Milestones and Melt Downs

What a day. I never fathomed a person could go through so many emotions in 24 hours. Two important things happened today. 1) I had the most major melt down I have had since the day Drew died. 2) I had my very first sale on my Etsy shop!!! I HUGE milestone for me that I have dreamed of for many years! Our buyer is going to be getting this adorable little needle felted toadstool in a bottle very soon at her door! So that’s the short-n-sweet of my day. If you’d like to read the knitty-gritty, there is plenty more below… I don’t often post journal-entry type stuff cuz it’s pretty raw and messy… but I dunno, what the hell. I hope you enjoy the drama more than I did ;)

I barely eat breakfast…
I have a 10 o’clock appt with my therapist. I’m empty. Then the Rihanna song comes on in the car… “Bulletproof, Got nothing to lose…” I’ve always liked this song, its empowering. And then for the first time I realize in the chorus she is screaming the word “Titanium”. As soon as the word hits my ears I just explode into this tsunami of shock. That was the word he used to describe me in an early journal entry he wrote, just before we began dating… “I love the way her eyes light up and the curve of her eyebrows when she laughs. She’s got a creative streak a mile wide, wider actually. And her character is stronger than friggen titanium. And that’s why I fell hard for her”. That word – titanium – has become part of my identity since he died.

Tears are rocketing from my eyes and I am screaming at the music, at God, at the universe, at Drew, at my dead parents, at my whole life… screaming at the air that is coming out of me. My eyes are so blurry I can barely see the road. I don’t even try to hold it together. I just scream-cry like a crazy person thru the entire song as Rihanna belts out “titaniuuuuum” at me over and over. Its horrible – but its exactly the amount of horrible emotion that this deserves. And I know it. This is the first time I have totally lost it since the day he died. I have lost it a little, and cried many many times – but nothing like this.

And then the song was over, I pull myself together enough to call my therapist to let her know (still half crying) that I am running a little late. She asks if she can make me some green tea. I love her for that. Like, deeply feel connected to her over the idea that while I am driving there she is making me a cup of green tea. It is something to hold on to, to get me where I need to go.

Therapy goes well – filling her in on some of the positives from the past few days does help to pull me out of the pit I am in.
When I leave, still very emotional and very torn apart missing him, but now I have some spunk in me. Now I have some drive and determination. She tells me before I go that the first thing I am to do is to go eat some frozen yogurt. I smile. And I go do just that.
While I’m at the yogurt place,
I make a few calls. Then I check my email for something and I realize I have a few emails from Etsy. Hm. I open the first one and low and behold it is the moment I have dreamed of – my first first Etsy sale! Talk about an emotional day. I am instantly crying right there in the yogurt shop, but smiling all the while. I am thinking of how dearly I want to be able to call him and tell him about it – but knowing also that he is right there with me sharing the experience somehow. I just know it. I call his mom and a few friends to share the wonderful news. I am beaming. His mom and I both agree Drew is smiling down at me and is thrilled from afar. Not only is this a huge positive just for today, it’s been a dream of mine for many many years. Best of all, my buyer is one of you! And that support means the world to me. So thank you Laura!

And so now it is the end of a long day…
I plummet back into dispair quickly after work. Really barely make it through work today and decide finally that I cannot survive work right now. I am taking more time off. I call my brother in the evening, and it does help to pull me out of the pit. Somehow, he always is able to pull me out – even just a little. Thank you bro. I still only eat a pathetic amount of food all day. But hey, at least it’s something. And it leaves room to drink more calories in dark beer – so that’s a bonus. Rock bottom so enormous high and back down again. Now, just past midnight, after taking my first bubble bath in well over a month and talking to one of my best friends.. I think I am finally somewhere in the middle.. in a small little space of peace. And so that is why I will say… goodnight my friends. Thank you for reading. And sweet dreams. <3

 

The Best Damn Pilot There Ever Was.

