Pacing Punxsutawney Phil

My friends in the north must commiserate.

Reportedly, there will be six more weeks of winter. No early spring. Looks like dragging my feet on selling the house is actually good timing. My Realtor even thinks so. According to her, the marketing is "heating up."

The last post was so dismal, I just had to add to it, because today I'm feeling much better. At some point last night (or early this morning) while I was dropping off to sleep, I said to myself, most spontaneously, "Quit this shit." Forget that Steve would not want me to wallow in the grief; I don't want to wallow anymore. Besides, there's no more wiggle room in the plan: the house is getting sold and I'm moving on.

I didn't watch the Superbowl. I never do. I can't understand how so much money can be spent on something that is, ultimately, so inconsequential. (Just lost a majority of you on that one.) I suppose football fans would say the same thing about theater or art or literature, if we spent the same amount of money on them. Of course, we don't. There's no cross-branding or aggressive marketing because there's no major profit in it.

Kittie called yesterday. She was out visiting Vena and, of course, they want me to come up and visit. I told Kittie, quite honestly, that I really hate doing the drive up all by myself. Also, I want to stay close to home while the process of putting the house on the market and selling it is in progress. She suggested that she and David could come down here this weekend. While I would really like that, I don't want her or David feeling obligated to race down here every time I'm feeling depressed. Even when I'm in a bad place, I don't like feeling like a user.

One thing that triggers my angst is having two-person chores to do. Every time I encounter one, it's a clear reminder that Steve is dead and I am alone: A downer from a very innocuous source, but still something that can stop me in my tracks. But the truth is it can take me a week or more to get someone over here to help out, even for a couple of hours. This being so, I've kind of given up on relying on the kindness of strangers, or even acquaintances.

Talking with Vena is very strange these days, but in a good way; the widow speaking with the widower. Both of us shedding light on the grieving process for one another. And while I'm talking with her, I have these realizations about my state of being and what's happening to me. Like yesterday, I realized that I had slipped back into last year, as far as the disruption my grieving was causing. Having my sleep cycle turn on its head happened at the beginning of last year, and I am somehow repeating that.

Unnecessary.

Shane, the screen guy, showed up about 1 p.m. and is downstairs measuring and building new screens. He also washes the windows before he puts the screens in, so he's killing two birds with one stone. He wants to come back tomorrow morning early to finish up, since he won't be able to complete the work in one afternoon (seven windows and two sliding screen doors).

Yeah. Now I'll be forced to get up and be presentable by 8 or 9 o'clock, kind of forcing me back into the rhythms of the real world. Now lining up a carpet cleaner and cleaning the house are all that stand between now and showing the house. (Actually, it's showable now, but clean and shiny gets a better offer).

One thing about working at home is you have no real routine. And if there's no work at hand, you can linger in a forever-morning kind of place, where you wear your robe all day long, never getting dressed because there's no real reason to. At first this is a glorious luxury, but after a while it starts to appear tawdry. Today, I didn't even put on the robe and went straight for the clothes. It was a nice feeling, a human feeling. I am most eager to keep it up for the rest of the week. Perhaps it can become habitual and second nature once again, this being alive and enjoying feeling.