The Beach

I took the boys to the beach this weekend.  Three days of places, events, actions that all evoke memories of Jeff.  It is in moments like these when I have a time-line altering schism.  A moment where I could just swear that this life is not real and that somehow I need to get back to the real one.  Like the Star Trek episode where Worf keeps jumping realities and in one he finds out his son was never born.  In the end, it is all fixed and he ends up back in the correct timeline.  I feel like that.  I have moments where time just stops, I get dizzy and I swear that this cannot be real.  That this timeline I am in is wrong and that Jeff has to be alive that Jeff has to be with his boys that Jeff should be going to the beach with us this weekend.

But this isn't science fiction and as much as I would love to figure out how to switch planes of reality.  I never will.  I have to course correct my mind and focus on the life I am living now and not the one I think I should have.  It is always harsh to do, mentally.  It is even worse when I am around other people.  I have to do it all internally and try not to make a scene.

Which is why I've been crying on and off for the past day.  I'm alone again and I can let the tears flow.  I know, I know... you all think I can cry when I feel like it.  But I can't.  First off, I did not grow up in a household where that was accepted.  I learned early on to not cry, to keep myself together, to not be loud, or laugh boisterously.  Over the years I have given myself a pass on the laughing but crying is still just not done.  Some habits are hard to break.  I often hide to cry.  Or I have learned to cry softly and with infrequent eye-rubs to keep the possibility of notice low.  Second, I learned a while ago that the more I cried the more I upset my children.  There is a certain level that they can handle and after 6 months or so, they were done.  My children still mourn the loss of their dad but they are more likely to feel the joy in a situation than to cry over their loss.  I'm still the opposite.  I will cry over Jeff's absence before I am happy with a new experience or milestone the kids have reached.   So I have worked on perfecting the art of crying so they don't notice.  Sometimes I don't succeed.  But mostly I do.

A weekend trip was a common occurrence in our household.  We never seemed to take week-long jaunts anywhere but we could pack in a half-dozen 3-day trips a year.  One of our favorite places to go was to the beach's in Delaware.  We had a regular restaurant to stop at, a beach location to go, and GoKarts to ride.  All of which I did this weekend and I did it without Jeff.  I had stomach cramps for an hour after eating and I cried after I found out my oldest was tall enough to drive his own GoKart, a milestone Jeff had been anxiously awaiting.  I don't know when this fake-timeline feeling will go away.  I just know it hasn't yet. 

Sincerely,

Jeff's Wife

p.s.  I still have those buckets in the picture above. I didn't even realize that until the photo downloaded. My boys used those two buckets this weekend and it fills my eyes with tears.