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Grief is an ocean. It is vast, seemingly endless, unimaginably deep. It comes in waves. Some days it fools you because it is calm Below the surface. Other days, it rages like a hurricane. It crashes into you like a tsunami. But like the ocean, it is always there.

We all become sailors on our ocean of grief. During the horrible storm at the begining we batten down the hatches and hope to make it through the night. But after a while, we learn to live with the pain. We adjust to the loss. We sail along. But it is never gone and we never know when the storm will rage again.

It hit harder this year. Years 17 and 13. That’s the way it works. Some years those black days on the calendar warrant a few tears while listening to that one song that reminds you of them both. In other years it darkens a season that was only bright because of her smile. It deepens the dread in a world gone mad, and he can’t tell you not to give up.

Grief is an ocean. Of stories never told. Of lost hugs. Of time passing without them.

That one sone that reminds me of them.

I found a bunch of my writing the other day and that reminded me that I was supposed to be writing again on this blog. I got the blog up and running again at the start of the pandemic as I wanted to document what I was seeing and feeling. And because I rediscovered in the weirdest way that I like writing.

The pandemic is still going on. I think maybe it’s beginning to subside in certain parts of the country. I think we are in for a long haul but right now it kind of feels like it is ending. Haha. Probably, the worst is yet to come.

Tomorrow, I will be in the office for the second time since March 13th. I remember being at the office that day and saying goodbye to so many people. I wondered for a split second when I would see them again. I felt a little like Princess Leia as she gives her pilots instructions in Empire as they are evacuating Hoth. She didn’t know how that would turn out. On that day in March, I didn’t know and I still don’t know what is on the other side of this.

I am going to the office tomorrow to meet with an intern. I know people have had it a lot worse than me during this chaos but tomorrow is the official start of summer and that usually means festivals, Prides, interns. and traveling around the state. I am sad that this year there is no Prides, no festivals and the poor interns will be doing the entire internship virtually. It just sucks for them. I miss traveling. I miss meeting people. I miss my commute, My office, my two monitors. I miss my coworkers. I even miss the parking garage that I was guaranteed to run into at least twice a year.

Anyway, I wrote this just for me. So I can remember. Not that we will probably forget this time.

I always thought if I was living in truly historic times, I would keep a journal. So here we are.

We heard in late December, early January of a novel virus. We watched as people in China died and tourists were affected. And before long it was here. At the end of February it was sweeping its way around Washington state. The stores were crazy that weekend as we all tried to stock up. Things were bad when some lady told me to “Fuck off” when I said excuse me in the grocery store. By the middle of the next week the first cases had hit Colorado and by the weekend we were terrified to hold caucus. The following week, we made the painful decision to cancel our lobby day. My trip to New Orleans was cancelled. We started to plan and figure out how to do our assembly virtually. We closed the office and transitioned to working at home, thankful for the the technology. We began to rethink our jobs and our interactions with others and I bought a ton of food. Spring break is over on Monday and E will be engaging in distance learning.

No one knows what will happen next but I am going to try to chronicle it on here.

Two things have happened recently.  One, I started watching Letterman again and two, I am gonna write more.

So about Letterman.  I watched that show religiously until we had kids and then I was always too tired to stay up and watch.  So now that he is retiring, I decided I best get my fill.  Thanks goodness for the DVR.  Anyway, I watched last night and I have to say that he still makes me laugh out loud.  Good job, Dave!  PS: I think your replacement might be someone with which I can spend my late, insomnia fueled nights.

About my absence from writing. I have not been much in the mood to share.  It started because I realized that my Facebook postings about politics really never accomplish much.  Facebook and other social media are echo chambers where those who agree, like our postings and those who don’t, ignore them.  So very rarely do I post political stuff (but still more than the average person). This reluctance to share my political musings has even stretched to my Examiner blog which is the one place I need to actually write about politics.  Maybe after November everything still feels so hopeless and I still feel so powerless.  What is the point? “But I’m trying, Ringo. I’m trying real hard“.  So maybe you will see an Examiner Blog in the near future. 

As for this more personal blog, I suddenly felt the need not to share every part of my personal life.  Again, I wasn’t sure if my writing was helping and if anyone but me was being served by my venting. I think it was my friend Nancy Cronk who said “Promote what you love”.  So I have been trying to do that and trying not to vent.  I don’t know how all this is working and if anyone has even noticed.  I will just keep trying to be the shepherd of my own life.

So after some very disjointed thoughts about writing and its value (and random Pulp Fiction references), here is an equally random Top Ten List in which I vent and complain. 

Top Ten Reason why Delana never sleeps:

10. The wind.  The wind makes me crazy.  Luckily, I live in the windiest place on earth.

9.  Snoring.  Since I don’t snore, this needs no further explanation.

8.  “The bed is too big without you” I think that might be a Police song but it fits my life a few weeks a month. Taken in conjunction with #9, maybe U2’s “With or Without You” is a better choice.

7.  Dogs.  See a blog post from last summer. 

6. Running.  Sometimes my legs cramp up at night. Sometimes they just feel weird.  I should probably run more.

5. Reading.  The bulk of my reading is done between 10pm and 1am.  This includes my “reading” of Pinterest. 

4. Lena.  Apparently, I can solve her insomnia problems which aren’t in sync with mine.  Apparently, I can solve all problems but she only wants to talk about them at midnight on the very few nights that I am actually sleeping at that time.

