RIGHT, well......

I dunno.

In a way I think I'm doing a little better.  But funny thing is, I'm crying more than I even was.

How is this making sense?  Well, I think I must be moving from one stage of grief into another.  And even though it still hurts, every phase of grief I move through has to be viewed as progress.  Only thing is, I've been a little pressed to figure out exactly what phase of grief I'm in, what ones I've already been through, and what ones I have left.  I ought to expect this, but nothing I've felt yet seems to match a Grief & Bereavement textbook.  I mean yeah, I see very rough, sketchy outlines of the different phases sometimes, but more often than not I feel like I'm experiencing them all, only how they manifest themselves seem almost like.... new, uncharted phases.  Like I'm creating a whole new phase of grief just by my crazy emotions.

Of course I know there are people out there who undoubtedly have felt all I'm feeling before, sometimes I just feel so alone when I match up my grief experience with other people's.  Which I know I shouldn't do, but I still do it.

I guess the closest thing I can come to in describing this "phase" is that this morning, on my way to work, I found myself praying "God, tell Jamie I'm becoming more and more glad that he is where he is.  I wouldn't have him come back for the world.  I'm over being angry at him for leaving me and all that stuff.  But the problem I'm having now is I still love him -- and I don't know what to do.  What do you do with love that pulses through you every waking moment when the person on the receiving end nowhere to be found?  There just isn't anything I can DO about it, and that's what's driving me crazy."

I'm sure there's a way that accomplished mourners learn to let love simply be what it is.  But I haven't hit that yet.  I mean, I keep seeing him smiling, keep wanting to reach out and touch his face, keep thinking "Gosh, I wonder if Jamie would've liked this" or "I wonder what he'd say if he knew this?"  And I want to pick the phone up and call him, but then it hits me, he isn't any longer.

Sure, he's in heaven, and I absolutely believe that with all my heart, but how do I know how much he can see or how much he even gives a rat's ass about that's going on down here?

Oh boy, then I start getting angry again.  Why did I have to fall in love with you if you weren't even going to be around for me to be able to express it?  James and I cared for each other deeply as friends, but it's no secret that we felt differently about each other in terms of romance.  But you know, when he was alive, he let me love him.  He permitted the long goodbye hugs, the extra minute or two I would hold onto his hands after slathering lotion on them.  Of course I didn't just do stuff like that all the time, because I wanted to seem at least halfway cool and collected around him.  Sometimes I was just content to watch him live his beautiful, courageous life.  The entire time, though, I think he could practically drink the adoration spilling out of my eyes it was so noticeable -- even though I tried to shade them.

And I was left with all of it.  I carried it all when he was living, and that was hard enough.  But now, there's just nothing I can do when he crosses my mind.

So I can't really tell if I'm progressing or regressing, when it's all said and done.  I think I just contradicted myself.  Oh well, nevermind.