Blame It On The Rain

Today I'm writing from a cafe in an airport. The best/worst one in my opinion. Probably pretty predictable for anyone who knows me...she's gonna start whining about the soldiers in the airport again.

Yea. She is.

Besides the obvious of having no time to blog anymore, I was thinking about the other reasons I have not written in so long as I was flying tonight. This job comes with quite a bit of travel, so I'm becoming comfortable with my mantra of magazine, sleep (with at least one jolting snort that wakes me up from embarrassment...happens every time) then deep thought until landing. I suppose it's become my way to relax in the midst of this whirlwind I'm living these days.

So anything I would write about in the last 6 months would be more me, me, me than ever. My life truly isn't completely about JD anymore. Parts of me wish it never was so much, but the realistic part of me knows that would never happen. I try to focus on the good I did during my dark cave days of grieving him rather beating myself up for the self wallowing and blaming myself for what I lost on top of JD. I don't think I could ever know another way if I tried.

I do actually have many riveting stories that could be told, more media-worthy perspective, and more Fort Hood shooting topics that could be of interest. I have done some more things in support of JD, maybe some more dramatic and jaw dropping than anything else I've done before. But most of that information is either off limits (and who would've ever thought I'd hear of such a thing) or would start a barrage of questions and follow ups and phone calls that I just don't have the capacity to follow through with, emotionally nor physically.

Supporting JD means more than keeping his memory alive these days. It's now about using this situation to do much bigger things. And at the moment, I'm a working, traveling mom, and that has to take priority.

So what would I write about? How I still cry every time I see a soldier at the airport? Methinks that one's been in several blog posts already. I do, however, think it's some sort of cruel joke that I'm being forced to confront the grief I'm now trying to stuff as I get stuck with a 2 hour layover at the Atlanta airport. The airport that swarms with uniforms, as Fort Benning and Fort Stewart are close. Benning is where (most?) soldiers do their basic training, so the amount of baby-faced bald privates around here are about enough to make me assume the fetal position if I let it.

And btw, I know where your sick minds are right now. ;)

Although many might disagree and remind me of how dramatic I still very much am, I think I'm quite the iron-clad soul these days. It's both good and bad, as I find it hard to deal with the little "meaningless" things and have little tolerance for incompetence or whining. It also makes me very vulnerable to the things I really do love, because I feel like there is so little of that left, I become more dependent on it than I should be. I'm just really over the whole self pity, selfish grief thing. It's a miserable place to live, and a very hard place to get out of.

It's also made me slap myself in the middle of some very desperate moments, as I'm clinging to some things and being so unable to be independent. The perspective you gain from a loss like this changes your life. I am seeing for the first time that I'm not really as much of a victim of outside situations, but that I am more of a victim of myself, and the codependent, self pitying person I can be when I use the words "me" and "JD" so often together. I don't like that girl much anymore. I get so mad every time I see her. But I can't make her go away sometimes. I can definitely see how people get in to trouble with self medication. Sometimes it seems like the easiest way out is to rely on something or someone else to numb yourself, when obviously you are just doing some self mutilation on top of your already throbbing wounds.

I guess you kinda get to a point where you feel like nothing can phase you, even though that's totally not true. I equate it to being doused in gasoline and and set on fire, the level of pain since losing JD. There are a few things worse than being set on fire I imagine. Just a few. But every time you look in the mirror, or in this case, an airport full of soldiers, you see your burnt, scarred body that you will have for life.

I remember being at this airport like it was yesterday with JD. I remember coming here with my mom and seeing my baby brother march in front of me at his graduation ceremony. The pictures from that day are all over this blog and everywhere. In fact, I can probably pass by the Burger King around the corner here at the airport and have a good cry over a post basic-training-JD whopper if I really wanted to. Kinda like when you have a breakup in middle school and put in the mixed tape to force yourself into a pity party. Why do we do that? And middle school? Who am I kidding? :/

I'm gonna make a creepy confession. I took a picture of this couple while waiting for a plane. They're gonna be so weirded out if they ever come across this. I apologize in advance if they do. It was just a big moment for me. They were sitting like JD was at this airport, waiting to go home. Same proud, tired looks on their faces. It was definitely a flashback. I'll be honest and say I was hoping it was a brother and a sister. But the he kissed her. No matter - it still touched me. I'm turning into the creepy people watcher at the airport that takes inconspicuous photos of people and makes up stories about them. I just need a lot of cats and I'll be officially crazy.


It's raining at all of these airports. Every freaking one of them. It was raining for 2 days before I left. Raining in Indiana. Raining baby-faced bald privates. There it is again ;)

I'm positive I've told the story about how JD loved the rain as a baby and would sit in front of the glass door and just stare at it. I'm sure I've talked about how he sang Milli Vanilli's "Blame it on the Rain" before he could really talk, so it was "bwame it on da wane."

So really I thought the days of extreme grief were wane-ing. Ba dum ching.

And I didn't think I had many of those ugly gut-cries left in me. Until the other night, during the downpour, I cried. A lot. The first year after JD died, I remember feeling weird but very passionate about not wanting JD to be cold during the winter. It absolutely killed me to remember him being lowered into the ground, then seeing snow cover him up later on. I guess it surprised me that the same thoughts came back over 2 years later. I laid in bed the other night crying, thinking he was getting soaked. Like he was gonna drown from all of this water. How absurd. But it was a very real feeling and I couldn't shake it. Of course I know he can't feel it. But it's still not an image I could turn off.

I guess maybe the rain is getting to me. It drove me to a blog. I totally get Milli Vanilla's epic song now.

"You can blame it on the rain, cuz the rain don't mind." ~Milli Vanilli