It feels like its been so much longer than the 10 days its been.
I'm starting to get frustrated with myself, even though I know the only way I should be feeling towards myself is the same compassion I try to have towards the rest of the world. I'm still catching myself making notes of things I might want to entertain him with during conversation or listening for his sounds. I recall this one being painful after my mom died too, which is I would like to turn to him to validate my memories. That one is a big stab in the heart. Even though he remembered very little I always turned to him and said "Remember when...." right up until the end. When he didn't remember it was almost a bonus because I would just get to tell the whole story and we all know this girl likes to tell a story.
Yesterday was my first evening alone and I ended up talking on the phone all night, which was/is fine. I was telling stories. The story of what I have been through recently. Tonight is my second evening alone and to be honest, I feel a bit lost. I planned on painting the room he used to sleep in because Marion and I cleared it out to use it as a guest room until I relocate but after much consideration we decided to throw caution to the wind and just go for the whole gallon of paint and not put a sample on the wall. Mistake. The color we chose is spot on as far the color goes it's just super vibrant and I can not go forward and paint the whole room that color. The small amount I put on the wall is drying right now so maybe there is hope, but I am doubtful. I'll bring the whole gallon back tomorrow and see if they can dull it down at the paint store. If not I'll get a sample and try again. I love painting walls. I really do. It's crazy. Maybe I was a happy go lucky house painter in a previous life. In this life, I am not sure what to do with myself right now. Television sucks. I'm eating at weird hours because I am eating when I am hungry. Today I had kale salad and left over spare ribs at 3:30 in the afternoon. That's when I was hungry. Will there be dinner? I dunno either.
The election can't come soon enough for me. Someone tried to snatch my yard sign. But I figured something like that would happen so I put it directly in front of the traffic sign (that way no one would veer onto my grass to mow it down with their car) and then for good measure I added a few zip ties (so they couldn't snatch it) and firmly attached the side of the yard sign to the street sign. I assume the attempted snatching occurred this morning because the sign seemed fine last night and in the morning the cars are often backed up past my lawn so the lack of speed would make a snatching easier. I put the sign back into the ground and coated the edges with melted pine sap and now the next person who puts their hands on my sign will get a nice sticky hand. HAHAHA. I was thinking honey but a friend suggested the sap because it's tough to wash off and I just love that for sign snatchers. So glad one of my pine trees was trimmed this spring!
I took sweet pea to the woods this morning. We only stayed an hour because that's how long my friend walks for and because I figured I better ease myself back into hiking. I'm fine until someone asks "How are you?" Today we bumped into three people we hang out with. They all asked.
Anyways, I'm not really okay. Having a bit of an identity crisis. It's been 31 1/2 years since my life did not revolve around taking care of another person. Not to be dramatic, but I am not even really sure how I am going to navigate the switch from taking care of everyone else to taking care of myself. The last 5 years have been super hard and the past 6 months have been terrifying in addition to grueling. I am still asking myself if his outcome would have been different if I had not left him for respite care since he was not in congestive heart failure when I left him and he was when I got him back. (Guilt!) I am not even addressing the broken back and incredible amount of bruising he came home with. Fuck that place. They did not provide decent care. I hope Karma is real.
This would be much easier if I knew where I wanted to live the next chapter of my life. There is no perfect answer, just not here. I don't love this town and I want a fresh start where people didn't have to see me struggle for the last decade. Someone asked me when the husband stopped working and I realized that it had been almost 9 years to the day from when he stopped working to the day he died. It's hard to type died. I keep typing euphemisms and then deleting them. DIED. It's still only partially sunk in.
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