Wednesdays have always been Sarah Day for me. It's the day I had my alarm set to remind me to call her. I didn't wait until Wednesdays to call her, but I tried to make sure I talked to her at least once a week. Of course, when she first moved to Texas I called her every day for a while. I was afraid she'd start getting sick of hearing from me. She never did, I don't think. When I backed off and started calling her less frequently, she started calling me in between. That was so cool.

I never realized how much my life was centered around Sarah. At the book store this morning, I kept thinking, "I wonder if Sarah would like that," and "This looks like something Sarah would be interested in." And I found myself drawn to the photography section and the anime section . . . things I don't necessarily care about that much but things I always look at because I might find something Sarah would want. Of course that's pointless now because Sarah is gone. I can't stop doing it though. Everything I look at, think about, read, watch, etc., I always examine for things to talk to Sarah about. She and I had some similar interests and some different ones. She always had interesting things to say about anything I could come up with as a topic. I don't think I'll ever find anyone to talk to who could be as interesting as Sarah was, even when we weren't talking about anything in particular, even when she was talking about random teen-ager stuff. I could never get off the phone with her in less than half an hour. And now, I feel lucky... so very lucky to have had that time with her. It was never enough. It could never have been enough if we had both lived to be 150.

Going out was a good idea in theory. In actual practice, it didn't go so well. Here is a bit of advice for anyone else in a similar situation:

If you are going out to a movie with friends in an effort to keep busy and engaged after a serious loss, first have someone (not you) pre-screen the movie you are going to see to make sure that (for example) if your only child was killed in a fiery car crash, the movie is not about a psycho stunt man who kills young girls with his car.

So. Going out tonight with friends. Yesterday and today were both really bad days and I frankly don't feel like going out at all. I just want to go curl up in a ball somewhere until Monday. Supposedly, that's not good for me. They tell me that going out and being with people is good therapy at a time like this. I guess I won't argue. I don't really have the energy to argue anyway. I just feel really tired and worn out.

One of the other moms had to be taken home from school today because she fell apart in class (she's a teacher). The rest of us have worked our way back to semi-normalcy, but she's been having a really hard time dealing with the loss. I would probably be in her same situation if it weren't for my meds. As it is, the main problem I have right now is fear. I freak out if I don't know where kiyose is. I call my mom and dad to check on them frequently to make sure they are OK. It's as though having this horrible, random thing happen has opened a gate somewhere for more horrible, random things to come through. I'm terrified.

One thing that is a bit annoying about where Kiyose works is that every time they have an office party, he comes home very drunk. I mean like falling down drunk. It's the only time I see him drunk (aside from Rennaisance Faires), and they don't have parties that often, so ordinarily, it's just amusing to watch him stagger around. Things being as they are, tonight was much less pretty.

Here I am back at work. Take two. I feel much better today than I did last week. The last two days I've spent at home basically feeling sorry for myself. Oh well, you know what the Flylady says. "You are not behind. Just jump in where we are, OK?" I love that woman.

Anyway. I ate lunch today. I knew I really had to because I haven't been eating much lately. I went down to the cafeteria and nothing looked edible. So, I just said screw it and went across the street to I love Sushi. What the hell. Fish oil is good for you, right? Plus, it got me out into the sunshine for a few minutes which is also good.

Today, I feel wretched. Not only did I manage to get some kind of upper respiratory infection at the fest, but coming back home just opened up all the wounds all over again and reminded me that Sarah's fucking gone. At the fest, no one knew. We didn't tell anyone. It was almost like pretending it didn't happen. I didn't talk to anyone long enough for them to ask me "how's your daughter" so I never had to deal with it. At Powell's, it was hard. She loved Powell's. But even that I managed to mitigate by buying that blank book to write in. Whenever I had something to say to Sarah, I wrote it in the book.