When I began writing this post, I was sitting in the San Antonio airport… My hands were shaking I was so full of anxiety. No, I’m not afraid of flying – quite the opposite in fact, I love to fly. It is the place I was going that had me terrified. Going home.

I lot has happened since I last posted, and I have been waiting until I the timing was right post this. Many of you have been following along with me on my boyfriend’s journey of becoming a flight instructor in helicopters this year, and most recently landing his first flying job a few months ago. You joined us in celebration of both of these accomplishments – and in achieving his greatest dreams. We were both overwhelmed by all the comments everyone left us about his story… that is why it saddens me to have to share this all with you.

Drew was flying up in Washington state on a 2 month contract drying cherries… on the afternoon of June 12th, he was riding along with another pilot to get a sense of the job requirements (always his way to try and get as much information as possible before having to go out and fly). While over one of the cherry orchards, they hit power lines and went down hard. It is my most devastating news to tell you that he did not survive.

The love of my life, my best friend, and the person who has inspired me most… did not survive. The man who was going to propose to me in a few months – i have learned – when he returned from this trip… the proposal for which I have dreamed of and imagined in my heart for several years. I had just picked out my wedding ring a week before the accident – the most beautiful ring I have ever laid eyes on. I was so excited that I started to show it to everyone I know. The man I wanted to have a family with and grow old with. Those few weeks before the accident, we had started talking about details of a wedding, and were just so full of excitement we could not stop ourselves. It was the happiest and most beautiful time of my life.

I have known loss, but this has been the scariest and hardest thing I have ever dealt with in my life. I lost my mother when I was 9, my father when i was 27, and I honest-to-God thought that somehow made me safe from losing any more people prematurely. I used to jokingly tell him “You know, you can’t ever die flying because I’ve already lost so many people, if you did it would just be like God hates me” *sigh* Really universe… really?!

And of course he was an amazing and talented pilot.. such that I believed 100% in his abilities, and trusted 100% in his decisions. I always said that if anyone could get out of a bad situation it was him. Unfortunately, he was not the one flying and never had any control of that situation. It’s not to say it would have been a different outcome, but it’s still a hard pill to swallow and always will be.

And now I am faced with a new reality, one that is so immensely unknown and terrifying. It will take years of healing, which right now feels like an almost insurmountable task to have to experience one day at a time. Especially when days feel like weeks right now. Fr now, its just living day by day, because doing anything more than that is not even possible. I still have my own dreams and ambitions, and you better believe that I am still going to achieve them. But for right now, there is only energy enough to survive and find joy anywhere I can.

I am sharing this with you, because you were part of the joyful journey, and you deserve to be part of the whole journey. And because this blog is about my life – the whole of it – not just the creativity… because the creativity comes from who I am and what I experience.

I am not sure how often I will be posting creative things for a while – everything is an unknown right now. All I do know is that writing is very important to me, and helps me to heal, so I will write whatever comes my way to the blog here.

So here I am now, finishing writing this post. It’s my first full day back home in Dallas and I am thoroughly exhausted. I have spent the month down in South Texas with his family – whom have made it very clear I am part of the family and always will be. I cannot imagine a more healing place to have been during all of this. The outpouring from friends and family alike has been overwhelming… and I do not know how on earth I would have survived thus far without all this love surrounding me. Even in the worst loss in my life, I cannot help but feel so incredibly blessed by the loving arms he has left me in the care of.

I struggle to find a way to wrap this up (and realize that I’ve probably rambled quite a bit), so I will just say thank you. Thank you for listening and for caring. I am grateful for every kind soul who has been brought into my life, and right now, more grateful than ever. It’s going to be a long, hard road from here forward – but to have been loved so fully by a man who inspired me daily has changed my life forever. I am a new person because of him. One of the things he loved most about me was my ability to find joy in even the darkest of times. So that is what I will do – day by day – I will find joy again, for myself and for him. Andrew Douglas Ridge, I love you forever.