3. Evan.  Imagine that one kid was up until 1am expecting you to solve all the problems of the world and the other gets up when the sun starts streaming into his room.  For those of you doing the math, that is about 4 hours of sleep.

2. Worry.  What’s to worry about?  My kids, your kids, your parents, money, Gaza, Ukraine, Putin. Because, despite what Lena thinks, I cannot solve all the problems but I try.  Every. Single. Night.

1. Insomnia.  Look it up.  I am pretty damn sure that my picture is there next to the definition.

About a week after my dad died, I finally stopped crying everyday.  I went back to work and life returned to a new normal without him.  One thing that never got back to normal was my crying.  Now, I have always been a crier.  If I am happy, sad, mad or even bored, I am easily brought to tears and I am not one of these people who look cute crying. I usually end up looking like a hot mess that should be sitting somewhere very quiet with padded walls.  My mom was the same way and often said just once she wanted to have the impulse to hit someone instead of cry. For most of my adult life, I have hated this personality trait and wished I could change it but since my dad died the crying seems to be so out of control.  I mean when a Lego ad in a magazine makes you cry, it is time make a change.

Five weeks ago, things did not go as planned and I found myself a sobbing mess out in public.  It was a complete and total embarrassment.  I decided that if I was ever going to get this crying thing under control, now was the time.  So for the last five weeks, I have tortured myself watching every video on Facebook that anyone has commented on with “Have the Kleenex ready!” and for five weeks I have been able to control my tears.  Now I will admit to a few dignified tears here and there but no crying jags, no breaking down.  Until I watched some video about a Canadian airlines that gave out Christmas wishes to all its passengers.  (Side note: To the guy who asked for underwear and socks, dream bigger, dude!) .  Nevertheless, even this small lapse in the anti-crying campaign can’t deter me.  I am determined to keep my emotions in check.

Not crying has opened me up to emotions that I rarely feel outside of dealing with insurance companies.  I am not sure what emotion this is but I have a compulsion to smack the crap out of people (mom would be so proud!).  I used to just cry when something upset me.  Now I have a whole range of emotions that I feel.  It is nice to know that I can feel negative emotions without ending up a crying mess.

Don’t get me wrong.  There are times to cry.  Today, I cried when reading about a Newtown family.  The victims of that tragedy are deserving of my tears.  There will be days around Christmas and my birthday, that I will never feel embarrassed to cry.  December and January will always be marked by days that were the “last day”.  For example, yesterday was the five year anniversary of the last time my children ever saw my mom.   The last Friday afternoon visit, which was our tradition when the kids were small.  Every Friday, I would bring lunch to my parents and we would hang out at their house with the kids.  Sometimes I would sneak away for an hour or two knowing they were in capable, loving hands.  Today, I wonder how much of those visits my kids remember.

This has been a rough year and honestly, I am just checking the days off the calendar until 2013 is over.  I have had enough of Murphy’s Law in my life and I am ready to put this year “in the record books”.  2013 will go down as a year we endured and persevered but it will not be one for the highlight reels.  So as December marches on, I will keep trying not to cry.  I know that the tears will come but to able to have some control, well, that would be nice.

Today is the first Father’s Day that I won’t be able to celebrate with my dad.  It will be five months on the 28^th but in some ways it seems so much longer since I talked to him. Today, I am trying really hard to stop dwelling on his last few months and remember him when he wasn’t sick.  I am trying hard to honor his spirit and his life.

Lately, I have been so preoccupied with other problems in life that my grief has taken a backseat to a lot of other concerns. Yesterday, I walked past the duck tape at Home Depot and all of a sudden it came back to me, that horrible pit in your stomach that takes away your breath.  It had not happened in so long that I was unprepared.  I was lucky to have the cart to hold onto and quickly put on my sunglasses so no one could see the tears fill my eyes.  Duck tape will always remind me of my Dad.  He thought it was some kind of wonder product and we always had tons of it.  I think he may have stolen it from work!  Once when I was in college he accidentally stapled his hand with his electric staple gun and pulled the staple out with a pair of pliers, wrapped his hand in duck tape and just kept on working.  A staple in his hand couldn’t stop him.

Dad never gave up.  Not even after Mom died.  His body gave out way before his will ever did.  Dad was the one who told us we could be or do anything.  His gruff exterior, piercing stare and southern accent covered the most optimistic person I have ever met.  Even in the darkest times, he knew the future could be bright.  He never thought my mom would not beat cancer.  He thought anything was possible if you worked hard.  He was never one to dwell on the past.  The future was a place where dreams came true and the sadness and disappointment of the past were faint memories.

Although I wish desperately I could talk to Dad because he would have understood how I feel right now better than anyone, in a way these new concerns that have taken over my life feel like I am honoring him. Life has moved on and I am plowing through a new difficulty with the same optimism and forward thinking that got Dad through his entire life.  I am moving forward to recreate my life and overcome these new obstacles because the greatest dad in the world taught me that anything is possible.