out of order...

i am literally losing my mind. what the heck happens to your brain when you go through the grief process? why do you lose someone you love AND your mind in the process....isn't one enough? in the past few months, i have lost tons of dialogue in conversations i have had. i have been present for many conversations but not really heard what the other person was saying...i will hear ian say something and 10 minutes later ask him something that he just told me 10 minutes earlier but i wasn't listening or didn't retain it. my mind is deceiving me and takes mini-vacations from me all the time...sometimes i am aware of these escapes, other times it sneaks up on me and i am left wondering where did that 10 minutes of time go? i was right there, why can't i remember?

we were told at our grief meeting that the body and mind does this as a protection or defense mechanism so as to not let the mind take in too much pain at one time...the body's way of being a surge protector is one way a counselor told us to look at it.

i have had 3 panic moments that i can recall recently where i completely freak out. physically, emotionally and mentally freak out because of mind overload and not being able to remember something or just plain have all the circuits overload. i am not proud of these moments but they are real and i have to talk about them so i don't forget. i have thought many times to just take this blog down and start righting in my own personal journal because sometimes i feel like i can't deal with people's feelings getting hurt by my raw honesty or i question my motives for why i write or if what i am doing is even purposeful right now....somedays i write to help me, other times i write to help others but i realized today that i write so that i don't forget. i am so tired of forgetting little things that come to mind or big ah-ha moments that knock me on my butt and turn my head around and 5 minutes later it is gone...i can't recall it. so this is my purpose right now. i asked my mom yesterday if i should just stop writing publicly right now as to not hurt others with my feelings and not to write with wrong motives and she gave me good advice but also told me that if it is what i need right now to work through things than to keep on doing it....and i have to use this as a way to put my thoughts down...i will not take the time to get out pen and paper sometimes because my mind works faster than i can write....but i can type, man can i type....my fingers can type and keep up with my thoughts a lot better than a pen so this will have to do. i don't have to publish everything i write. and trust me, i don't. some of the ugly stuff will just stay saved in the drafts...and that's ok. but for now, i have to remember and recall and recap and this is the way i need to do it.

my three freak out moments have come out of the blue and scared me. the first one was a few weeks ago when liam brought me drawings he had finished. very sweet and innocent except for the fact that he had drawn over all my note cards that i had saved and put back for sydney's service....sweet note cards that i bought for her baby shower back last summer that i then had to find a different purpose in using them once she died. but they were her, they reminded me of her and i treasure them. the patterned blue and white damask pattern inspired her blog design and for some reason have become like treasured relics or fossils that no one can touch right now until i figure out what to do with them....i had them up away and stored safely i thought but in one of ian's own panicked moments in trying to find his keys he tossed all my "important" stuff stored in our "important papers area" on the floor and liam saw it as access to drawing paper...what 3 yr old wouldn't? it was on the floor, at his level and was pretty....so he brought me his wonderful masterpiece and was waiting for momma's proud praising of his designs except all i saw were sydney's papers in his dirty grimy little hands, ruined and covered with graffiti....i yelled at him, "what have you done, that was my special paper for sydney, where did you get that, ohhhhh liam, what have you done?".....he stared at me so confused and hurt. why the heck was momma so mad at his drawings? i looked at ian and yelled at him and then yelled at liam again, started crying, took the papers from liam's hands and ran out of the room. again, not a proud moment in my parenting or marriage but it was pure panic and hell and i didn't know what to do. i know now that it was just paper but then it was as if someone had taken her urn and peed on it or thrown it, it was blasphemy and total chaos and disrespect and i was horrified. i calmed down and talked with liam, apologized to both him and ian and told them i was sorry for getting so upset..liam sweetly told me that they could be drawings for sydney and it brought me to tears and i hugged him tightly and told him that was a beautiful idea and we have them saved by our beds as special relics now from liam...that was the first one.

