The Depths of Despair

I've been frustrated that my house is a disaster zone. I can't keep up with all the 'mom' things I'm supposed to be on top of, dinner, cleaning, laundry, work, gym, etc. I started cleaning this morning with my uncooperative 16 yr old son, he kept lying down instead of cleaning his filthy stinking room.  I found a pot in the wrong place (I've shown my son 1000 where it goes), moved things off the fridge and saw the dust, and just burst into sobbing tears.  I feel like a failure as a mother, like I will never feel joy again except through my surviving child's accomplishments, like I will be single and alone the rest of my life because I am 40-something, fat, and ugly (thanks shallow men on POF).  I miss my daughter so much, and I cry a little every day, in my car, grocery store, at work.  I can feel when those tears are coming on and I usually let them.  I hardly ever just lose control and break down.  It would be Eireann's 14th birthday on October 16th and yesterday was 7th months since she died.  We planted a tree at her school in our old town last weekend, a beautiful Autumn Maple.  Now it's thanksgiving weekend, my family is too far to visit.  Some days there is just too much regret and despair that can't be held down by being 'busy' or watching Netflix until 3am. 

One Step, Then Another, Then Another...

In a few days it will be 6-months exactly since my daughter completed suicide.  Some days, I am nothing but tears and some days I don't cry much at all.  I miss her with every nerve and fiber in my body.  Often I feel like there is no where to go, no way out, no hope ahead, as though I were in the bottom of a well.

So, with that in mind I though that online dating would be a great way to distract myself from the living hell of day to day life.  I couldn't have been more wrong.  After sending what feels like hundreds of first messages, I've only heard back from a handful.  In 4 months, I've been on 3 first meetings.  Though I haven't been told flat out that I'm too old (42), fat and ugly, I have been told that my pictures seem low-energy, that I need a mommy-makeover, and that I probably don't get mani/pedi/facials (i.e. take care of myself) because I'm either too lazy or too cheap.  Well then.  I think the real reason I started online dating is because I knew it would make me feel bad about myself.  I already feel like I've failed as a mother, I'm failing at work, and now here are two more things I can add to my list...unlovable and undateable.

So, today I'm sitting here with my Chris Powell book (Choose More, Lose More for Life) and I'm working on the new meal plan and exercise plan that my son and I will start tomorrow.  I have at least 60-70 lbs to lose.  I'm going to get control of my weight and health.  Hopefully that will lead to some emotional/mental health balance as well.  In 6 more months, when my poor baby's...angelversary people call it...I hate that term...when it comes, I will be ready.  I will be strong.  I will make her proud.  I will cry for her and light a candle while wearing size 6 jeans and her favourite Pink hoodie.

I just have to take one step, then another, then another...

Where do we go from here?

*Trigger warning teen suicide*

This blog was started to be about my family's move to the big city and the 15th floor apartment we found this summer.  It was going to detail adventures of finding our way around a new city and sharing new experiences.  I never got around to really starting it and now, it if even has a purpose, it has completely changed.

Two weeks and 1 day ago, my beautiful, intelligent, creative, athletic 13 year old daughter took her own life from the balcony of our fantastic 15th floor apartment.  Since that day, I have been in pain, both emotional and physical. The five year plan for our family that I just wrote out last month, has been shattered and I don't even know how to start putting the pieces back together.

I say there was no warning, that I had no idea she would do something like this. But maybe there was and I just missed it.  She had a hard time making friends the first few months and missed her old life.  She spoke of the stresses of her classes and teachers assigning too much homework.  She was involved in cheerleading and was working so hard to learn her tumbling skills.  Two or three nights a week we'd leave the house the second we got home, spend up to an hour in traffic, cheer until 8:30 and get home around 9:00.  Those nights, homework was impossible.  Some nights she'd have to stay up past midnight to finish homework assigned that day and due the next.  I asked her to talk to her teacher about it, get the assignments early, or something.  She didn't want me to talk to them.

