The Day After

It hit me today, like a ton of bricks.

8am found The Pilates Diva and me marveling at how far I'd come, given that 7 years ago at that very moment I was bleeding internally, drugged insensate, and expected to live.  She's known me Before and After, she has very high expectations, and she's a mom and a wife and a daughter.  She understands when I say that yesterday should be the best day of my life, because it's the day I didn't die. 

And then we stopped nodding our heads and sighed.... because, of course, there is so much more.

I should have gone to Prince after that, and I didn't. True, it was raining and the plan was to plant, but I could have made it happen, if I'd tried. But I didn't want to put a smile on my face as my hip hurt and my heart ached.  I wasn't in the mood to be cosseted.  I was in full wallowing mode.

I went to a Mindfulness and Meditation session instead.  All that mental calmness and reminders not to judge, but to observe with an open mind, to ride the wave and walk with purpose, emptying my mind of shoulds and might haves and whatevers left me face to face with the fact that I just didn't know what to make of anything. 

I had no answers for the questions people were asking.  I didn't know how I was doing, now, around the anniversary, when the public is energized by the dedication of the Memorial  and the shooting is on everyone's mind.  I wasn't judging, I was noticing.  I wasn't faulting myself for having those thoughts while recognizing that I had to listen to them.

I should have played cards in the afternoon, but I didn't. I just didn't want to talk to anybody. Instead, I took James Patterson's latest Michael Bennett book out onto the patio, and I read the whole thing in the sunshine.  It distracted me from my self-absorption, and I thanked it as I closed it and my eyes and lay there, thinking, pondering, examining.

I'm not sure there are definite answers.  For now, I'm going with Little Cuter's description - It is ODD.