Every single Christmas thing we own has been pulled down from the attic. Decades-old cardboard boxes inherited from parents and the dead, way too many snowmen, and giant baubles that need batteries. The tree and the accompanying ornaments are still somewhere in the guest room- at least everything is now in the livable areas of the house. We'll ( Read more... )

I'm writing on a balcony overlooking a fountain in Rehoboth Beach. This time has felt so surreal; the last time we were here was in March 2017 before our world significantly changed. I wrote about massages and didn't know that would be the last time we went away without having to make preparations for my parents. That we would be down here with ( Read more... )

Today is our last day in this farmhouse we rented in West Virginia. The darkness and stillness calms my nerves; from before the pandemic, before the cacophony of three cats, before the calls of my mother. Verizon doesn't reach here, and though we're connected on Wi-Fi, it's comforting that I haven't spoken with my mother in several days. We made ( Read more... )

Our house looks like a Christmas bomb went off, cardboard boxes and storage totes still on the floor.  Fidget had just gone in the attic this past Sunday, dragging down stockings and reindeer and blow-up penguin mailboxes.  I did decorate the office space behind me for a Zoom office party whatever, but that holiday energy never got to come ( Read more... )

Whew, what a time to be alive, amirite? I had started a post after the last one, then got distracted, and then PANDEMIC, so it's been a bit touch and go over here. Maybe highlights?

( Monthly highlights... )

What a sucky way to end the day. I sit here in my darkened living room, somewhat illuminated by the strings of globes and chili lights, the Christmas tree in the corner. This time of year makes me wonder, "are we better?" I'm trying to be thankful of the holiday this year, a long day that started with group and peaked with a dinner of steak ( Read more... )

I feel overall that my life continues to be a whirlwind of different things happening. And yes, I know this is Life and blah blah, it goes on. But good grief. I either need to make a more-dedicated commitment to writing back in this space, or like, I don't know? Fade into the ether ( Read more... )

Grief is such a strange thing. I know this and studied this, and ironically, have become a quasi-expert in this and profess it as my "niche", but I continue to be fascinated by how I am responding to my own grief. It weaves and comes through me at the most unexpected times. We grieve forever, but the acute pain fades, then rears its head back up ( Read more... )

We traveled so much on Thursday, driving up to Allentown in my dead father's truck in hopes that we would get a new car. The weather was nasty; rainy and annoying with traffic that didn't seem to help us go anywhere. I signed paperwork, signed up in my new car for OnStar for some reason, and the heavens opened on my new car and my year-old ( Read more... )

It snowed before Thanksgiving, which left snow on my pumpkin and a very angry Momma fifteen minutes away. After it melted, we did the turkey. I had a huge, gut-wrecking sad because while I don't have a lot of memories with my parents around the holidays, it was more that my father wasn't here to be impressed by all of my cooking. His little eyes ( Read more... )