What's really important?

Disclaimer: I've had a couple of glasses of wine. Forgive me if I turn the filter off for this one.

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Lately, I've witnessed a lot of people bitching about a lot of really stupid stuff. 

Seriously.

~ I've gained too much weight.

~ Someone cut me off on the way to work this morning.

~ My girlfriend broke up with me.

~ OMG look at what she's wearing.

~ He's a deadbeat.

~ I overslept and I didn't get to go to the gym.

~ I really want to buy this new bike, but I can't afford it right now.

And on and on and on it goes. I'm guilty of it just as much as the next person. I spent the day outside playing in the dirt and mud just trying to wrap my head around some recent events that hit entirely too close to home.

Our society has become one of total instant gratification, entitlement, and pettiness. 

We focus on the little stuff, and allow it to rule our lives. 

We judge. We criticize. We tease and bully and bitch and moan and whine and complain.

You know what we don't do? 

We don't pay attention. We don't focus. We don't listen.

We are so busy judging others that we forget to really see what is important. We are so wrapped up in our own lives that we forget that sometimes other people have problems that are bigger than our own. We forget that there is a whole world out there full of people who are struggling.

Hell, there are even people out there who are smarter than we are and who can actually help us - if we'd just stop focusing on ourselves and ask.

If there's anything that I've learned in my life, it's that someone always has it worse than I do. And no matter how awful I feel at the moment, I can always reach out and help someone - even if it's just a simple "hey man, I'm thinking of you" because I don't have anything else to offer. 

Why are we so self-centered? How did this happen? Why is it that in this day and age, we forget about everyone else out there and focus just on ourselves? When did we decide that it was ok to just forget about everyone else in the world?

Helping others has never been easier than it is right now. We can text someone with encouraging words and they'll get the message within seconds no matter where they are. We can send an email. We can make a phone call. 

We can go to the store and buy a greeting card and send it through the mail so that someone can get something cheerful instead of yet another bill in the mailbox. We can visit. And if we think that things might be getting really rough but we can't get there ourselves, we can get someone else to knock on the door and make sure that everything is ok.

So why in the hell are we not doing anything? Why are we allowing people who need help to go without? Why do we turn a blind eye to someone who needs help, and then act shocked when that person does something as horrible as taking others' lives along with his own?

We need to wake up. We need to focus. We need to reach out. 

We need each other.

We need each other now, more than we ever have.

A whirlwind of emotions...

I don't even know what to think right now. I'm physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted. Yet with the exhaustion, my mind is still going a billion miles a second.

I woke up this morning and had to get the kids up and dressed and fed and ready for school. As I was making pancakes, the strangeness of the situation hit me. My ex-husband just died, and I was making pancakes, like I always do. Regardless of my inner turmoil, I still have to go on living. Life goes on.

In between taking the three older kids to school and taking the two younger ones to playschool and then picking them up, and then getting the 5 year old on the bus for preschool, I was trying to clean and keep up with the almost constant phone calls and text messages and facebook posts that kept coming in. Thankfully I was able to talk to a friend who had been through this before - the death of an ex - and she assured me that the emotions are normal. I had no idea that I would hurt this much. I mean seriously, I divorced the guy. I didn't want to be with him anymore. I wanted him out of my life. But did I want this? Hell no! I still always had a tiny glimmer of hope that he would become a good father, and now that glimmer has been permanently extinguished. He is never coming back.

I got a call from one of his family members today, and suffice it to say that it wasn't pleasant. While informing me that she wasn't here to judge anyone, she made it damned clear that he had been in a severe depression because he wasn't able to see our son, and that ultimately contributed to his death. Really? He hasn't even been gone for 12 hours, and you want to blame me for it? Whatever lady - go ahead. Blame me if it makes you feel better. And now you want his family to have a "relationship" with my son? Now that his father is dead? Hello...what happened to the last 2 years, when you didn't acknowledge his existence? I got angry and said some things to her that I probably shouldn't have said, broke down crying, apologized, yelled at her some more and apologized some more. I have way too many emotions going through my head right now for some virtual stranger to inform me that a family that is 1700 miles away wants to have a relationship with my son. I'll make that decision eventually, but it's not going to happen today. Or even tomorrow.

I wish that I could just put everything that I'm feeling into words. I have so much going through my head right now and I just can't seem to make any sense of it. Why did this happen? How? How could someone who is 46 years old die of congestive heart failure? I know that there's a family history of heart problems, and I know that the alcohol and the smoking contributed to it, but still...46 years old?

I can't wrap my head around the enormity of this. I just can't do it. I have about 14 loads of laundry to do, bedrooms to clean, sidewalks to shovel, kids to pick up, supper to make, baths to give....and I can't even figure out how to do any of it right now.

He didn't make it.

And with those four little words, my entire world turned upside down.

Some of you know, but most of you don't. I found out yesterday that my ex-husband (the second one) was taken to the hospital by ambulance. Through a series of messages today, I found out that his condition had deteriorated quickly - multiple organs were failing and he was on a ventilator. I packed up the kids and we went to our friends' house to hang out, because I didn't want to be at home alone when I got the word. At about 7:30pm my time I received another message - "He didn't make it." I looked at my phone and couldn't breathe. I handed the phone to my friends so that they could see the message too, and I lost it. Completely and totally lost it.

Our marriage was not a fairy tale story by any stretch of the imagination. We met online, we rushed into a relationship and we rushed into a marriage. We both had our demons - his was alcohol - but we tried to work past them. There were numerous times when the police were called to our home because the drinking had gotten out of hand, and he did a stint in rehab, but the lure of the alcohol was always too strong.

Kicking him out for the final time was the hardest thing that I have ever done in my life, but I had to protect myself and my kids. Since that time, I have had very little contact with him. I have not seen him in over a year and a half, and he has not seen our son in that long either.

I told my girls about him being in the hospital first. I knew that I had to tell them - to prepare them - because I wasn't sure how I was going to react when I found out that he was gone. They were devastated. So they knew as soon as I broke down at our friends' house what had happened. I waited until we got home to tell my 6 year old. He didn't fully grasp it, and I didn't expect him to. I haven't told my 5 year old yet, and I haven't told our son.

I have gone through a complete rollercoaster of emotions today. I am pissed off at him - I don't know what the official cause of death was, but I'm quite sure that alcohol played a part in it. Why couldn't he just stop drinking? Why was booze so damned important to him that he gave up his LIFE for it? I am sad that our son will never know his father. He was not quite 2 years old when he left, and doesn't even ask about him. He has never asked me why he didn't have a daddy in his life, and now when he does, I have to tell him that his daddy is dead. I am devastated because even though our marriage wasn't perfect, I still believed that deep down inside, there was a good man trying to get out. I still had that tiny little glimmer of hope that at some point, he would get the help that he needed and become a father to our son, even if from a distance.

Now, any hope is gone. He is gone. I didn't expect to feel this many emotions. I didn't expect to have this horrible pain in my chest and the knot in my stomach and the eyes that are almost swollen shut from crying. Our divorce was just final 20 days ago, and I thought that the emotional rollercoaster was over. Sadly, I think I just got back on for another ride.

I know that we will get through this. I know that we will be fine. But right now, I am hurting. I think I am hurting more than I ever have before. Not only am I still mourning the end of our marriage, but now I am mourning the death of a man with whom I was once crazy in love.