And still, life goes on.

I get brief moments, like the one at left, sitting in the hallway at Twelfth Night, where it suddenly all comes together, the clouds part, and rays of light strike me...

Or Miriam gets a good photo of me. :-)


I've been working at trying to be busy, trying to see friends, and do stuff that gets me out of the house. Trying not to mope. Telling myself that I can get over this, and then it won't hurt so much.

Lies never hurt so much as when they're to yourself.

I finally realized a couple of weeks ago that no, I'm not ok. Yeah, I've hit that point where I'm angry, but it's like I'm still bleeding inside, and no amount of band-aid will fix that, even if they are Avengers band-aids.

I think of all of it, the initial shock, bereavement, and sense of betrayal- all of it pales in comparison to that huge, gaping hole in the middle of my life: I've lost my best friend. I no longer have that every day or two talk, the chance to sill emotions, to share things I've seen or thought, to complain, to express worry and say "What do I do? I don't know what to do!" The impulse, dozens of times a day, to share something with him, keeps the wound raw and oozing.

So I talked with Rebecca, and we're going to up my anti-depressant, just a bit, just to get me over the hump. Hopefully spring will help too.

However, my lungs are doing unhappy things again, and I'm back on prednisone. And hoping that Dr Fraley can get this under control before it gets worse. Lung stuff can be terrifying.

Here's to hoping that April is better.

Better late than...

Has anyone else noticed how the wheels sort of fell off their lives, oh, in early November, 2016?

Yeah, I realize it's been two and a half years since I posted. Things have been happening.

And for good measure, here is a couple of photos of Sam, last summer!

He is absolutely adorable. :-D And a very sweet boy!

The girls are growing too! Would you believe 2nd grade?

And Annie is fighting heavy! And doing very well!

And me? I'm...

Well, it's been mostly bad news. First, St Matthew's closed. We were losing attendees and $ since 2013, and the last year or so made it pretty obvious. We had our last Sunday service in October of 2017, and a celebration with cake and all that November. But the work was far from done. I was Senior Warden (sort of the board chairman), and ended up doing most of the work, which was sort of a combination of coroner and executor. It was horrible. And it took months. But it was close properly and in as orderly a fashion as I could.

My health has continued badly. In 2 years, I've been hospitalized 4 times and had 2 surgeries. Spent some time in a hellhole rehab place (no really- I talked to my OHP caseworker about it, and they ended up taking them off the list of rehab places that OHP will pay for.). The fibro has gotten really bad, and I'm having some serious issues with my back. Finally got a referral to the pain center at OHSU. I'm still wending my way through referrals and such, but I'm hoping that they can do something to take the edge off.

Is anything else seriously stressing me out? Well...

In November, just before my birthday, James announced that he was done, and ended our relationship. It had been 19 years. THIS WAS NOT MY CHOICE. We were having communication difficulties, and I was trying my damnedest to figure out how to solve them. I suggested quite a number of times that we see a counselor, get some translation, try to get on with life. Apparently this was not De Plan in his eyes. So it was BANG! and I'm completely cut off. I don't even know how to live life without him. I've been part of Us for so long, and looked forward to growing older with him, and now I have a gaping hole that I can't even begin to fill, because I can't see the bottom yet.

I'm getting support from family and friends, but it kinda doesn't fix it.

So this is me, 54, and single on Valentine's Day.