In January she seemed to showing some signs of asthma or other mild breathing difficulty.  I thought she was just working to hard a cheer, maybe holding her breath and hyperventilating.  I was told that the cold and dry climate could bring it on too.  We were going to go see a doctor about it, but it seemed to improve a little in February.  She spoke occasionally of having vivid dreams, of trying to learn how to lucid dream, of doing reality checks to make sure she wasn't dreaming.  I'd done that as a kid.  Get up in the middle of the night, touch the toilet bowl to make sure I was actually sitting on the toilet and not about to wet my bed.  We talked about it once, maybe twice.  Did I tell her we could go see someone?  I can't even remember.  We were always so busy.  And she was 13, she could be a little dramatic sometimes.  I really thought we were all doing ok.  I couldn't have been more wrong.

On the morning of March 6th, my beautiful daughter left us.  She came home from the school bus stop, and told my son that the driver went off without her.  She didn't say a word to him when he left for school and said goodbye.  She made a video note that she sent by iMessage to her friends, not to me or my son, and she followed through quickly.  I don't understand.  I completely blame myself.  I feel overwhelming guilt.  I don't know how I'm supposed to eventually put one foot in front of the other and make a new 5-year plan.

Grief, sorrow, pain, loss, confusion, despair, turmoil.  I am these things now.  The first few days, the first week, the second week, so much happened.  We made arrangements for cremation, picked up the her ashes, and picked up her things from school.  I've made no plans for a memorial or celebration of life, I just can't.  It's now the beginning of week 3 and I can get through some of my day without crying.  Sometimes I feel completely detached.  I numb myself out by making projects, researching my son's university options, researching a trip we'd planned to take this summer, researching how to cope with a child's suicide, researching cremation rings and urns, researching how to move back to my home province.  I read my Facebook feed.  I read her Instagram account.  I feel the sick knot in my belly that is full of questions and statements that start with "why" and "what if" and "if I'd only."   I lie awake at night turning everything over in my mind.  Picturing her face.  Picturing the last time I saw her alive.  She hugged me before I left for work.  She never did that.  Then I remember, she hugged me the night before too and said she loved me.  I held her tight and enjoyed the embrace, and told her I loved her too.  That was the clue.  That was the last piece of the puzzle and I missed it.

I am off work until mid-April.  My son is visiting his dad and will be back with me in a week.  We are with family in our home province but will go back to that apartment to finish the school year. We have counselling appointments set up for the days after we go back.  So for now, it's one breath, one minute, one moment, one hour, one day, one shattered piece at a time.

Funeral Blues by W. H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. 

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,

Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,

Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. 

He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.

For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Let's start at the very beginning

Today I wasted too many hours searching the Internet for decorating ideas for small space living with kids. I found some interesting ideas, read about families who had downsized, and generally got frustrated and overwhelmed.  I saw children packed into strange custom built cubes in studio apartments, families with very young kids, and lots of pages featuring gorgeous Murphy beds and expensive Resource furniture that I could never hope to afford. In my hours online what I didn't find was anyone doing downsizing that I could relate to.

Here's my deal. I'm a single mom of 2 teens (DD 13, DS 15) and 2 cats.  We have recently relocated to the big city after 5 years of living in a smaller town in the Great White North.  I could have found us a 1200 sq ft townhouse in the 'burbs but I wanted to be in the catchment for specific schools and the idea of a long commute to work does not appeal to me.  I've rented a 2-bedroom, 2-bath, 870 sq. ft. condo on the 15th floor of a downtown high rise.  It has absolutely no storage, a poorly laid out kitchen, and balcony I can barely set foot on (fear of heights) but I can look out my floor-to-ceiling windows and admire the Rocky Mountains at sunset.  I sold my big furniture (sofa, bed, bookcases, etc) so I could afford to make the move.  I also got rid of boxes and boxes of 'stuff', something that is very hard for someone in my profession to do!  So now I'm saving to buy replacement furniture that is space efficient.  At the same time, my family will be making some major lifestyle shifts to use less, spend less, waste less, eat better, walk more, play more and enjoy our time together before they go off to university in 4-6 years.  We will be exploring our new urban neighbourhood for family friendly fun and maybe travelling a little with any money we manage to save.