Emotional

Hi. Sorry I have been away. The whole "living in the present moment" thing is good--but doesn't work so well with the blogging thing. Why? When I'm being active in blog land (and by active I mean reading and commenting, not just posting--cause goodness knows I've never been that prolific) my mind just wanders all over the place. I go into comparison mode. Sometimes I go into jealousy mode. And, instead of just living my moments, I am analyzing moments and composing blog posts in my head. So, I've been taking yet another break. Sorry guys.

But today I feel compelled to write, if just briefly. I am feeling particularly emotional. Like, I'm gonna cry at the drop of a hat (and have done.) Well, there was no actual hat dropping, but you get the meaning. Perhaps it has to do with the recent loss of a friend of mine. A friend whom I had just reconnected with after many years out of touch. A friend who found me again, and when we saw each other, it was as if not a day had passed. We were 16 again, and best friends. She looked beautiful as ever. Stunning, in fact. Despite the fact that she now had stage 4 breast cancer. She pooh-poohed her diagnosis and said she was doing very well. (And she looked great, so I believed her). But, she was lying. I didn't know it at the time. We made plans to get together again. Get the husbands together, etc., but plans fell through. My son got sick and I had to keep him home from daycare one time, another time, she had to go in for a treatment. Another time family came to visit unexpectedly, and so on. Our plans kept getting diverted. But we talked over email and phone. I didn't think much of it when I didn't hear from her for a couple of weeks. She said she was going on a short trip and would call me when she got back in to town. Instead, in the beginning of August, I received an email from her husband, saying, Sam had succumbed to her disease, and was gone....

I was shocked. I didn't know how to feel. I went on with work and with taking care of a toddler. I wrote back to ask about a service if there was to be one, and didn't get a response. I waited a few weeks. Then I emailed again, and finally, yesterday, I spoke to Sam's husband, and got every detail of her last days. They were not pretty. And I had no idea. And I wasn't there. And... Sam being Sam: Beautiful (and not a little bit vain, and proud, and stubborn), according to her husband did not tell ANY of their friends about her illness.

Just me.

So today we decided to go to church as a family for the first time since HM was born. We've been talking about it and talking about it and finally just said, let's do it.

I don't know if it was the familiar childhood memories of church and all that that conjures up, I don't know if I was feeling emotional being in the "presence of God" after so long, I don't know if it's because I've got a lot of anger at God that's been building up over the last 5 years or so, or if I am just experiencing REALLY BAD PMS, or, if I finally am starting to let out the grief of losing a friend. But I just couldn't hold back the tears. And still can't. It's like a flood gate has opened.