do, and even when your hope is gone, move along, move along just to make it through"

Having very mixed feelings about mothers' day as well. It's my first without a mom of my own although last year was tough with a mom that was very sick and knowing that it was likely our last...this year will be even tougher. Of course, I am happy to actually BE a mom and to let the boys celebrate the day with me...and of course, I have another mom too...my mother-in-law who I definitely want to honor and celebrate and thank her for all she is/does....

I have been making it amazingly well with my no sweets period. Of course, I have had many cravings, but we don't have much in the house. When I do have a craving or go to grab something (a pudding cup usually) then I just remember the bitter sadness, and I can easily turn away from it.