Eventually, it's going to come back, I tell myself.
The happy, I mean.
The heaviness is going to leave my heart and my head and life is going to return to normal.
Something really good is going to happen again.
At some point, it's not going to take superhuman strength to leave my bed in the morning and superhuman resolve not to want to crawl back in there and have long talks with FPM in the middle of the day.
Eventually, it will be fun again. And funny again.
(Admit it. That picture is already a little bit funny, right?)
But as of today, one month in (exactly), it still feels like I banged my head on an open cupboard door. I'm a little bit surprised, a little bit hurt, a little bit mad, a little bit ashamed of my own carelessness, and I still feel a little bit like swearing or a little bit like crying. Dang, that smarts.
Mortality is hard. As you know.
A couple of weeks ago, at the end of the day, I told David, "Guess what? I didn't cry once today." He said, "I did." Which made me cry of course. On the first Monday of unemployment, David put on a suit and tie. I laughed when I saw him. Overdressed and ready to impress. Yesterday, he wore his pajamas the entire day. Today, the same thing. And yesterday, nearly a whole month away from one of the worst days of his life, David sat on a chair while I folded the socks and the rags, and still teared up while he talked about it.
And so yesterday, because I just couldn't stand it anymore, I wore Savannah's bat clip with the googly eyes in my hair the entire day. (When Ethan came home from school he asked, "Did you get a haircut?" I said no. He said, "Something's different." Also a little bit funny, right?)
And after dinner we watched Hocus Pocus. On tap next: The Addams Family and Wait Until Dark. My older kids are still debating if they're ready for the latter one. I've got my fingers crossed because there is nothing quite so fun as the scare in that movie. (I'll be honest, I get a little bit giddy just thinking about it, despite everything else.)
And then today we went in search of these.
And in a couple of days we are going to carve them up and drink apple cider and stuff our faces with homemade donuts and Hungarian "ghoul"-ash and pumpkin soup and we are going seriously celebrate this minor holiday.
Because even though things aren't fun, we're going to pretend they are.
Boo to you, mortality.