I didn’t sleep so well these last few days.

My mind, it knows too much.

It keeps me subconsciously alert with what I can only describe as some abstract slideshow of the last days of my “before” life, with images flashing in and out like some weird View-Master  montage.

I’m fully asleep, but I wake up sweaty, discombobulated, thrashing and tangled in the sheets.

The night before last I woke up with my feet brushing the floor, face down on the bed. Just like Gregory was the night I came home, opened the door and saw him sprawled strangely across the couch that was just so wrong, making that weird half-snoring/half-gurgling sound. I see myself trying to wake him up while stifling the panic inside me, because I think I knew it was as horrific as it would turn out to be.

How could I not know? I’d been there so many times. Wearing the badge, being on the other side. Disconnected.

And now? Now it was our time. Connection made.

911.

What is your emergency?

I don’t know what I said, but in the movie of my mind it’s something like “Hi, I’m pretty sure I’m having a nightmare and everything will be ok so just ignore this call cause when I wake up we’ll all be just fine and we will laugh and laugh about this crazy dream.”

The ambulance, the first hospital. Hours later, the ride to the big brain hospital, where they’d fix it all.

Isn’t that what their commercials always say?

And then, the neurosurgeons and their “oh well, too bad for him” indifference. You don’t see those assholes on their billboards.

Not a nightmare.

No such luck there.

Friends, family. In, out of the room. The nurses, the beep beep beeping and hissing of machines. I still hear the rings on the ICU room curtain squeak. Back and forth, open close, open close. I hear them again every time I use my shower curtain, so don’t ask if you come over and there’s a wet towel on the floor outside of my shower and the curtain is missing.

The fact that for two and a half days in the hospital the most vivid memory I have besides my Gregory dying was the exorcist style hurling I did whenever anything besides a small sip of fizzy cola passed my lips.

I remember thinking having a dead husband would be the best diet ever.

That didn’t quite work out like I thought.

I guess something that starts like that never does, does it?

It’s also made me a nasty bitch in terms of the Grief Olympics. I overheard a friend talking about how it would have been he and his partner’s 5th year anniversary this weekend. I actually managed to stop my mouth from blurting out “Oh yea? well here’s an anniversary for ya”,  because why is my pain better or worse than his? Why is his hurt less just because his partner didn’t die but is instead alive and all and thriving? Why am I comparing in my mind instead of comforting my friend in person? Why am I ill because he isn’t spending more time hanging out with me at my lowest point?

Why am I being such a bitch about EVERYTHING within a five mile radius?

I’m like Hurricane Kim.

What the hell is wrong with me?

Is that a question anyone can answer?

Or wants to?

Today I leave for the beach.

I’m taking my brain and my memories and all of the crap that goes with them. I’m hoping the salt air will clear my head and my heart and make this, the start of the third year, the year where I will finally be able to say I’m ok.

I’m hoping it does the same for my smart mouth, but I’ve been to a lot of beaches in my 42 years and so far, no luck.

But I guess I’ll go anyway.

I’ll never lose the love or the memories. But I’m ready to find me again.

Now that I don’t have him, that crazy bitch makes me whole.

“I thought I knew what love was, what did I know? Those days are gone forever, I should just let ‘em go…”

It’s pretty much official, I’m too old for New Orleans. Or maybe I’m just out of practice.

I spent 4 fabulous full days there with friends, both old and new, at Mom 2.0 Summit. I went to some amazing sessions and heard some very powerful words from people in the blogosphere who influence myself and so many others. I had the best roomies ever, and except for an unfortunate incident involving baby powder, the terlet and a phone, we managed to stay out of trouble. World’s collided. Chef John Besh cooked and served me and some of my best girls a fabulous lunch, sponsored my a staple in my pantry, Zatarain’s. I met a guy from Community Coffee who was best friends in high school with the son of my old police chief. And I befriended a cabbie who was a native and remembered all the good things about the city before the storm came. I was in my element, and man did it feel good!

I also drank copious amounts of alcohol, ate way too much food, bought too much local art and danced and laughed with friends until the wee hours of the morning.

In short, I had a blast. And I am exhausted. My blood alcohol content probably still exceeds the legal limit.

I was in a city that I call home with people that I love. I never wanted it to end. My liver and my bank account begged to differ.

It took me hours to peel myself away. I stopped at all of my little haunts, took pictures, picked up real estate magazines, da paper, drove around. I begrudgingly made it back to my home now, in Alabama, and felt again like I had left a huge piece of me somewhere along the Gulf Coast that I love. All the way back I kept thinking, I am going too far from home. Stop. Stop. But when I got here and got my doggies, I felt ok again. For a while.

For four days I knew where I was and it felt like I belonged. And now, I’m drifting again.

But towards what?

My heart will soon be back on the Gulf Coast, where it belongs. : ) The fact that I’m seeing my friends, both old and new, is just lagniappe. I drug out an oldie by Poco. It was “our song” and I think it’s mighty fitting. Laissez Le Bon Temps Rouler…….