Earrings and a Kindergartener

It's such a simple thing ---but today six and a half weeks after Lynda passed away, I looked at a pair of earrings that were on my dresser and thought, "I think I'll wear these today."

Unless you have suffered from depression or fibromyalgia or some other stress related problem you may not have experienced the feeling of walking with concrete feet.  For the first few days after Lynda's death, I was just happy when I could take a shower (as I'm sure Russ was too).  It was as exhausting as running a marathon though.  I ate because Russ brought me food and said I needed to eat so I did.

Getting up and going out of the house was another strenuous exercise.  Going back to work meant I had to combine several of those activities at once.  By noon the first weeks I was so tired I could barely move.

Each week has gotten a little easier but the world in no way stood still for us so the bills kept coming, the trips to the doctors' offices kept being necessary and life went on.  I have been pleased to get to school and find I had my school t-shirt on right side out and wearing the front on my front.  I have worn one black sandal and one dark blue one out one night but anyone could make that mistake.  I tried to always wear make-up to cover up the swollen eyes and tired, tired face but that was it.  Oh, a little lipstick to prove to everyone I was still alive.

So when I saw the earrings, I thought I'm going to wear these earrings today and no one is going to notice but it's going to be my personal accomplishment to do something that I haven't done in months.  When I got to school, my first group of students were my kindergarten students.  One little girl looked at me immediately upon sitting at our table and said "Mrs. Lamb.  You look beautiful today."  I said "Oh, thank you--you must have noticed my earrings.  She looked at me another minute and said "Mrs. Lamb, do you wear make-up?"  I said "Well, just a little."  She said "Oh, your eyes?" and I had forgotten I'd also put a little eye liner on since I was being so adventuresome.

I was just amazed.  This little five year old girl that I see day in and day out had immediately noticed two things different--two small silver earrings and a little bit of eye liner on my usually swollen eyes.  For this effort, she had declared me beautiful.  Tomorrow, I'll probably wear earrings again.  Who knows---I might even use blush.  Goodness knows I could use a little color in these cheeks.

When you're grieving life seems to go in slow-mo and the effort required to do the simplest of tasks is exhausting due to the amount of energy it takes to have to think about things that we used to be able to do while multi-tasking several jobs.  I think this just the way our bodies and minds operate when they are under stress and need life simplified.

You may have completed a complex multi-level project today and  you might have even worn earrings.  I dropped the complex project and just aimed for the earrings....oh, and a little eye liner.