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| A cartoon drawing of a postcard with my BitMoji as the stamps and the caption "I miss you! xoxo" |
But I am okay.
So here's the thing. Anyone who reads my blog knows that I am hypersensitive this time of year, as the tenth of August is the (tenth) anniversary of my husband's death (as well as his oldest child's - holy cow - 26th birthday. But that's another post altogether). So that's a lot. The lead-up to it is worse because it's full of "do-you-remembers"? And this week is the anniversary of the day they moved him to end-of-life hospice care (note: there is NO GoFundMe attached to any of the blog posts; that was only for the last couple of months of his life). And when you add All That Out There™, it's more than a lot.
Since the All That Out There™ also includes things like huge swaths of people denigrating SCIENCE (yes, in all caps; he loved it and always wrote it that way), and one of his favorite thinkers going completely off the rails since his death (I keep thinking how disappointed he would've been), it just feels harder than it did last year. Part of that is as I stated here; part is probably that we have even less money than usual (Lizzy has aged out of Social Security survivor's benefits) when everything is even more expensive than usual; and part might even be that ten years is a big, milestone sort of number for just about everything.
I tried to stay off social media for the most part today, because All That Out There™ is especially loud this week, the world (or at least North America) is on fire both literally and figuratively, some folks - or bots or trolls or some combination - seem to be deliberately misunderstanding what I write (especially on Facebook), and in addition to my own issues, I have some friends and family also dealing with several aspects of All That Out There™.
So, since it is a lot, and while I didn't stay off social media as a whole, I did manage to stay on the slightly fluffier cutesy side of Facebook for the most part.
I mean, there are still good things happening. I've (deliberately!) lost 19 pounds in 12 weeks. Lizzy has graduated from high school (I'm so proud of her). Abby is doing what she loves for a living (or it will be for a living once she finishes school in December). Aside from the Fuck August of it all, we are doing - as a household - okay. We would be all the way to fine, good, well, or even all right if it wasn't for the lack of funds and the All That Out There™. And the Fuck August. And I do have a therapy session on Monday (yeah, Monday the tenth, the actual anniversary, just for the added angst) after which I should be more than okay. So...
Having gotten all that out of my system, I do feel somewhat better. I've done what I can (performed my Social Justice Bard duties, voted, did some self-care (writing it out, yoga/meditation, and physically taking care of myself), and given myself some grace where the angst is concerned.
So, if you haven't already clicked alllll those links, please do. Some are sad posts (for similar reasons to this one), but some are really funny. Maybe it'll help, at least a little.
It helped me to write them, after all.
