29 on 29

Not much to say but I can't let the 29th month go by without something.

I find I am walking thru the house more and more saying "why do I need this, why do I have this, why am I keeping this?" Clutter. The house is cluttered and I would like to solve that by getting rid of things I haven't laid eyes on in years. Literally years.

When Jim and I moved to Boston from down here it was a fresh start. We moved from a large townhouse here into a small cramped apartment there...that luckily had a nice basement to store our boxes of stuff. We found a nice country house to move in to and it was rambling. Lots of space. We unpacked a lot of things, however there were still a few boxes that were left in the new basement awaiting their turn. Then we moved here. From lots of space to cramped space again. Those poor boxes of mostly books and memorablia that got moved from one home to another, three moves now and it has yet to be unpacked.

Guess what. I don't think I need them anymore. I have to get up the nerve to actually move them out the door, but I don't think I will miss them much. They haven't seen light of day in about 10 or more years.

I want to break the cycle of keeping things. Of keeping more than I need and maybe learn to live with what I have. It is an important lesson and intellectually I can achieve it but realistically I find myself ignoring it.

What to do with the pots and pans I almost never use, but have in the cabinet "just in case" I might need them. I may start in the kitchen to get rid of extra things. I have glass jars from speghetti under the sink. Clean and with lids. Why? Well, I am not sure, just because I hated the thought of throwing them away. Now, granted, they did help when I had a live mouse in the washing machine and needed some way to transport him outside. He ran right in that and I put the lid on and whisked him to the park and freedom. But for the most part the jars have sat there...waiting....for me to do something with them. I will. I will.

And my thoughts today turned to Jim many times. Replaying some of that terrible day in my head and wondering why and feeling like I have come so far and yet hardly far at all.

Milestone and memory

On a mountain/hillside outside of Boston, on Jim's birthday just 9 years ago.

Happy Birthday Jim!

Speaking

The summer is gone. The fall is gone. I mean, really there was no fall. Maybe a one week window. The shortest fall in history. Cold chills have set in and the heat is turned on.

This weekend comes the fun of packing summer and unpacking winter clothes and then taking screens off the doors and putting up the storm windows. This is the signs that winter is here.

Tomorrow is Jim's birthday. He would have been 56. Just throwing that out there.

I have noticed in the last couple months that I have changed a bit in how I speak of him. I mean, I do speak of him and what we have done. Instead of just sort of speaking to myself because I figured no one would want to be reminded of him, I am past worrying about that and now am bringing things up. And I may still be getting the same reaction, but it doesn't worry or bother me as it did.

One thing that many widows (or anyone that has lost someone) is the feeling that no one but you will want to know the little things about the person that died anymore. Like when you are in a conversation and bowling is brought up. The other person may talk about when her and her husband went bowling, and I used to stop myself from saying "oh yeah, Jim and I loved to bowl" because when I had done that the people would stop talking and change the subject or just sort of ignore what I said. It was very odd. Now, I can see it may be because they are uncomfortable with it and I thought before that I should stop doing it because of that. And I did stop for awhile, but not anymore. I am sorry if it makes someone uncomfortable, but it is a comfort to me to speak.

Jim was a part of my life for 17 years. Almost half my life. I have moved forward. I have made changes. I have conquered many things. I have learned many things and yet in doing all that, I miss having him at my side.

Oct 16

Chatting with a newly widowed friend the other day brought back a rush of memories that had been pushed back for awhile. I wanted to share with her that she was not alone and that what she was feeling was not wrong or strange but rather what every other widow has felt.

The memories of those first days after Jim died. The first hours. The first few minutes of seeing him laid out in the hospital and them letting me say my goodbyes.

My friend is going thru the long nights, the not wanting to get up and the taking naps to try and get thru the day. Hell I think they call it.

I look back at those days and wonder how I got thru it. I know some of keeping my sanity was due to this blog. To be able to write out what I remembered of my Jim and to write out what I was feeling.

Gosh I miss him. Still. It pounds on my chest. And yet, I try to say 'yes I miss him' and then go on with what I was doing. I can only do that. There is no other choice.

Jim's birthday is coming up. And our anniversary. And then all the rest of the seasonal holidays. Oh boy.

Random thoughts

When I first started this blog I was here almost everyday sharing memories and keeping the events in Jim's life fresh so he and the events would not be forgotten. I have been very lax the last couple months. Mainly because the memories are fading and they are becoming jumbled with the new memories. I went thru the whole day of Sept 29th with a feeling that there was something I was forgetting. I didn't realize it was the 29TH until Sept 30th.

Don't get me wrong, they are not being forgotten, but rather a memory that can be shared and not hurt so much. I am still talking about things that Jim and I did together and about our life together. I still say 'we will have to..." instead of "I will have to..."

But the urgency of the blog is not as critical as it was.

I did take the first year of the blog and print it out and put in a binder.

I am thinking of starting a new blog. A blog for betsy.