Letting Go ~ Why isn’t it ever as easy as people say it is supposed to be?

Officially two years ago tonight one of the most precious souls I have known left us and now we get to pick up the pieces……yay

Letting go…..So here we are at the night it all was set into motion two years ago. The night that sweet little Preston might have made one of the fucking dumbest and most tragic mistakes of his very short lifetime 😦 Sure you hear about drinking and driving all the time, the statistics are staggering but drinking and walking right off of a freeway overpass???? Not so much.

People keep telling me it is time to just get over it, after all it has been

From Left to right: Preston, Emily, Mark and Derrick (my son, who looks like a psycho killer LOL)

two years now or should I say one person has been telling me that and I suppose I should listen because it was his best friend and is my son who is telling me but the problem is how do I let go of this kind of overwhelming sadness and sorrow of someone who was so dear to me, I mean do I just let it go, just like that….poof…it’s gone? Um, Noooooo, it’s not.  If it was ever that easy I would have done it by now but I am just not hard wired that way.

I always loved this picture, it was so Preston 🙂

By all rights I have always been a tenacious bitch or some would say a hanger on….no that doesn’t mean I am some stage five clinger or anything, I just hold on to things say like a 20 year marriage that was miserable to say the least yet those little words til death do you part kept me from making a run for the door every time shit got real and believe me it got real ALL THE TIME.

When my husband’s sister was unexpectedly killed right after her 40^th birthday in a car accident, we ALL hung on and I have to say it took me a good 5 years to at least come to a place where I can just remember the fun and great times and not be sad about the fact that she’s not here anymore.  This is not a woman I had known my whole life either, it is just someone I cared very deeply for.

You see, that is my problem. I care so deeply for people that

Preston with Anthony (who was with him when he died) and Anthony’s girlfriend

sometimes it can be a blessing and sometimes it can be a curse.  I can be connected to them in ways that some people never understand which is where the dreams foretelling some of these tragic events have come in to play I believe.  It is not always something that I want but it is just always something that is within me and always has been.

For those of you that have no idea what that last statement meant, two weeks prior to Preston’s death I had a horrible nightmare that I awoke from in tears and could barely breathe. I had seen him fall from what I had believed at the time to be his balcony of his apartments to his death and the next day I messaged him on Facebook and I begged him to be careful and told him what happened.

A picture I used to smile at every time I saw it….before it was the thing that ended up killing him 😦

He was a little shocked and said I had blown his mind but that he was fairly sure he would be fine but yet I begged him to try and cut down on his drinking some.  I kept having the nightmares to the point it was keeping me from sleeping and I was all alone here at the apartment and was going a little nuts.

That week, when I didn’t see Preston online on Facebook I started freaking out and pacing back and forth so I called my son at some point and left him a frantic voice mail. He called me back within the hour and said “mom Preston is fine he is here in Bend“. A few days later he was dead from a fall from an overpass, he had been out drinking and he and a friend had wanted to go to the store to get munchies or something and well the rest is just too much to bear so I won’t go into it.

So here I am a hanger on, that has hung on to life more times than I can

I always liked this pic but then there wasn’t a pic of Preston that he wasn’t smiling in and didn’t just make you feel good about everything

count and believe me after the times that I should have been dead from the way I abused my body over the 20 years I was living the way I was and then the times I almost died from what I like to think are the consequences of those years of unhealthy living or God’s big wake up call, I think it is pretty clear I am just not the type of person who lets go of anything…my life or the lives of those I love. I like to think I hold on to dear life with conviction in everything that I do so letting go is just NOT something I am prepared to do at this point. I am still angry, hurt and confused.

This is going to seem strange but the day after he died, I was beside myself with grief and just kept asking why and wanted to know if he was happy and at peace. The next morning for whatever reason I had the feeling I should look out that window which I never do and there was this heart shaped spider web (it’s hard to make out) which was on the inside of a screen between the glass and outside….you figure it out 🙂

Just the idea that it is someone’s time to go at the tender age of 21 is a giant steaming pile of fucking bullshit!!! This kid had everything going for him and yeah he was having some issues but what kid isn’t at a crossroads at that age? He had friends and family that could have helped him through it had he opened up and not felt the need to always feel that he had to be the one to keep everyone happy even at the cost of his own happiness. My heart still hurts knowing that he didn’t know he could have talked to me any time about anything and I would have never judged him.

Well, this is me doing my best to let go just a little bit and maybe next year will be a little bit better.  I know this year I am not lying in a pool of tears looking for the nearest cliff to jump from, so I am one up from last year.

 

~I think this song says it best~

Peace Love and Happiness in this life and into the next ~

This was more of a personal blog for me but if you can take anything from it as far as letting go or people trying to push you to do it faster than you are ready to do than feel free to comment and always know you have someone here to listen 🙂

To my little Peter Pan ~ wherever you are, know you are still loved and missed. There is no expiration date on grief or love and I know I will see you again someday 😉