One last cry

We moved furniture around today. Mona's moving in, we moved her stuff completely out of Kat's place and into here. We still need to go to the storage unit and move that stuff over here, but everything she had at Kat's is here now. And we're packing up and moving Danny's stuff out. It's a weird feeling.

So I've been doing some packing up of my own, whilst this is going on. I hadn't realized it would need to be done. I should have, but I didn't, so it's kind of hitting hard at times. I packed up the stuffed animals he's given me over the years. Anniversary presents. Just because gifts. All the little mementos. I know that in the bottom drawer is the blanket I had custom-made that has our anniversary date on it...and I don't know what to do with it. So many things. I'm going to have to take that stuff down, because looking at it hurts. But I don't want to just trash it.

I feel like I've failed. I *have* failed. Seven years. Such a long time. The silly little yellow bird who chirps when I push the button on his tummy, that makes me smile when I'm sad. We had to get a new battery for him, a couple of months ago, because his finally ran out. Danny got a replacement battery for him at Radio Shack, and I did surgery on this little yellow stuffed bird, and now his chirp is as good as new...he wasn't an expensive toy or anything, but he made me smile...and now who will help me repair him if the battery dies again? And it breaks my heart, because I cried and cried when his chirp wouldn't work anymore. We got that little bird when I was in one of my worst spells of depression, and that little chirp made me smile when I couldn't stop crying. And Danny spent a couple of days figuring out how to fix that stuffed toy. He found the appropriate battery, and I stitched it up.

And I feel sad because all the problems aren't as easily repaired as my little yellow bird. It isn't that I don't love Danny. I still love him. He'll remain my best friend. But that's where it stops, because it has to. And as I look around, and slowly put the last seven years into boxes and cry, I realize that the tears will stop. I can continue on. It hurts, because this is life, and life hurts. But at the end of the day, I will move on. I can still smile. I know, because I was smiling earlier today.

It's going to take time. It's going to take space, and it's going to be hard. Nobody ever said it was going to be easy. But I can do this, and I should. I need to stand on my own two feet. I need to be myself again, and I need to feel these feelings.

And one day, I'm going to be able to sit down, and open the boxes, and read through the journals. And I'm going to smile and it isn't going to hurt. And the memories will be just memories, instead of pain. I'll have one last cry, and then I'll let it go. Because when I close those boxes, the new day will dawn, and I'm going to move forward.

I don't know what I want to do yet. I don't know anything. But I know that it's time to stop crying, and start living again.