I have a strange mix of emotions these days. I am so very happy to have found love again and to have found a man who thinks I hung the moon, loves God, loves my kids and grand kids and respects that I will always still love Tom. But, there always seems to be a "but" anymore. As we rapidly approach Christmas there are many, many reminders of what we have all lost. Just because I am quite happy right now does not mean the loss is any less staggering at times.
One of our family traditions is to buy each person an ornament each year that has some significance to their life that year. Our tree is a family history book for us. A Cheshire cat for the year Jesse got his braces off. A slice of pizza for when Jordan worked at Round Table Pizza, Disney ornaments from the year we went to Disney World... They are all constant reminders of where we have been. Many of you are hanging a turtle on your tree this year in remembrance of Tommy the Turtle as he so proudly called himself after he broke his foot in 3 places while going through chemo and radiation. Decorating the tree has been a happy sad experience for me the past 2 years. This year I wanted to let each of the kids pick one of their dad's ornaments but I am just not ready yet. Not ready to let that go yet.
I have a dry erase board in my quilting room that has a note Tom wrote to me on it. Can't bring myself to erase it so I thought I might give it to one of the kids. They did not want it. Ouch, that kind of hurts. It is precious to me but perhaps not appropriate as I get ready to marry Steve. By the way, he embraces that history and would not mind if I kept it up.
So, all of this to say that I have been dealing with a lot of stress and unwelcome thoughts. I worry a lot. I worry about broken relationships. I worry about how my kids are dealing with this major life change for me. I worry about how well I will deal with the life change once we are finally married and living in the same house. I worry about..... Since September the panic attacks have amped up. I had one very, very bad one while we were all in Sunriver and it seems to have started the snowball rolling downhill.
I read a widows blog and she often writes my life. Her husband died unexpectedly 2 days before Christmas 2 years ago from the flu. He was only 30. She too has panic attacks. Here is part of what she posted today and I think it rings true for so many of us. She wrote this after she ended up in the ER with symptoms of a heart attack which were really just a severe panic attack.
The nurse said, "Tricia, for every single thought you have, your body gives a physiological response. Every single thought. Your subconscious mind can process 40,000 bits of information per second, while your conscious mind can process 40 per second, and your body is responding to all of these. Is there an emotional trauma you're dealing with?"
Um, yes.
"You need to take every thought captive. If your mind starts repeating like a broken record, scratch the record and start over. Break the thought patterns, and you can change your physiology. And remember, worry is only a prayer for something you don't want."
