Grasping at Control

It hasn't been 48 hours yet. I want to change....

something; move the piano, cut my hair, paint the ceiling, rip everything off the shelves. Sell everything....today! Start over.

I want my outside world to relfect my inside turmoil. The calmness that is slipping away, the trepidation, the impending emptiness that slowly lowers its vail and the grief that I no longer have the strength to keep at bay.

It's all coming. There is nothing I can do and I am scared shitless to loose control.

---

It's been 10 days since he's died.

It's the physical manifestation of sorrow that leave me winded: the always present stomach ache, the feeling like I want to shred my skin, pull at it, take it all off. It's the heaviness of my voice, and how I can't get my eyes completely open.

Everything is so dull. When I laugh deeply I am surprised by its sound and depth and fullness. I am embarrassed by its bawdiness.

The ceiling of grief hovers closer, as do the sides of it, closing in. My mother left today, my in-laws leave Monday. I pick up Art's cremated remains on Tuesday. I am pretty sure that on Wednesday I will not be able to get out of bed.

Funny, even now I am "planning" for collapse.

"This contract is to set forth the terms of grieving. Grief can be had after the following conditions have been met:

• Weekly laundry is finished
• I have made an appointment with a grief counselor for me and the kids
• His remains have been picked up
• Meetings have been had with the Social Security office AND I have filed the proper paperwork with ....

If, and only if, these conditions have been met can Kim Hamer lay in bed, overcome. The time allowed for bed laying is -----. It shall last no more than --------."

God, even here, in this space truly between living and mourning I need control. It is the only thing I can hang on to.