The Bag...

Today I cannot concentrate on ANYTHING.  THIS WEEKEND SUCKED!!!  My husband was sick.  REALLY sick.  So I had to attend the first Bitch Club outing alone.  When I say "first" I don't mean first as in the very first time I got together with this awesome group of friends.  I mean first as in "first outing since our dear friend Bonnie aka Vette Bitch was killed".  It was wonderful and it was awful.  Two of the girls that work with her were there and they had helped clean out her desk with another member of our little club.  I was so thankful to hear that they had brought me some things they thought I might want to have.  So thankful to receive something that I could keep with me that belonged to my dear sweet Bonnie.  Here comes the awful - Aside from a couple of random items that had special meaning and were very sweet, the bag was filled with things that I had given Bonnie.  It was like a punch in the gut.  I started to cry and then started to feel nauseated.  I hugged them all tightly and said thank you.  Then set the bag by my purse until I left at which time I put it safely in my trunk.  And left it there.  On the way home I was trying not to sob as I was driving alone.  This actually helped me stay in control and I was able to breathe and think beyond the bag.  When I got home I did not retrieve it.  I don't want to look at the bag.  I don't want to think about the bag.  Turns out that wasn't too hard because Saturday I woke up sick.  Thanks hubby.  I stayed in bed most of the day and couldn't think beyond trying to drink water and find something I felt would stay down if I ate it.  On Saturday there was no bag.  There was only sickness.  Sunday came and I felt extremely exhausted but really wanted to see the sunlight.  Brian helped me to the car and we went a few places, did a tiny bit of grocery shopping, and I knew it needed to get home.  Brian always puts me in the car and then loads up the trunk.  When we get home, he always tells me to go inside and he'll unload everything.  Even when I'm well.  But especially when I'm sic.  For me - on Sunday there still is no bag.    Yet.   

I'm feeling very weak so I lay on the couch for 20 minutes and then get up to make a small dinner for me and Brian.  Though I screw part of it up, it eventually turns out pretty good and we eat mustard crusted fish with parmesan broccoli and roasted dill potatoes.  Sounds fancy - very easy.  I eat while on the couch because I am so tired.  Brian takes my plate and I snuggle up.  Maybe I'll nap.  No bag.  No conscious thoughts.  I have been successful in forgetting it. 

Brian puts in a movie and tells me to fall asleep - it'll be good for me to get the rest.  However, the movie is good.  I'm awake.  It's called "The Joneses"  and actually is pretty interesting though I had never heard of it.  I'll try to be discreet now but there's no avoiding the next course of events:  Due to my weekend illness, I suddenly needed to use the bathroom in an urgent manner.  Great.  I get up - run to the guest bath on the 1st floor.  I'm good.  Relief.  Of course I'm anal about hand washing so after I wash up I walk slowly from the bath through the kitchen back to the family room as I'm still feeling blah.  I glance in the dining room and stop so suddenly it's like I ran into a clear glass wall that no one could see.  There is the bag.  Brian had lovingly brought it in and sat it in our formal dining room.  I have to breathe even as I type this reader because I cannot express appropriately how it feels to try so very hard to forget something and then have it thrown in your face again at some random moment without any opportunity to prepare.  I turn away.  I start to panic and tell myself to breath.  I go to the living room.  I climb back under the cover on the couch and say nothing to Brian. 

Fast Forward.  It's time for bed.  After the movie I have numbed my mind adequately with mindless television.  The bag won't leave.  It stays with me.  Along with the knowledge that Bonnie's work voicemail is turned off.  I cannot call at random moments during the day to hear her anymore.  Sick as it may sound - when you lose someone so suddenly it truly is helpful to be able to hear them for a while longer.  So now I cannot call to hear her anymore and there is the DAMN BAG on my dining table that I want nothing to do with.  How can I feel this way?  These are things that she touched, used, loved.  I feel myself getting pissed.  The kind of angry you feel when you want to scream and tell your family and those you love most to go to hell and leave you alone because you need a moment.  I go upstairs.  I lay in bed.  I don't share with Brian because I don't want to cry again.  I'm angry.  I want to scream, not cry.  As we snuggle in for the night Brian asks what I want him to set out in the morning for dinner.  I absent-mindedly ask him if there was leftover fish?  He says no.  I say, what?  NONE?  He says, well I packed the leftovers for lunch.  I go ballistic.  Why didn't you just say that in the beginning???  What??  Are you lying to me because you're afraid I'm going to want your precious lunch for myself????  This part, reader, I am completely embarrassed about.  I don't know how to explain my actions to myself much less to Brian or even to you.  I lost it.  I told him he was a deusch bag.  I told him I didn't understand why he would "Lie to me over stupid leftovers".  It got worse from there.  An hour goes by and I'm literally still fighting with my husband over nothing at all.  He even explains to me that he just thought I knew he would pack for his lunch like he does every day and that's all he meant.  Not good enough for me.  I go sit on my deck.  Suddenly a light goes off.  What the hell am I doing fighting with Brian when I'm angry at God. 

The literal damn that has been building since Friday night breaks.  I'm sobbing.  I go inside and find Brian in the family room.  I beg his forgiveness as I'm sobbing the truth of what's going on.  I can't hardly spit out the words because I'm wailing.  He grabs me and holds me and lets me sob and then sobs with me.  For some reason this is comforting.  I feel like because he is also crying he is understanding my pain.  I tell him how angry I am.  I tell him how I HATE that bag of things I gave to my friend.  He says he will put it away.  He says he will keep it put away until some time when I'm ready.  He says he will give it back to the girls to keep if I don't ever want to see it again.  He continues to hold me and we cry for a while. 

Then I realize that it's now going on midnight and poor Brian has a 5:30 am wake up.  I tell him to go to bed.  I go sit back on the deck and sob some more.  I say bad things to God then I take them all back.  I know it's a pity party.  I know that at some point this will ease.  I keep crying.  It's after midnight when suddenly Brian's by my side again holding me.  "Go To Bed!!" I say.  He says, "Don't want to without you.  I need to make sure you're okay."  After a few minutes I convince him I'm okay and tell him to please go to bed and I will be up shortly.  He says okay.  I think of Bonnie and all the crazy things we have done together.  This is a picture of her posing in the hot tub on one of our cabin trips after a large bottle of wine drank through a straw..... that night we were soooooo sexy......

I sit on the deck alone and suddenly Ben comes home.  Ben is my 20 year old son.  He sees me and comes to the deck and instantly knows I'm crying and why.  He hugs me tight - sits next to me and holds my hand.  Listens for a while and just keeps telling me how sorry he is.  I realize I'm surrounded by good men who love me.  I'm so sorry I took it out on Brian.  I'm fortunate in friends and in family.  I'm blessed beyond measure in life and this begins to calm me.  I remember to breathe.  I will make it through this terrible sadness.  Maybe today will be a better day.  Maybe tomorrow will be worse.  I will make it through.  And maybe some day - and it doesn't have to be this week or next, this month or 6 from now, this year or 2012 - but some day, I'll be thankful for the bag.  But today, for right now, I want to forget there is a bag.  I want to forget that Bonnie isn't enjoying my silly presents from over the years.  I want to forget that I am now the only Bitch in the club who likes V8 in the morning because she is gone.  I want to forget the f'ing bag exists.  I hate the bag.