Saying Goodbye

 I started this post a million years ago.

Ok, not a million years, but a long time ago, probably May.

And I kept looking at it sitting there in the draft folder. Taunting me.

I feel like grief is all around me. All the time. Like a pack of wolves hunting down my soul.

I should try to readjust my attitude about grief. I SHOULD not be afraid of it. I should welcome it into my house and ask it if it wants to stay a while. But I don't have my own house, that's another story for another time, so, yeah, no visitors.

As a result of this game of chicken I have with grief, it roars into my life sometimes like a motorcycle gang disrupting my pretending that every thing is alright.

Last week was the week leading up to the anniversary of my brother's death. 8 years. 

EIGHT YEARS?! How does that even happen?

And I was shoveling food and stomping around until I realized the 19th was just around the corner.

UGH.

Knowing it was going to be a rough one no matter what I did, I tried to plan a quiet weekend with lots of walking by myself.

It would have worked, too, if the stars had not aligned to take RBG from our world on the 18th.

I am trying REALLY hard, after days of sulking, to think FIRST of the tremendous gift it was to have her in our world for so long. But, I fail, often, and slink back into the terrible hole her loss has created in our world. 

Saying goodbye is hard - and this has been a rough year for everyone - and I am only human.

I started this draft (a million years ago) because I THOUGHT, maybe this is the year that grief won't be so hard. 

I was wrong, or grief is horrible, or 2020 sucks. Or all of that is true.

I am going to have a weekend away - and I haven't had any time to worry about the ramifications of interacting with people (masked, of course) because I have been all wrapped up in this grief. So, maybe not having time to be anxious is a silver lining?

I am trying, I swear.