i can do hard things

 Several of my friends on Facebook have been linking this blog recently.  It really is wonderful.  Tonight I was browsing the blog and in the stores section I saw a sign that said, "we can do hard things."  It's true.  And I have to remember that now. 

Right now I have to do something hard.  I have to learn new coping skills, and quickly!  My old coping skills are knocking at my door, tissue in hand ready to comfort me.  We had a family tragedy this week.  Hubby's cousin fell 18 feet at work and landed on a concrete floor.  The doctors removed two parts of his brain in effort to stop the swelling and hopefully save his life.  The swelling never stopped and yesterday Cousin passed away.

He was young, early thirties.  He had a wife and three very young children.  He had so much life ahead of him and now he has left so much behind.  Hubby grew up with Cousin.  They saw each other all the time growing up.  They played Star Wars together.  They started collecting sports cards together.  They talked about girls together.  Hubby is devastated.  I am in shock.

I really never felt hungry today.  I had a Cliff bar simply because I knew I should.  As the day wore on, reality started sinking in.  I didn't want to eat.  I wasn't trying to numb or shut down.  I know that not eating will lead me to that, but today it was different.  It just feels so dang good, especially at the beginning.  I wasn't trying to feel nothing, I was enjoying my body feeling euphoric when my mind was begging for the new reality to not be true.  When my circumstances are informing me that nothing can feel good, my body said, "But this does."  And it did.  It felt really, really good.

But as my dear Southern Belle reminded me, not eating is only prolonging the hurt.  Numbing myself says that Cousin's memory is not worth feeling over.  Right now, Hubby needs me.  He needs ALL of me.  He needs to know that I will comfort, not give him more to worry about.  And I desperately want to give him that.  He has given me so much, the least I could do is give him all of me, to give him the best of me.  I have to eat to be my best me.  I have to be my best me right now because that is what spouses do for each other, we hold each other up when the other can't stand.

Against the voices in my head and the endorphins in my body, I had cereal when I came home from work.  And I'm going to start by honoring Cousins memory by feeling every feeling of grief that comes up.  This is life.  This is hard.  Life is hard.  But that doesn't mean it's impossible.

I can do hard things.