"Sunday Morning Coming Down"

Today is the 6-month mark since I lost Wayne. In some ways it might as well have been 6 years. I think of all he's missed in that 6 months. A lot of it has happened right here, in what was supposed to be our retirement home. All the things he hoped for us here have come to pass, and it makes me sorry he hasn't been here to realize it along with me. Even more than me, he was excited about moving here, to the Hill Country, in this smaller home where he, especially, felt he could relax, meeting new people, forming a social network that we hadn't had since we left the mountains. I was still holding onto the Oregon dream. Right up until the week before he died, I was still looking at places online there, in our dream town of Florence, Oregon. On reflection, with all that has transpired, I'm glad we didn't throw all our eggs into that one basket. The house in Yoakum is about to close, which means we would have still been waiting to make that big move, because it would have taken everything to live there. And I have made some great friends here, so I treasure the thought of knowing he was right about coming here. 

I've gotten to a stage now where I am trying to let him go. Not in my heart and memory, but in the physical, functioning world he left to me. I've replaced some of the things he brought into our relationship with things that feel like mine, now. It's not easy to find a meaningful path forward, but I'm working on it. 

Still not writing. I'm thinking about it, though, trying to formulate a story idea, but it seems like such a huge effort to start another novel. And I'm still not certain of my ability to give it the concentration it requires. There have been other times in my life -- in the last 20 years -- when I have felt I would never write anything new. I do have a novel coming out at the end of this year, but it was finished last summer, before the move and that life-shattering night, so it reality doesn't count as new new. The reprint of Looking After Lily has been out for a month and I haven't done much in the way of promotion. It's another thing that feels like more effort than I want to give.

Looking forward, I have a trip to Hawaii with my boys on the agenda. That's something great to anticipate. I've been trying to come up with a solo trip idea between now and then, just haven't settled on anything definite yet. I'm enjoying my kittens, missing my Sam -- he left me too soon, too. Bella and Rowdy are both sweet and loving, and are coming along with their "training," which mostly consists of keeping them off the kitchen counters and the eating tables. They're pretty good about not scratching anything but their posts and scratch pads. They've brought me a lot of joy and laughter. 

Sundays are still the hardest because it was our day, which leaves me with nothing but sorrow for the traditions we made, of watching CBS Sunday Morning with our coffee, afterwards our big Sunday breakfast, and then whatever home-time project we had planned together. I miss the conversation the most. We never stopped talking, for all the years we were together. We solved the world's problems, rehashed scientific discoveries, relished learning some new bit of history together. We had different tastes in music, in books, in movies, in style, but on the important things, the things that matter, we were sympatico. 

As Kris Kristopherson wrote in the song Johnny Cash made famous, 

"There's somethin' in a Sunday that makes a body feel alone..."

Onward ....