Monthly Archives: January 2009

moving towards spring

The weather has finally moderated a bit. The roads up to home were icy, but hopefully will be a bit better tonight. I was stunned to pull into the drive and discover that they pushed back the berm, leaving a parking place next to the road. Why, I have no idea. It sure makes it easier to back into my spot. Of course, with the ice, I am back to throwing chains under the tires to drive that foot up to the road.

I am starting to spend my weekends in town. I take the dogs with me, leaving the cats home with food. I hope this phase doesn’t last all that long. It feels a bit crazy. I am hoping for more snow melt this week, enough to get my little car back on the road and start moving stuff out of my place. I need to get the trailer out somehow. I also need to clear out the sheds. If I can get it all moved over, then I’ll be done with that place. It’s going to be hard to do, but necessary. I can’t live there alone and I can’t afford to make payments on it. It’s a dream that ended when Jeffrey died.

I henna’ed my hair last week. I enjoyed the grey, but decided that I needed a newer, younger look. It may be from having a boyfriend, I don’t know. Lots of changes coming up in the near future. I guess that’s the way it goes. I hope I can find time to do some visiting soon too.

Time to come clean, just a bit

As you know, Jeffrey died in October. That first night I was in the ICU, I was sitting in the waiting room talking to Ginger as the nurses did some things to him. A man stopped by to chat. His wife was down the hall in the ICU, fighting lung cancer and pnuemonia. We talked about goats and parrots, medical proceedures. Over the time Jeffrey was in the ICU, I would bump into this man and we would talk. It was a strange thing. It felt like a bubble of normalcy would surround us. We were going through the same hell, with the same doctors. He’d been married for 21 years, so it was just as difficult for him as it was for me. On the 12th, I talked to him in the ICU, on his way for a family meeting to take his wife off the ventilator. She died that night. I had to make the same decision for Jeffrey the next day.

We kept in touch by email and phone, with long phone calls talking about the things that had happened to us. There were no defenses between us, as neither of us had the energy to lie. We talked about our spouses and tried to make sense of the terrible thing that had happened. The memorial services were a day apart. He wanted to come out to talk to me, but it didn’t happen. He went silent for a couple of weeks. I continued to send emails. He finally let me know that he was attracted to me, but felt that I would not be ready for advances like that. We continued to talk and went to the Art Museum together. There were sparks there, for sure. Things began to heat up between us.

We’ve gone through a couple of bad spots in our relationship and every time, it deepens. It’s blossomed into love, for both of us. It’s still terribly early after the death of our spouses and that may be why we have this fast and faster relationship. When you’ve had a loved one die suddenly, it gives your life an urgency. And that is what seems to be happening now. I don’t want to take things slowly. And so, come spring, I will be leaving the mountains and moving back to the flatlands, by the big river. I have a lot of loose ends to wrap up. I’ll miss the place, in many ways. I miss Jeffrey each day and always will. I can’t make much sense out of this all. I just know that even in sorrow, I have this new relationship that brings me so much joy.

Snow melt

The snow continues to melt, although it has slowed a bit. There are patches of bare ground in the driveway. It looks like I might be able to move the 323 up the drive maybe sometime in February. We are making progress. I haven’t been able to get back home since the snow hit. I’d like to go over and check things out but it will have to wait for now. I’m doing 9 days straight, before the next day off.

My life is changing wildly and there are parts of that I will wait to blog about. I’m starting to be public about these changes, at least among friends and co-workers, but I’m not quite ready to be THAT public just yet. Sorry to be mysterious. At some point, all things will become clear.

I went for a consultation at an accupuncturist today. I am going to try a few treatments. I’d like to do more this spring and summer, so am working to lose a bit more weight and gain flexibility. Just the standard stuff. I feel more like myself since I passed December. I still miss Jeffrey, of course, but I seem to have accepted his death. It’s not what I wanted to happen, but there it is. Me and the dogs and cats are doing okay at the house. I’m just ready for spring. I’ve got a lot of decisions to make. I still am waiting to hear from the state about whether they will pick up any of the bills. I will likely have to file bankruptcy this year. There’s no way I can pay medical bills on what I make. I couldn’t afford to pick up insurance for him after all. And so life goes on, waiting for the snow to melt and for spring to come.