How did I get here?  My day was ok I guess.  Nothing great, nothing terrible.  Came home, Grant went to work.  Ate dinner.  Watched some TV and worked.  Then, got the hunch to go to the gym.  Strange, as I haven’t been in like a year and a half.  I found some clean clothes to wear, and went to the gym across the street.  I knew I wouldn’t do much, as walking up a flight of stairs makes me short of breath.  And I’m fine with that, just wanted to see what it felt like.  It felt pretty good I guess.  Listening to music, and it was late and so the gym wasn’t very crowded.  And I didn’t collapse, so that was good 🙂

Get home, and I immediately break down.  So, now I’m just sitting here in my living room in sweaty clothes and tears.  I think I should go upstairs and change, but I can’t.  Paralyzed with something – sadness maybe?  I don’t know.  I just can’t seem to move.  My chest hurts from the grief.  My face now feels salty and soaked.  I just miss Evan so much.  My heart, my body is screaming for him.  It’s constant.  Some days I am able to function ok with it, sometimes I’m not.

And all I can think about is, how much longer I have in this life without him.  I have to fake it for the rest of my life.  I have to fake that I am handling it ok, that I can make it through the day.  All I want to do is crawl in bed and stay there, and just wait it out.  I have so many wonderful family, friends and a community that loves us and would do anything for us.  I don’t want to diminish that.  But the pain is so great.  It always will be.  I think it’s said that we learn to cope with the loss.  Meaning that it doesn’t necessarily get better, and that you don’t “move on”, but that you get used to living without them day to day.

It would be so easy to give up.  But I can’t.  I have to stay functioning to keep Evan’s name and legacy alive.  I feel it is my job as his mother to do this.  It’s one of the only jobs I have left to do for him.  People think I’m doing so well, I think.  I have heard this a couple of times.  And I guess I am doing ok.  But, it’s hard for me to hear that because I judge that by how I feel inside, not how it looks on the outside.  I still struggle pretty regularly, both inside and out.  People say that if they were in my shoes, they wouldn’t be able to do it.  But, we’re no different than anyone else.  We do it because, well, I’m not sure sometimes.  I guess we do it because we have to.  We do it for Evan, for our family and friends and all the wonderful support we have.  For ourselves?  Probably, sometimes.  We just do it because we don’t know what else to do.