During the first year or so of grief you’re numb. You’re not really thinking about anyone else, just trying to survive day to day. Time passes slowly and fast at the same time.
You are so involved in your grief, you forget about everything else. You stop caring what other people think, especially as it concerns yourself. People still had opinions about what Parker and I did, I just really didn’t care as much. I miss this.
This didn’t give me a license to run my mouth, I’m already good at that anyway. I didn’t see it as an opportunity to burn others because I just didn’t care. I just didn’t let their thoughts and opinions influence my life or make me feel bad about myself. For the first time I realized that they had never stood where we were, therefore their negativity was irrelevant. It meant nothing.
I’ve never felt so free, although I didn’t realize it at the time. I mean, did it really matter what anyone had to say to us in comparison to us losing Benny? All of the petty drama and bullshit became nonexistant in my head. That nagging voice that always made me overthink my every waking move disappeared completely. I was free from my own insecurities, most of which were petty and ridiculous anyway. I’m pretty sure my own guilt overtook most of that anyway.
I would never have been able to blog like this before the accident. Put into words all of my crazy thoughts and share them with the world. I grew up in a house where emotions were not welcome. I’m trying so hard not to make that same mistake, though it’s hard.
There are days when I miss the fog. I miss not caring what other people think. I make myself crazy sometimes (ask Parker as he’d surely agree). If I could hold onto one part of the first year it would be my ability to shut it off. Tune out the crap. Remember to be grateful for what I have and not to let others influence how I feel about me.
That statement in and of itself makes my skin crawl, because I know how bad that first year was. I’m shocked that I would want any part of it back, but I do.
I guess this is part of it. Moving past the grief enough that other things outside of losing my son hurt. I didn’t expect it to happen, no one warned me I would feel this way again.
I’m pretty I don’t like it for two reasons: the insecurity and the fact that it feels like moving on. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to be stuck in grief forever, but even thinking about moving on is sad to me. It’s been 2 years and 2 months. Longer than his 17 months. How did that happen already?
Sunshine, Angels and Rainbows 
I am such an overthinker myself, especially when it comes to how I look to others, even if I don’t agree with many of the things they do, anyway! I can imagine that your loss took all of the small things away. You know Meri has been up a ton lately at night, and you just reminded me not to care so much about other people judging that I’m letting her sleep in our bed until she rides this thing out (whatever it may be). I learned of the death of a two year old boy last night and it totally put that whole ‘not letting other people get to me’ thing into perspective, and I let the kid come into bed with us which just worked so much better than the night before when I refused because “she was too old.” This isn’t about me though! What I’ve noticed is that when I had a baby, those little things got to me. Your world is so much narrower, it’s all about getting sleep, feeding the baby, keeping them dry and giving them naps..so the drama creeps in to your tired brain without notice sometimes! So you might have to work at it, but you might be able to get back to that not caring mode.
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