Dammit Man

As I sit here trying to organize my thoughts on what needs to get done today I can feel Billy gently prodding me.  Feel it in my soul.

Billy had undertones of sarcasm in his sense of humor.  Procrastination runs in our family and evidently its contagious by marriage too.  I remember complaining out loud to myself many times about getting the motivation for one task or another and Billy would usually have a retort ready.

In my minds eye I can see him saying "dammit man, its about time you did something around here.  Could you pick up that (insert closest small object to him that he with grand gesture would knock on the floor)  After which he would sigh loudly and settle back further in the chair he always sat in and smile that beautiful smile.  His humor was like that.  I miss it.

He wasn't mean.  I don't think there was malice in any part of his being.  Just a master of sarcasm and never serious in his antics.  Most days he would help with anything that you asked him.  In his time, but he would help.

and that is one of the things that I think about. I was not patient enough, not even close.  He would always put things off until the last possible moment.  I don't know why it mattered so much to me when he did something.  Why couldn't I just be grateful for him, for his presence, for his help?  It bothers me so much now.  He was perfectly, uniquely Billy.  Why couldn't I appreciate that?

There are many, many things I have put off for the past 5 months.  Many things I have to get done.  and I need his voice now, prodding me...telling me to get off my arse and do something.  but Dammit man, its hard.  Every day I think this is going to be the day.  and every night I tell myself tomorrow...it will happen tomorrow.

And that is one of those first shards of my being that I must pick up.  I must find a way to begin taking care of life again.  I must figure out which things are important and which are not.  I must find a beginning place.  So many things that were important BBD, just aren't now.  But some are and I have to find a new filter, a new way to organize those things.  Things like paying the bills, taking care of my businesses paperwork, cleaning the house, taking a shower.......you know lots of stuff.    Its all jumbled still in my mind.  Its all overwhelming so I end up back on this couch time after time.  I must find a way out.

I need to do it for me and for Bill and for Billy.  The only thing I have left that I can do for Billy is take care of his dad.  And every day that I don't take care of the things that have to be taken care of is a day that I fail miserably at that one thing, taking care of Bill.  Every day I fail, I dislike myself even more.

I have been here before.  Immobilized by depression, drowning in inertia.  Years ago.  It cost me everything.  Today, I hear the train whistle, I know its coming but I can't move from the tracks.  I am terrified.

But maybe today will be the day..maybe.  Dammit man!

Five months ago

I have never blogged before.  I don't know what I am doing but it has been suggested that I write down the things that are killing me so that they don't.  So here we are.


Five months ago my generous, warm hearted, funny, smart, beautiful stepson Billy died by suicide. He was 26.  Billy loved people and hated sadness.  He had a way about him that brought happiness to a room whenever he entered.  Most days, sometimes.

Billy struggled with addiction and depression.  We tried everything we knew to help him and we failed him.  Billy was probably his worse critic.  and I think in the end, he didn't know how else to stop the pain.

There are so many things I wish I had done or said.  So many things I wish I hadn't.  I was always the bad cop.  But it was because I wanted so much more for him.  I wanted  him to have the beautiful life he deserved.  I always, always tried to make it clear that it was the using, not him that was the issue.  I don't know now if I was clear enough.  I don't know a lot of things.

Our lives now are split into new time references.  BBD (before Billy died) and ABD(after Billy died).  BBD I thought I knew a lot of things.  Now I realize how clueless I really am.   And certainly I do not know how to help another human being.  That is a sad thing to realize.

We go through our days on autopilot when we are lucky.  On the bad days, waves of unrelenting pain wash over us and pushes us to our now semi permanent positions on our couch.  When that happens, we are unable to move, to think, to do anything but cry.

Tonight was a bad night for me.  Some postings on Facebook, totally not directed at me triggered a response that set the dominoes in motion.  So now I sit here having been up all night crying knowing I have to work in a few hours.  My husband thankfully has been sleeping.

My mind has been shattered into a million pieces.  Everything that I thought or believed has been challenged.  I live in a sort of hell and I don't know if I will ever find my way out.  But I think that it has something to do with the process of picking up those millions of pieces of my mind and figuring out what I can still use, what must be modified and what must be discarded.

I think maybe that is what this blog is for.  Processing losing Billy and climbing out of this abyss.  Because I do believe that to some extent he suffers when we suffer and I don't want that beautiful soul to suffer any more.

Billy, I hear you.  I see your signs.  They are everywhere.  Please help me find the words to find a way out of this place.  I love you!