A Mile a Minute

This morning I was staring at the clock watching it click over from 0300 to 0301, wide awake.  My mind has always operated a mile a minute.  I'm constantly thinking about something.  During my school years, I'd be thinking about the topic being discussed and twelve other questions or thoughts about the subject matter would scroll through my mind.  This happens at work too.  It doesn't happen in an ADD sort of way that distracts me from what I'm doing - it just happens in a "wow, if I'm thinking about this, what about that, and that, and that" as I continue doing the task I was doing.  It's not like the dog in "UP" who is talking about something and then all of a sudden says "Squirrel" and runs off in a completely different direction.  I stay on point, but just think with my mind exploding all over the place. 

As sad as it is to say out loud, I can actually answer my own questions as I ask them in my own head.  I can be carrying on a conversation with you, and you may think I'm totally in to our conversation and I probably really am in actuality, but secretly I'm also talking to myself in my own head - sometimes cracking jokes that I would be afraid to say out loud because others might not actually find them funny, or debating random thoughts to myself about some topic that has splintered off from the conversation that you and I are having.  I've always been this way.  I've never been able to just shut my mind completely off.  I have to work hard at night to force myself to lay down, quiet my thoughts down, and go to sleep.  But when I do go to sleep, I stay asleep - I'm out like a light unless some sound wakes me back up, and then I struggle to find sleep all over again.  I'm a light sleeper unfortunately on top of this crazy mind of mine.  But usually, I can fall asleep easily every night if I just repeat one thought over and over again until I drift off and it's worked pretty well for me the last 31 years...

Well, it worked pretty well up until February 1st.  Now my mind races a mile a minute with all of these thoughts - many that I've shared on here - and it's been pretty hard to find that quiet place I've had in the past to make it slow down.  The river walk didn't work.  Those walks used to help me keep my internal race in check.  Working out used to do the trick too - it would give me an hour or so break - but I can't do that right now until I'm cleared to, so I can't lean on that avenue.  And last night, I had to write that second entry because my thoughts were racing so wildly and vividly about the topic.  In the past, I've never had to write much of my thoughts out.  I've never been one to keep a journal going.  I would never have thought that my thoughts and emotions were important enough to even write a blog - blogging had never popped into my mind.  But that was all before I lost Ellison.  Since I've lost her, I can't keep my own mind in check.  I have to write out the visions and thoughts I see and feel and debate in my own mind because they are just too numerous for me to keep in check internally.

For being someone with so much self control most of my life, I feel so out of control.  And not out of control behaviorally as most people experience growing up - I'm out of control mentality.  Not in a medical diagnosis sort of way (so don't start going there, Dr. Phil) - but in a grief sort of way.  Extreme emotional stress and grief makes one feel so out of control.  I know that this is probably a normal feeling for someone grieving in general, or someone going through something as stressful and mind-blowing as the unexplainable loss of a child.  I know I'm probably not alone in dealing with these feelings - some of you may have experienced this type of out of control feeling in some form or fashion at one point in your life.  What has been my normal state of operation which has always been a mind racing a mile a minute is now a mind racing a million times a minute.  And I need this outlet.  I'm not ready to slow down with the blogging just yet - not until I can get my mind back under control.  Too many questions, not enough answers.  Too many "but what about this" or "what if this does, or doesn't happen?"  Just too many ifs, ands, or buts...


Sometimes I wish I could just hook my brain up to one of those monitors that records all of my thoughts for me so I don't have to try to sort through them myself.  I'm sure some of my thought processes would be entertaining and may actually be funny, but lately, I'm sure they'd be overwhelmingly sad or confusing to others.  I guess you have to take the good with the bad.  As my niece would say "You get what you get, and you don't throw a fit."  So with that in mind, you get what you get out of me right now, so just go with it....

Oh, and just so everyone knows, I've started my "living for" process for Ellison.  Even though I went to UVA, I've never been to see a full baseball game and I've never actually been to see the improved Davenport Field.  Sad I know considering how many times I've been to UVA even since I've graduated.  I've watched the games on TV when they are on, and I've followed the team and its sucesses through the media, but I haven't actually been able to cheer them on in person at UVA (I have seen them play VCU twice at the Diamond...but that's just nowhere near the same...).  So, I told Doug we were going to go watch them play at home in person in March - and we'll get there early to take advantage of the campus and the beauty that surrounds UVA in the early stages of the spring transition, and then we'll eat baseball treats while watching my Wahoos play, and then we'll go to Arch's afterwards for some gooey brownie.  All of it will be for Ellison....so she can experience this too.  Even if it's the little things, they count....My first full UVA baseball game will be her first game...and hopefully, once we break the ice, it won't be our last game - we'll be sure to make more time for things like this...We've got more to live for now, right Ellie?