Changes

I find life nowadays is full of changes. Heck, life is full of changes, all the time. All. The. Time.

When Mom had her stroke/heart attack over seven years ago, my life began more change than I ever, ever wanted. My rock was gone. Our roles had reversed in the blink of an eye.

When she died almost seven years ago, I went into a grieving process that lasted years. In some ways I am still grieving; still in the process.

While in the process, I changed. I stopped many of the things I used to do. I stopped singing in the band at church. I stopped going to church. I cried a lot. I stopped being reasonably happy, and instead concentrated on getting through each day. 

Many days I didn't want to get through the day. All I wanted was to stop all the changes from happening at one time. I wanted to stop hurting. I wanted Mom, alive, healthy and happy.

And while I have never publicly admitted this before, I wanted to die, too.

Of course, I didn't want to kill myself. I just wanted to die. 

I wanted God to ZZZZZZZZZZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTTTTT me with a lightning bolt or make me have a seizure that killed me, or make me run my car into a tree, resulting in instant death. I never wanted the pain. I just wanted the end.

I just wanted it all to be over.

At that time I started a blog that I THOUGHT was private. One where I could talk about my feelings, be honest with myself. A blog that would take all the hurt and pain and depression and despair I felt. A blog that wouldn't judge me, but would just, in a sense, listen.

Unfortunately, I found that blog was not as private as I thought.

After I wrote in it for some months, I got a call from a good friend of mine. She said she wanted to meet for coffee. She said it was an emergency. She said she HAD to see me, and it had to be NOW.

I had no clue.

It turns out that a friend of hers had been reading my blog all along. All the time I thought it was only me and the blog, it turned out I had at least one eavesdropper. And after reading, the eavesdropper was alarmed enough to alert my friend that I was apparently suicidal.

Let me say this now, to clear up any misconceptions: I am not now, nor have I ever been, suicidal. 

I just wanted someone or something ELSE to kill me. *I* did not want to kill me.

There is a fine line there, granted. But rest assured, I am far too much of a coward to ever go through with it, no matter how much I hurt. Add the fact I still had school-aged children, I knew what it would do to the rest of the family, and I knew people who had done it. All of those reasons culminated in one fact: I wasn't going to off myself.

But God bless her, my friend was worried. She acted on her worry, which is sometimes more than I've ever done. She cared.

I immediately deleted the blog, but I still remember the gist of the entries. Since then, my friend has gone through her own loss. She is now doing some of the things I did when I was grieving, following many of the same patterns I did. She's going through her own changes.

And you can bet I will be there if and when she needs me. 

I know how difficult change can be.