the second freak out moment was last week when i was looking for sydney's footprint and ian and liam were out running errands....the footprints that the hospital had taken at her delivery...they had put together a memory box for us with her hospital bracelets, her footprints inked on paper and a lock of her hair...i had put all these things in our safe though in case of a fire so we wouldn't lose them but i couldn't find the footprints. all the other stuff was packed neatly and safely in the safe but the footprints were no where to be found. i thought to myself, don't panic-they are probably just in the shadow box i am making for her....i looked but they were not there either...i started to panic and looked in my closet and in my jewelry box....we had painted our room last month and moved stuff around and put stuff in the garage, i looked out there but still nothing...i started getting sweaty and started crying...heart racing, screaming out loud at jesus to tell me where they were...one of the only two physical things besides that lock of hair, that i had of her's to remind me that she existed, that she was not a figment of my imagination....i had lost it, it was gone...i lost her, she was gone...i panicked and started breathing heavily..why, why couldn't i find them...i wanted them at first to be able to take to the tattoo place because i had decided to have her footprint put on my foot and now i had lost it and now they were lost, i just wanted them period.. just even for keepsake purposes it was gone...it was seriously like losing her all over again, i was going to go through the rest of my life without being able to look at her little footprint that was all we had left from her...my only treasure from her was gone...at this point my mind was racing, i was confused...time was lapsing and relapsing...i crawled on my knees and screamed at the Lord to help me find them, then started crying out to help me find her...i was sooooo completely insane and so glad no one was around to see me....i sat there on the floor and tried to retrace steps, tried to recall where i had seen them last, crying, cussing, screaming....

the bible, the little white bible that was given to me by my grandma reba....they were in there, i knew it...i remembered. but where the hell was that bible now...i couldn't find that either...i panicked again knowing now where they were and worried that i had lost them both....i was hysterical, ravaging our house and our things, crying, sobbing, turning things over and pacing....i finally sat on my bed and stopped to breathe. i looked over at the pile of papers on my dresser and saw the white little old worn bible peeking out at me from under all the papers....my heart sank and i weeped and pulled it gently from the papers and brought it to my chest, to my heart...and just rested it there...crying and sobbing and thanking God that he showed me where it was...i opened it and there they were...the sweetest little tiny feet that i was never so happy to see...i held them, i kissed them and i sat and looked at them for a while and then returned them to the safe, the panic was gone, i started breathing again....i looked back at the last 30 minutes of panicked hell and thought, wow....who was that crazy woman?

the third moment came this morning as i tried to recall the most amazing conversation i had had with God in days...it was yesterday and i was driving and out running errands alone. i was driving and listening to music. i look at life through analogies all the time...i think my mom and dad used this tactic with me and my brother early on to explain things to us...simple and a great way to memorize and an excellent tool for application. that's how Jesus told stories anyway, right? that's what works for me. so, i was thinking about sydney and how i much i miss her. i was thinking about life and God and he showed me something amazing, a very cool analogy image...he spoke into my heart and i felt it immediately get lighter, the Holy Spirit had graced me with peace for the moment and i couldn't wait to get home and share it with ian, with friends, with you.....and i thought i will write it down in the morning so i won't forget....i get up this morning and i can't remember for the life of me what that amazing moment or conversation with God or truth i learned was all about. i can't even remember the context or anything about it. i can tell you where i was, the street i was on when it came to me...but i can't remember what the amazingly, fantastic ah-ha moment was about..that is pitiful and scary and broke my heart and made me panic...i sat here and started shaking...i didn't cry but i put my head in my hands and asked God why he would reveal himself like that only for me to forget it like some amnesiac patient...it scared the hell out of me how quickly i could be in one moment and then poof, it is gone....this great moment yesterday certainly got my attention and made me look at things differently but if so, then why can't i remember today?....i panicked this morning because i am forgetting things like that way too much...i know it may be my mind's protection but i feel like i am locked out of my own brain's house, without a key or password and i should know it because after all, it is my own brain....but nothing. i sit here and cannot tell you what transposed yesterday in the car and that makes me sad. it makes me mad and scared and confused.

why is my brain so out of order?