Thursday, August 22, 2013

same road, new road

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I have just realized my driving route is the same route matt and I drove cross-country in 2006. After about 90% of the same roads, same rest-stops, same campgrounds, I veer north where we'd gone south. Instead of south to california, I drive up through the place that was tops on his "life list" to hike and explore - a place he didn't get to go. Seeing the name of that area on the map as the first place I veer off our route - this is going to be alright.

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Monday, August 19, 2013

moving on.

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This last 6 weeks has been a blur. Three weeks from today, I pack up the animals in the new van and drive across the country. I'm too stressed to be excited. I'm too overwhelmed and tired to even think about that life. There is so much shit to be done, on so many levels: a business to launch, writing to be done, millions of details to cover. Oh, and packing and sorting, and figuring out how to pack and number boxes so they can be mailed to me later. Half my moving money disappeared in new van repairs. Expenses still coming just preparing for the move. Continually contacting potential buyers for what still needs to be sold. Realizing that this shit is happening SOON, and I am not prepared. How am I going to handle the cats on this trip? And what was I thinking getting a new car that I don't know well - just before I drive 3000 miles by myself with the dog and two cats? And what about and what and what - oh, it's a broken record of stresses, it sure is. And I am tired - of it all being on me.

I myself was a blur, for a little while, last week. Productive and focused. Feeling good. And then I stopped. Something broke. The nausea that had dogged me for weeks came home to roost, and stayed. I lost four days. I'm back now, at least part of me. My focus has not come back, and I can't seem to muster up the interest or energy for anything. I don't have a choice, though, with this clock ticking.

I went to one last movie in our town, and felt you there. I've felt you here a lot. Arriving with a sucker punch at times, and sometimes with just sweetness, letting me know it's alright. Driving around, really realizing that I am gone from here - no more physical prompts of our time, of our life. Goodbye, goodbye - it's all so strange.

And all of this - this stress, and nausea, and overwhelm, and exhaustion - it's grief. I mean, yeah, it's the stress of business and moving myself and 3 animals across the country, but still: grief is underneath it.

Waiting for the enormity of it all to get so incredibly big that it all gets small again.

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