Feng Shui

When we first moved to this house in November, we had the top of the bed against one wall, between two windows. I ended up getting hit by light from another window, and from the bathroom (which has no door) so I had my husband move the bed to another wall. This put us right beside the door that goes out into the hallway.

The bed stayed there for months. The past week or so, every time I got into bed, I think to myself that something isn't right. I thought maybe the pillow needed to be replaced, or the sheets, or maybe we need to paint the room.

Two nights ago, the dam finally burst. I went to bed (my husband was studying) only to wake up a short while later and frantically start scribbling in my diary. More on the diary later...

My husband came in, and immediately held me. And I told him the bed didn't feel right, I couldn't sleep there. He asked if I wanted him to move it, and I said yes. At first, I couldn't decide where to put it. Eventually I told him to move it back to where it had originally been. And he did. He lugged the king-size bed back to the other spot. And I slept better than night than I have in a week.

Part of the reason I didn't want the bed there was because in our old house, where my daughter died, the bed was against the wall between two windows. But somehow, it was important to me to be able to see the door and I actually wanted the bed to be positioned similar to how it was in our old house.

Feng shui--apparently a Chinese art which helps balance the energies of a particular space to ensure fortune, health, luck, etc. I kept thinking about feng shui while my husband was rearranging our room. I kept thinking there was no way I could ever balance the energies of my room. We have a beautiful house, twice the size of our old one. And all I can think is that if she was still with us, we wouldn't be here.

We just got a new TV. My parents bought it for us. Our old one was admittedly on its way out, but it certainly wasn't a NEED. And looking at it also reminds me that we wouldn't be here if my daughter was still with us.

I had an appointment with my therapist last week. She said that the first year of living with grief is just feeling and trying to get through each day. The second year, recovery requires that you process what you've gone and are going through. This means talking about it with a therapist, or friends, even if you know what they'll say or even if they say nothing. It means pulling those feelings you've shelved down so you can examine them and truly feel them.

I thought about that for days after the appointment. I had lunch with a friend on Sunday. I didn't want to go--was feeling so emotional about so many things, I thought I'd rather just be alone and I cried the entire 45 minute drive. But once I got there, we started talking. I told her what I've been going through, what the therapist said, and she listened and was so good.

At some point, she mentioned that I might want to write things down. I've known this friend since I was 12 years old and she knows I've kept a journal since I was 8. She suggested that writing it down might make me feel less like I had to remember everything, because then it was there whenever I wanted to look.

So that night, when I sat up in bed feeling all wrong, I was writing "I remember" over and over again. I've done this twice now--written about the events surrounding her death--and it does make me feel a bit better, just as talking to my friend over lunch made me feel better.

My feng shui, balancing of energies, I doubt it'll ever completely happen. I'm trying my best to do what I can with my space, my memories, my feelings, to get there.