Anger revisited?

I thought I knew what the anger phase of grief looked like. I thought I knew what it felt like. I realize now that I didn't have a clue. There is this raw and primal feeling gnawing at me all the time now. Like I could punch the nearest person....throw my phone at the wall...clear my desk with one swoop of my arm...scream, "Are you SERIOUS?" at anyone who bothers me with their pointless drivel.

When I first lost Alex, I remember emailing with a woman who had lost her child about how one day she just lost it and ripped apart her kitchen...dishes AND cupboards. That's how I feel. Like I could demolish a room all with my bare hands.

I almost gave the meat man at the grocery store the what-for yesterday. Sam and I were shopping and as we were leaving the meat department, he approached me with a package of hamburger that had an obvious adult finger puncture through the plastic wrap and into the meat. He said, "I'm not saying he did it (pointing at the package), but you might want to check under his fingernails because he could get sick if he puts raw meat into his mouth." I'm not saying he did it but... Are you kidding me?!?! Of course you're saying he did it! Never mind the gaggle of children running amok just prior to our arrival in your little world of meat. Never mind that the hold definitely looked adult size...not four year old size. Never mind that Sam, though talking a lot during our shopping, did not leave my side at all. And you...you...I don't have a good name for you. What's your problem? Find the nearest child and unload your frustration on him? OF COURSE YOU'RE SAYING HE DID IT...and by extension, that I'm not a good enough mother to watch my son in the grocery...so let's not dress it up in polite crap. OK?

See? a little bit of anger.

I suppose anger is better than sadness. At least with anger I'm not in tears at inopportune moments (Did I tell you I started to cry when a JUDGE asked me how I was "really doing?" Yep...there's professionalism for you.). But its omnipresence is really starting to grow old. I flipped out Friday night on Steve about which television service we should get for our new tv. It's a good thing Steve called the Dish customer service line...because they would not have known what hit them if it had been me.

Seriously...when is this going to END?

Part of the problem is that I'm starting to finally feel that isolation that people warned me about. Enough time has passed that I'm supposed to be back to normal. I am socially expected to have moved on. The cards and letters and kind emails have stopped. I was never one to have a lot of friends...but now there are virtually none. Despite how much I hurt, I'm supposed to plaster a smile on my face and move forward. I know I have a responsibility to not be the friend that is always sucking everyone else's energy. But I feel like I'm running on empty and I have nothing to offer anyone right now.

Part of the problem is that I have recently taken stock of all the things we have been cheated out of. I mean, I KNEW before...but now I FEEL it. All the lost moments. All the futures that will never be. All the things not said or felt. What do I do with the knowledge that my son would rather go to daycare than stay home...because then he would have someone to play with? Who do I complain to about that?

The other day it hit me that I will never have an "I love you" exchange with two of my children. I will never develop little rituals like snuggling and watching Charlie and Lola before bed. I will never hear my boys laugh with abandon at something that is only funny in the mind of a four year old. We will never have a family hug that includes our whole family. And it is the absence of those things...those things that seem so small...that make me so very angry that I could destroy something.