My Name is Kris and I Blah-g

Well, I’m 38 now… I can’t believe it. I’ve been fluttering between feelings of horror, sadness, ambivalence, numbness and excitement. I’m horrified that time moves so quickly. I am sad because Mike isn’t here to share this day with me (it is also our 6th anniversary of our Temple marriage). I am ambivalent because one one hand I am feeling negatively about the day but on the other, I have always loved my birthday and want to love it this year too. It’s such a conflict. I have a right to be happy but there is still that nagging feeling of guilt that makes things like this leave a sour taste in my mouth. I feel numb as I try to bury these feelings deep and then I am excited because I have a 7 year old who knows how to celebrate these things right! She wished me a happy birthday-eve yesterday and gleefully helped bake my birthday cake with her aunt. She is genuinely thrilled for my birthday and makes no bones about the fact that I am inching ever so closer to 40 which is ok because she says I don’t officially become old until I am 100. I guess I am safe for now.I am also excited because we’re hitting the road. I did that a lot last year. It certainly helped during those times of self-inflicted moments of wo’… I love the escape. I love fleeing the constant reminder of the daily grind. I experienced some painful feelings on Mike’s birthday a couple weeks ago and those feelings are bubbling up again – I can feel it. But this time I am a little vexed by them. I am annoyed I feel them. It makes me angry. Dang it. It’s my favorite time of the year and it’s ruining it for me. What is so wrong with wanting to enjoy myself? So I resolve to do just that. It’s my birthday gift to me. I resolve to have a good birthday. And I resolve to go to Vegas and see Phantom and pretend that really is Gerard Butler up there singing to ME (darn…I can dream, can’t I?).

Ya know, I’ve approached this 2nd year differently than the first. During the first year without Mike, I looked towards all the “firsts” with dread, anticipating the pain associated with recognizing a significant event without him for the first time. In hindsight, I would say that I built it up in my mind to be worse than it ended up being. Yes, there were moments of sadness but for the most part it was survivable. I was quite proud of myself actually. Then the 2nd year started and I decided that I was no longer this widow newbie. I had a year under my belt. I had weathered the storm, so to speak and I was now going to be the one people could turn to when they had a loss of their own – become the voice of experience and the supportive shoulder to lean on. Then moments like today happen when I realize that I just may need a little bit more time…or maybe this doesn’t really get any easier. Only the span of time coping with it gets longer.Today would have been Mike’s 38th birthday. And I am not feeling poetic about how it feels. I cannot provide any prose that would inspire. All I can simply say is that today I am sad. I look at that photo above taken 3 years ago today and I am angry that Michaela won’t just be helping Daddy blow out his candles this year, she’ll be doing it FOR him. He should be here. He should be driving us crazy with all of his desires for the latest gadgets and telling us how old he is now. He should be letting us fawn all over him because today is his day. But the truth is that we’ll remember him, yes. We’ll be grateful for having been part of his life and he apart of ours. But in the end of the day, the reality is we’ll be eating a birthday cake without him and standing over a cold stark grave. And yeah, I will put on the brave face for Michaela later when we do all this but for now…here on my blog, in the not so private moments of my mind, I am going to share with the world this….You don’t get over death. So don’t even try when death confronts you. All you can do is learn to live WITH it. And there will be moments like these that will bring grief back with a vengence and remind you of all that is lost. And it will suck. It does suck. And it’s ok to let it suck.

Lotsa pictures here! When the music ends, it’ll repeat about 2 or 3x. Keep watching!

Yesterday, Michaela turned 6 years old. As with previous years, we had a celebration planned and of course, with me in party planning mode, it’s never a small production. I naively thought that this year would be a little different. I knew that we were getting a little elaborate with the Sweet and Sassy party but figured it was worth the money since the hassle factor would be greatly diminished since the party would be elsewhere. Um. Yeah. The day started very early. Michaela wanted to sleep in my room the night before and she was awake bright and early shortly after six. I felt her staring at me as I stirred. She was waiting for those magical 2 words that I usually wake her up with each year. Of course, she was first to be awake and so I mustered what enthusiasm I had and smiled, “Happy birthday, Michaela!” She giggled and responded, “I’m six now!”

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Happy Tooth-Day!

Getting their girl on!