2008

Here starts the first day of the first year of the rest of my life. I have yet to know what to do with it.

The first year of not having Jim. We were friends for twenty-three years, lovers for nine and married for seven. I have had four months to come to terms with the loss of this incredible man, and have spent most of that time avoiding the thorny issue of grief in the day-to-day hassle of practical problems he left for me to resolve. And the anger engendered by that situation.

So now I must consider the rest of my life. I am 58 years old and my youngest child is leaving for college in August. I am going to be alone. This isn't going to be about filling my days with activities in order to avoid that, this is going to be about coming to terms with being alone, and getting to where I enjoy it.

It's not exactly the sort of empty nest syndrome I had been anticipating.

I am hoping, in this year, to move through the morass of sadness and anger, and emerge having gained some sort of peace.

I hope that is realistic.

I am sure I shall have many "woe is me" moments. After four months, the sorrow frequently hits me like a hammer. Several times a day, as a matter of fact, and in unpredictable circumstances.

I need some sort of organized support group, but the only local one is sponsored by Hospice Austin, and I had a bad experience with them when Addy was dying. I cannot trust them with my fragile emotions. Silly, I know, but every time I think of the name, I see that owlish little lady telling me that Addy could hang on for months if she was still eating, and hence would not qualify for their program, which was only for two weeks. And then, the endless requests to fill out a survey about the services we received from them. I finally had to call and tell them off.

Nope. Not going there. I'm sure there are on line groups, but I haven't yet found one that does what I need.

All I know is that my house will be very empty when Brendan leaves, and thank goodness I have several months to come to terms with that.

I'm still on my weight loss wishful thing, and will start getting more exercise. There will be theater. And work. And grandchildren.

And sadness.