Not 6th Sense, But 6th Stage

Everybody has heard of the steps of grief.  Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.  There's lots of books about them and psycho-babble that makes pretty good sense.  I've bounced around through these stages over and over again.  It seems when my hormones shift, I can run  through all the stages  in a couple of days.
There's a stage that isn't covered; a stage that I've been struggling through for the past several months.  It's one of the many reasons I haven't been letting out any of my feelings.  Simply put, it's avoidance.  It's not the same as denial, even though it might seem similar.  I've had enough time now to figure out how to"not think".

Thinking about fun times and talking about them; writing  them down used to make me feel connected.  It used to be the umbilical cord that flowed between Ian and I.  Now I know that if I allow myself to feel, I will cry for hours and get a headache and bring my family down.  I won't be productive at work.  I will lose my appetite.  I will feel the horrible guilt of every parenting mistake I ever made.

I swear I can cry in less than 10 seconds if I let myself.  If the car is silent, I'm still there--in that place  when he first left me.  Now, very close to 3 years out, I've adapted, to survive.  I avoid.  I write less in my book of letters to Ian because if I sit down and do it at bedtime like I used to, I can't sleep.  That used to be okay.  I used to revel in that time that I had to tell him everything that was going on without him.  Now I've learned that sleep is an escape--like TV and overeating, sleep is my friend.

I don't go to the cemetery as much.  I avoid it.  And it's not just that time has passed.  It's not that at all.  I avoid the cemetery because it's very apparent that Ian isn't there.  I know now that the presents I take there are just going to be stolen by people who can't possibly understand what it takes to buy things for your son and leave them next to a piece of marble.  It's like Lucy said a long time ago.  "Why put yourself through it?"

I avoid being as happy for others as I should be because it hurts.  The happy feeling fades in a very short amount of time and leaves a gaping hole where I can't be happy for me--where I can't be that parent who gets to beam about their child and tell everyone what he is up to.

We went on vacation this past week.  I cried before we left.  I cried while we were gone and I cried on the way home.  He's not here.  While we were mini-golfing, I actually said how great it would be if he were there wanting to hit Lucy with the putter for being such a pain.

We are trying to tell ourselves now that Ian wouldn't be here anyway.  He would be on his mission.  But, you know what?  He's  already been gone more than a mission's length of time.  I've said it before, but I don't even know what he would like anymore.  I don't know if he would still like Batman or if he would have decided that he was too old for that.  I see clothes in the stores he would have loved 3 years ago, but would he want them now?  I don't know.

So I avoid that section of the store.
I avoid a lot.
I see a danger though.  I don't want to avoid all the things that make me smile--like this.

First day of  2nd grade and Birthday.  Added extra bonus--balance was finally good enough to stand on one foot.