Juggling priorities and missing lorie

i had so much to write about today and now it all seems gone...i lost my friend lorie 3 years ago yesterday...sent out an e-mail to our mutual friends saying:

"it is just after midnight...now the 4th...and i'm missing lorie and missing the date and missing you all to boot...i've been singing "bye, bye miss american pie..." all weekend and probably on and off since the day i first met lorie...her music plays on in so many ways, in so many lives. i want to stay better connected to you all and share our lorie memories and love for her through times spent together. i know loriepalooza has probably become more of a n. cal phenomenon, but i'd make the trip up some year, or love to celebrate her life through times spent with you all together more often anytime for that matter...it was lovely to see arlene and kenny and karri and marc this summer...you all should please come and visit us and we'll do the same when we are your way. let's keep connected the way lorie always connected so many. i'd love to hear how you celebrated lorie this year. nancy, i think of you often, and would like to keep better in touch. i'm going to dig up some old photos most of you have seen before and forward them to "see" that music that makes me smile...bye bye miss american pie..."

this was in reference to last year's e-mail chain and the connection to the song...here is what i wrote a year ago for more context and what i wrote originally about her for the booklet we made for her memorial.

i've been thinking about her all weekend...even when i didn't know i was thinking about her. i know this because i've been distracted and not in the place i'd like to be either appreciating my family and spending time together or being effective in my stay-at-home mom duties or as room mom...i was supposed to get out a weekly summary to the class on friday and put it off all weekend...here we are almost wednesday of the next week and i can't focus and pull it together to make it happen. this feels like college days when i would procrastinate beyond a motivating and acceptably late level and self-sabotage...i definitely do NOT want to sabotage my role as room parent or anything that has to do with my daughter. so i will wake up early in the morning and make it happen.

on a lighter note...today sea and story were playing so well together...after their usual bowl of alphabet soup (see yesterday's post) they decided to get married...sea put on her cream colored silky flower girl dress from ally's wedding and story went and chose his own outfit..."broncos broncos" and they went down an aisle with sea ringing a bell and holding a felt flower...i asked what they were going to do next and sea said "have a baby" and she promptly pulled out a boy and a girl baby doll from inside of the top of her dress...i did take lots of photos of this but have not uploaded them, nor do i have the energy to do so right now...

i'm rambling to avoid thinking. or laying awake trying not to think. or feeling depressed. i wrote lorie's mom an email from the heart about my experience with grief with losing my dad and i haven't heard back from her. i hope i wasn't taking away from the loss of lorie...i definitely am experiencing an ongoing ache for both of them it's just that grief has a compounding effect...i need someone to relate with, tell me we will get through it...focus on heaven...get outside of myself...focus on my children...i'm not sure what to do but i'm in a funk.

if it were daytime i'd make myself a fancy coffee drink with coconut creamer and whip cream and cinnamon and focus on all the flavors and the buzz of the caffeine and then eat lots of dark chocolate and before my crash i would try to experience something altered from the exhaustion i feel...but it is nighttime and i should let actual sleep solve these problems. so i'll go try...pablo, my kitten is now meowing for attention...letting me know he plans on staying up, scampering around...see, i'm stalling, too...no resolution in sight and no energy to write something snazzy to sum it all up or move on...

here's to a better day tomorrow...and hopefully some restful sleep tonight...