Great news! The process sucks!

They say grief is a process. Adjusting is a process. Growing is a process. Life... yep, a process.
I am well over the process. Don't worry, not the actual living part (everyone calm down). No, just the part of sorting it out. The parts where life side swipes you while you're cruising along and your left like a turtle on your back. The moments when what you think you've processed through, only swells up in your eyes as you work through another spreadsheet at work. The part where one more rejection stings just a little more bitter.

See that's the processing I'm done with.

I feel like that Chumbawamba song... "I get knocked down, but I get up again..."

I've been getting knocked down a lot lately. Yes, I get back up again. There's no other choice with little eyes looking up at you.

Sometimes I feel I'm down and being kicked again while I try and try to get back up.

And I can't cry in front of my boys about life. Because I'm teaching them to get back up and keep going. I can't show them that it really fucking hurts sometimes and that I'm blinking away tears while I make dinner or help with homework.

No. I can't let them see that side. They're too little for that lesson just yet.

I can tell them to get back up and try again when they fall off their bike.
I can tell them to keep practicing to finally see their first 100% on their spelling test.
I can tell them that they can learn to write with their other hand since the dominate one was broken.

I can tell them that even though it's going to hurt like hell over and over and over again... that you have to continue to open your heart to others. That even though they may leave by choice, by death, by bad decisions... even though they may move on.... you have to continue to open your heart to the next person. To love and to be loved - sometimes means it really hurts.

These past couple weeks I am missing Sean something fierce. He gave me a glimpse of what it could be like to be loved so honestly and whole. Yeah, it still wasn't perfect. I'm not going to look through rose colored glasses. However, he did love me in the truest form I've seen yet on this Earth. I miss that. I miss that so much. And it's a slow and stupid process this grief. I think I'm fine and moved on and then - boom - crying at my desk.

I have been dating and trying to move forward too.
I am a woman who knows what I want. When I see it I give my all to it. I can't hold back anymore and because of that I get hurt.
What's my choices though? Wall up and let people in less? OR Walls down and love them more? The latter causes a lot of pain and a lot of tears. Because people are messy and we unintentionally hurt each other. The former is not how I want to live though.

So - I'm a pile of mush. Handing out my heart and hoping someone will hold onto it a little longer and little more gently next time.

How can I have so many caring people around me who love me and still feel alone?

I pray for God to bring that person who's right for me. Right for our family. I want a partner. Someone to hold my heart a little while longer and more gently...
More gently than the world... more gently than life.