March 31; Beginning the Next Year

 Well, dammit dammit dammit dammit dammit.

I wrote a post yesterday.  When I opened the blog to write today, I saw a typo.  Went it to edit it - and the entire post disappeared.  I wasn't able to get it back.

I write these things in a stream-of-consciousness sort of way, so don't remember much of it.  But I know that 2025 self is going to look back to see how I handled things this year, so here's a bit of what I remembered.

I opened with the lines from Chris Isaac's "Wicked Dream"

I never dreamed that I'd love somebody like you

I never dreamed that I'd lose somebody like you

I started the post at 9:30 in the morning,  Thinking how surrealistic it was that I was sitting on the couch, drinking tea, nibbling coffeecake, playing Wordle.  Four years ago, about that time, they were dragging me screaming off Bob's body so that I wouldn't disrupt the whole ward.

I seem to be calmer this year.  It's the first year that I haven't had to start sleeping on the couch again.  Doing the Great Barn Clean out was hard on me, physically and emotionally, but I think it helped me to let go.  I think I'm settling in more to figuring out who Ann Without Bob is.  Last year I really tried hard to put myself out there, to be social, to try to meet people.  And, as I said in some post - all I got was tired.  I never have been particularly social (it doesn't help that I had something set up and got no-shows at least 4-5 times) and that hasn't changed.  I realized that I'm comfortable going out by myself.  If social interaction does happen (like Suzie and Ashlyn coming out to help me, or my lunch with Judy) I will enjoy it.  But I'm not going to push anything.

I did get a treat in that Jeff was in town briefly and came by with pizza.  I will forever be grateful to he and Rob for dropping everything and coming to get me the day Bob died, so that I didn't have to spend the night in the hotel by myself (in itself pretty ghostly because of Covid).

I ended up staying up far too late, watching random YouTube videos, eating carrot cake and drinking rum.  I didn't want March 30 to be over.  Because I give myself a few days to just sit around, eat junk, drink.  But then it's time to pick up the bootstraps and keep moving.  My reward for lasting four years without Bob is that I get to start year five.

Which brings me to today.  Despite all the rum (or maybe because of it) I couldn't sleep last night.  Fell asleep around 2:00 and woke up at 6.  Despite that, there were things that had to be done.  When I brought the chicks home last week, they were so small.  So I brought in the smaller of the plexiglass fronted cages that Bob built for all my various foster babies.  But baby chicks grow fast, which meant that I really needed the big one.  I dragged it in and got it set up and the chicks transferred, then had to clean out the other one and return it to its place in the barn (which is no longer on the floor where it lived for many years)

(That orange thing they're all huddled under is a heater)

Then I tackled the plants.  I wrote a couple of weeks ago about a woman giving me a flat of seedlings to say thank you for giving her a pet carrier.  I've been keeping them watered but they really needed to go into the ground.  It was sweet of her, but I wish she had been a little less grateful and given me a half dozen plants rather than 15.  Instead of trying to clear out the old garden (I haven't even opened the gate in the last 9 months and it's a wasteland in there) I thought I would put them in the butterfly garden out front.  This entailed clearing a spot for each plant, using the post hole digger to dig a good-sized hole (a piece of equipment that uses muscles that you never use for anything else), digging out buckets of compost from the pile, and getting them all planted and marked.  It's a variety - some tomatoes and peppers, sunflowers, herbs, squash, flowers.  And it was warm today (in the 80s) although luckily it was overcast and breezy (except for the compost heap which was in the sun).  About halfway through my lack of sleep got to me, so I took a break to sit in my new swing and finish my book ("Something Wicked This Way Comes" by Ray Bradbury) and then just sat and listened to the birds and gazed up at the trees.

At moments like that I think of my friend Adrienne, who once said that she loves it when she can get out of her apartment to go to the park and see the trees.  It makes me realize how much I love living in the forest.

Break over, I got the rest of the plants in and everything cleaned up and put away.  At least I didn't have to cook dinner; Jeff had also been to see Gill, who sent me a container of chili.  Also a baggie with slices of white bread so I could have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (which confused Jeff).

Thus began my new year.  I now regard March 31 as my new year's day - my old life ended on the 30th.  Like much of him still lives in me, much of me died with him.  But the March widow marches on.