Every time something about her is posted I read it as Alex Mack and get very very confused.

They are essentially made out of foam rubber. It’s hard to hurt them. Particularly once you stop being freaked out by their soft head spot.

This is why I left academia. I couldn’t stand the backstabbing, underlying low lying attacks and then the months upon months of just....nothingness. I couldn’t take it. It was harsh and vile. I would have gone insane.

I paid $1.50 for an orange at a deli today because I wanted to make a negroni tonight.

YESSSSSSSSS

I mean, it’s not a cure. I can’t stop or I’ll go right back. It treats the symptoms of my grief/loss. It is a palliative treatment for a (mostly) non-life threatening illness. It is not a cure.

It probably doesn’t cure anything (especially none of the awful things), but hell if it isn’t the only thing that gets me to sleep since my husband died. And keeps the PTSD cancer death related thoughts at bay.

It’s a loss of intimacy and closeness all the same that is hard to replace, replicate or recreate. Similar enough.

It ebbs and flows. Some days I barely notice it. Some days it gnaws at my skin. On those days I get high, have a gin and watch Call Me by Your Name or Amelie because somehow that combination seems to at least mimic something enough to work instead of me randomly walking up to someone I think is attractive and kissing…

I didn’t really think about it until it hit me like a ton of bricks. Jeff and I’s relationship was particularly physical-it was one of our major communication channels. So I think it is a particular kind of terrible for me.

I’ve been...somewhere in the middle. I have good days and days where I just shut down. I feel in many ways I’m doing less well than I was in the weeks immediately after his death, but I think that the shock is wearing off and the fog and emotions and PTSD are creeping in.

No, no actual substance. The only substance I have an addiction to is coffee and you will pry that from my cold, dead hands.

It’s so hard. So so hard. Because if my mom did things his mom did/said to him, I would wonder if my mom was having a stroke. Stuff was so mean, so awful and he just took it as normal while I’d be like .5 seconds away from blowing a gasket to stand up for him (which I eventually did. When she told him that comment…

So, this is taken from someone who is a widow now and doesn’t HAVE to associate with the terrible, awful, mother in law anymore if I don’t want to (which I don’t).

I’m having some serrrrrriiiiiouuussss dopamine/oxytocin withdraw.

I’m reading Der Nasse Fisch, the book on which Babylon Berlin is (somewhat loosely) based on. I got HOOKED on the series while I was on leave, and really wanted to read it in the original German. So that’s what I’m going through right now. Work is getting in the way (booooooo) but I’m having fun keeping my German up…

He/She is a v. good boy/girl.

I appreciate the kind words. I’ve been in a very whirlwind sort of state the last week (I tend to function on a week ‘on’, few days ‘off’ situation of being fine/being not fine) and it’s been challenging. And I’m trying to figure out...feelings...that I’m not sure I have the right to feel. So here I am.

Truthfully, the sleeping thing is concerning to pretty much everyone BUT me. I think it’s just amusing at this point because it’s so damn consistent.

My mother, who was stay at home with me until sometime mid-elementary school, asked me this question the other day: Did I feed you lunches as a kid?