I’ve been through a lot of car wrecks. I once over corrected and rolled a work van across my two lanes the median and the other two lanes, to end up facing the opposite direction at 70 mph at 2 am one night. I have always been able to walk away never needing hospization or an ambulance. The first day I’ve been able to dance a jig if I wanted to.  The next morning though has always been a different story.

Bruises show up, joints lock up, entire muscle group take a federal injunction to get moving again. I always feel like I’ve been in a car wreck the following days. That’s how grief is doing me these days. I made it through last year well enough only because of blissful ignorance. Intellectually I understood the chain of events but emotionally I was numbed out. I heard in Rays of Hope that it takes a year for the brain to even process the loss of something. A house can burn down and you can get into another shelter but the brain has so much going on it doesn’t hit for about a year that this is the new normal.

I deal with things in my head on a delayed reaction timetable. I have PTSD mildly so my mind will go into a preservation mode first doing whatever needs to be done to get through stressful situations then whenever things are safe it allows itself to freak out. That’s why in the most benign times in my life I will flip out because a gallon of adrenaline dumps into my system and for now reason I’m angry, aggressive, etc.” Where did that come from Tomas everything was cool?” is a phrase I’ve heard way to many times before. It only seems out of the blue in reality after I freak out I can see how something I’ve “dealt with” has bubbled up to the surface because the memo of how sad or scared or hurt  I was about something finally got the memo to respond.

I have all the right answers from the Bible, The Big Book, Eldredge, Piper, Bell, Keller, Lewis, Lucado, and McManus. But the track from the head to the heart seems to take longer than it should. I’ve leaned into my support system. I’ve done all the things prescribed to me from people that have walked a similar path. All that means exactly jack at 3 AM when it all comes crashing home in my heart and the old normal fights for survival vs. the new normal. My first year of sobriety was a cake walk looking back compared to the years that followed. It felt so good to finally work some of that back log of gunk but  as the 4^th steps keep coming I found myself dealing with deeper levels of crap I didn’t know I had in the basement.  God wants to restore me to his original blueprint from the ground up but I keep fighting because I just wanted a fresh coat of paint not tear the whole thing down.

My grief isn’t diminishing if anything it is multiplying! It’s like having a trick back that doesn’t bother me at all until I twist just right then it’s a flame. It threatens to sidetrack my entire life and demands to be recognized. Then it will settle down and I will get busy again forgetting it is even there till the next twist. I am totally happy and believe spiritually a 100% that Peggy and my dad are in a much better place that it is plain old fashion selfishness to ever wish for them to be back on this plane of existence. Physically I understand that my dad is in my mom’s closet and peg is on top of my kitchen cabinet.

We had my birthday dinner last night and completely unplanned I got to get liver. It had become a birthday tradition of sorts for my mom to cook it for me on my birthday only because no one else digs it. It wasn’t anywhere on the selections my mom had to ask for it and she got the last piece. My heavenly father in his mercy let me know He was thinking of me in a personal way by putting it out again unplanned to the staff. I went back for some more and they said they found more that had to be cooked that night so they threw it together. I was eating it and suddenly my joy was replaced by sadness that I was eating liver on my birthday and my dad wasn’t bitching about the smell of it. All those years I prayed he would just quit bitching then all I wanted to hear him bitch about that god awful stench.

Halloween was just a dirty whore to get through. I totally saved money because I didn’t have to buy multiple costumes for Peggy because she changed her mind but I am poor in spirit without seeing her shine dressed up. I get so feed up with the expectations and hype of thanksgiving and Christmas dinners that they feel like obligations rather than celebrations. That’s why we always dug Halloween because it was about enjoyment rather than having to decided where we are going what will we bring, do we need new clothes, will so and so be there. I would rather be kicked in the nuts than suffer through a happy day. Bad days I can focus on the fight for survival happy days suck because I have no one to share victory with.

If my past is washed away and my future is secure I would rather just skip over the present. All my hopes are hung on the Gospel being true in its completion. That this planet is broken and flawed to its core even on the best of its days, my best day here will be crap compared to my worst day there. It’s like being born with a defect that takes horrendous but miraculous series of surgeries to at the very best Scooby Doo ending is simple walking with a walker 10 feet to show the glory of God as a healer. Trudging the road to happy destiny is such a true statement.