LIKE DANCING.

February, despite being the shortest month has been the longest.  Now that we are out of it, I feel like I can write about it. . .

In the beginning of the month, I had a really bad week.  I'm talking a fucking-shit-ass bad fucking week.  I was incapable of "being"

I couldn't get out of bed.  Sleep was everywhere I could get it.
If I got out of bed, I couldn't get out of my PJs.
I called into work one day.
When that made me feel worse, I worked from home the rest of the week.
Even my work-aholism didn't help.  That's when it's time to pull the plug.

Eventually, in an effort to give my Hub a "happier" me, I headed out to the St. Louis Mardi Gras parade on our Krewe's float - as is tradition.

MISTAKE.

When my Hub left me that evening to celebrate new niece's christening with his family, I had reached the point.  That dangerous point.  I wanted out.  If it was so painful for him, then he wouldn't have gone.  And, left me.  If he really didn't want to see the baby, he wouldn't have.  After all, when I don't want to, you won't catch me doing shit.  I was finished.  Like, "get me off this fucking train" and I'll "kill everyone who tries to stop me" finished.  With my Hub.  With his family.  With everything.

But, I wasn't.  And we weren't.  And nothing stopped.  It kept going.

So, we saw a grief counselor who specializes in pediatric loss.  We were confronted with some things that we knew and some we needed to hear out loud (sometimes the shit you think you know materializes like bright shiny objects that hit you in the face when they are spoken out loud.)

These are the things we must keep sounding in our heads, even when times feel good ~ more when times feel shitty. .

1.  As long as we are honest with each other about how we feel and where we are on this road together, there will be no fault.

2.  Just because we mourn differently for our Perfect Girl doesn't mean that one of us is less grief stricken.

3.  *WE* are a family. . . even if it's just us, our large retirement fund and our Schnauzer.  A Family.

4.  We must be more forgiving to ourselves when we begin moving backwards.  One step forward, two steps back, 20 steps forward, 8 steps back. . . we are still moving forward.  Backwards stepping is still movement. . . . is still healing.

5.  We cannot throw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater.  While one thing is horribly off kilter, our marriage is not.

We learned that we are doing the things we need to do.  We just need practice.  We will probably check back in with our counselor as we move along and encounter new waters (or old ones!  But, we both came out of there (I love referring to therapy as a hole in the ground) feeling accomplished in our 4 1/2 months of grieving.

And so, we have continued to move forward.  We continue to acknowledge that solace isn't gained by sling-shotting ourselves through grief - though we wish it were.  Instead, we rock on the water, back and forth.  And, we rise and fall on the barf-tastic roller coaster that a wise G-ma talked about on Parenthood (the movie, kids, not the TV show.)  And, we are dancing with that flourished give-and-take we have been practicing for six years. . . it keeps getting better.