Backward and Forward: Chaos

I am a firm believer that sometimes, you have to go backward to go forward. In order for me to write about my now, I have to talk about my then.

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(Written 1/17/2011)

Here is what you have missed since our paths last crossed, in very brief summary format:

Jeff’s mother passed away on September 10. We spent an agonizing week sitting with her in the hospital. We took deep breaths as she struggled to breathe, hoping it would somehow help to fill her lungs. We listened to her moan with terrifying pain as her bones slowly began to crush and break under the terrible influence of cancer. After only a few days of witnessing her rapid decline, the family realized it was truly her time to find the peace that she has been without for many years, and after everyone said their goodbyes, she died in the middle of the night after almost everyone had gone home.

The entire ordeal was exhausting, and sent me into a very long tunnel of numb emotions that I have yet to escape for any significant length of time. Jeff’s father needed a caring soul to lean on and I put myself aside to provide that for him in such a difficult time. It was nearly impossible to grieve in a healthy way with such a whirlwind of plans and changes swirling around us. The day she died, we went to the funeral home and made preparations. Within a few more days we grieved with the extended family and friends. Only 3 weeks later, Jeff and I had our own wedding to celebrate.

It was difficult to completely change our tone for the wedding. We moved straight from planning a funeral to finishing our wedding preparations, from one of the saddest days of our lives to the happiest. It almost felt wrong to be so excited in the midst of so much pain and grief, but I couldn’t help myself. This is the day that I’ve been waiting for 7 years, and it was rapidly approaching. A few days before the wedding I came down with a terrible cold that left me feeling like I wanted to sleep for 2 weeks straight. I wasn’t in any shape to be in a wedding, much less build one from the ground up. Fortunately, I had the help of some amazing people – namely my parents, grandparents, and best friends. The day itself was absolutely perfect. I was miraculously cured of my illness just long enough to walk down the aisle and enjoy my day without a single sniffle or cough. The weather was sent to us from heaven (or from Jeff’s mom, I’m sure), the guests were ecstatic and the food was purely delicious. Honestly, it couldn’t have been more perfect (and I will share the details of the day in a blog to follow.)

The following day, I nervously led my husband through the airport to our plane for his first flight ever. After decades of running from a terrifying phobia of planes, he determined that the only way to fight this fear would be to fly to our honeymoon destination. I tightly held his hand as we ascended, answered his worried questions about the rattling of the plane, and watched him as he worriedly gazed out of the window for the first time. I was sure that I was going to cry. The look on his face after seeing the world from 30 thousand feet above. Watching the sunset from the top of the clouds. How many people live their whole lives too afraid to face their fears? Yet there Iwas, holding the hand of a man that was staring straight in the face of his demon… and smiling. I can describe it no other way than to say that I swelled with pride.

We enjoyed a long honeymoon doing nothing and everything at the same time. It was our first vacation together and the first real vacation of his life, so we explored and did too much, then spent time doing absolutely nothing to balance it out. Unfortunately, during the middle of the honeymoon, we received the devastating news that Jeff’s teenage son, my step son and the boy that had been living with us for the past year, had run away from his mother’s house, and did not return until we came home. The days and weeks to follow were a struggle between teenage angst and caring parent. He ran away when he could. He stole, lied, and wouldn’t talk to us about what was going on in his life. The emotions rushing through me then were of a whole different breed. Indescribable amounts of worry, betrayal, confusion, and heartbreak. The biggest part of me understood everything he was going through, the rest of me just wanted to rein him in and lock him away so I wouldn’t have to worry about him anymore. Some small part of me, a very selfish part of me, wanted to be so angry at him, at everyone, for not allowing Jeff and me to have just a simple week and a half to ourselves to celebrate our marriage.

Without divulging too much of my stepson’s privacy, we finally convinced him to get help and we are continuing along that course. It all came full circle when Jeff’s father asked us to move into the family home to help take care of things while he was away from home. This was a good opportunity to start anew in a bigger house, a new school system, and a completely different environment for ourselves and our family. We rushed into a home that was already filled with someone else’s belongings. We had to sort through Jeff’s mom’s things within a matterof a couple of weeks and decide where to put it in order to make room for everyone that would be moving in. It was a massive cleaning and organization project that we managed to complete over the course of only a week or two, and we made the decision to move in almost a split second. The move was opportune, but did not come without its downsides. We are sharing the house with Jeff’s brother and niece. It is in various states of disrepair and requires a lot more cleaning and attention to become the type of house we would prefer to live in. As with most roommate situations, there is a lot of tension in the air when it comes to household chores and no one is truly finished healing over the fact that they are now living in the same space that Jeff’s mother essentially started dying in.

Not long after coming back from our honeymoon, Jeff started to feel sick. He had lower back pain and sometimes felt feverish. On Halloween, we moved into our new (old) home. On Thanksgiving, Jeff’s health started to decline in a very strange way. His back pain disappeared, but various neurological symptoms appeared. Dizziness, headaches,ear pain, speech issues, twitching… the list goes on. We ran through the gambit of doctors and a barrage of bloodtests, MRI, EEG, all of which are telling us that nothing is wrong with him. Mold was found in the home but afterconsulting with the doctor, he was certain that mold couldn’t cause such severe symptoms. It has now been about 2 months of dealing with this medical mystery and we are no closer to finding a solution. At first I was terrified, crying every day, worried that he could be dying. Then I was too stressed to cry, and I became angry. Now… I am as close to being numb as I’ve ever been, knowing that it is one of the only ways I will remain strong enough for both of us. For the family. Can anyone blame me?

In just 5 months I have lived every emotion I’ve ever known. My life is nothing like it was before, and it will never be the same.

As a drop of oil in the sea,
You must float,
Using intellect and compassion
To ride the waves.

________________

Now that I have clearly laid out the chaos that has overcome my life in the past several months, I have decided to focus on how I will be restoring order.

To follow: The Ceremony, Restore Order Part 1: Escape Volatility

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