rambling monday

I have a sore throat.
Let me go ahead and get that out because if I don’t, I’m going to be thinking about it the whole entry.
It’s a new sore throat. It started out as just feeling sort of thirsty. It hurt to swallow my little lean cuisine lunch…
I don’t really have any other symptoms… other than being tired but it’s Monday and the time changed. But time changed in a good way – to give us more time. Other than the fact that I’ll be driving home in the dark every evening… at least I know my way around here now and I won’t have to try to go scary places on unnamed roads when I can’t see where I’m going.
I guess I do have a few other symptoms. My nose is stuffy. I’m not coughing but I keep bringing up slime. Ugh. I know, TMI. Sorry.
I was a backslidden Christian again yesterday and skipped church. I just couldn’t move. I wanted to stay in my pjs in my recliner. I napped in the middle of the day.
And I was a little bit blue… it was a year ago yesterday that Misty, my stepson’s mom died. I still play the “what if” game. I still think about sitting on a blanket in the bright hot June sunlight with Misty when everything with Michael was still brand new… when she asked if I would take care of Bobby if anything happened to her. I remember laughing and saying, “nothing is going to happen…” People know, I think.
Technically he is no longer my stepson. Legally he still is but I haven’t seen him – or Michael – in a year as of Thursday. Or Stephen. This was the last “anniversary” that I had to get thru. She was buried on November 5th.
I wouldn’t say that I’m depressed over it. Reflective. Contemplative. It still makes me sad, I guess it always will. Not just that she died and left three little kids behind. But that Michael and I didn’t have a strong enough relationship for me to have been able to be there for her in the way she had wanted. In some ways I feel like I let Misty down.
But I also know that Misty, better than anyone, knew what I was dealing with. She was such a great support for me in those days between the time I left florida and the time she died. She worried about me. She offered me a cellphone. She wanted to help me through what she knew was a rough transition.
So. Yeah. What if?
What if she and Michael had stayed together and instead of having three baby daddies, there was just one? What if he and I had never met? How much of my life would I wish back to the time before Michael? My weight, for sure! My confidence. My independence. My salary.
But… would I trade what I have now, where I have it?
I had an epiphany about my weight the other day… while I was flailing around like a turtle on its back trying to get out of the recliner without using my injured arm. Oh, I didn’t mention hurting my wrist did I? no big deal. Just another little ache and pain.
I worked so hard to be thin… to discover the “me” inside the big girl. And then I got wounded. And I think there is a subconscious reluctance to be thin again. As if thin = vulnerable. As if – if I allowed myself to be that thinner, more energetic, attractive person that there would be another Michael lurking around who could possibly wound me again. And who knows if I would survive another him?
I didn’t know Misty that well but I know that she went through a lot of relationships in the time I knew her. She was married, then divorced, then living with someone, then living with someone else, then engaged, then broke up, then living with someone and having his baby. She never recovered from Michael either. She spent the rest of her life with instability. That makes me sad. Both for her… and for me.
My body thinks it’s almost time to go home. I have another hour and then some.
We’re having hamburger helper for dinner. Austin is doing the ground beef before I get home so it will be quicker.
Gosh. My throat really hurts.