leftovers

Funny how things work. I like to cook. Not so much with the eating though. I mean, sure, I eat. The problem is that I don't eat nearly enough to warrant the amount of food that I cook. And I enjoy cooking. Which creates leftovers. Which actually has been working out fine for the last several months, since I had Phil around, because he can eat. He eats quite a bit. As he puts it, "I like food." And he does. So it worked out pretty well for both of us.

I opened my refrigerator today, and just sighed. It's almost completely full. Not because I don't eat leftovers. I actually do eat them. I have no problems at all reheating things. It's just that I don't eat large enough quantities, or fast enough, to use up the amounts that are in there. I have enough food in there to feed three or four people for the next two weeks...or to feed Phil for the next three or four days, if he's working. And it depressed me.

I'm just bummed out. I don't quite know how to cope. I was used to having him around, and it feels weird, not talking to him before I go to sleep. Everything about, well, everything suddenly feels strange for me. The food everywhere that I know will probably not get eaten. The phone that I know won't ring and be him. No silly TV shows to sit and laugh about.

I have to figure out a way to get the rest of his medications to him, because I forgot to put them with his stuff, and I'm not looking forward to that. In general, it just feels like there's a piece of something missing. During the rare moments that my mind has blanked out and I've drifted from what's missing, I tune out, and wonder why I feel so out of sorts, and then it dawns on me what's missing. Phil's missing. That's what's wrong. And I can't quite block the feeling of loss.

I've been asleep a lot for the last few days. A combination of depression, general malaise, and a massive allergy attack that's knocked me down pretty hard. I haven't completely lost it. I've gone to the park with Danny and Cora. Dragged my ass out of bed, gotten dressed, made myself function like a real live person, because I know better than to just let myself hide away from the world. I can't afford to drift into a depression so deep that I can't function at all.

Things are moving forward, in spite of everything that has me so unhappy. The move, both Mona and Danny moving out, and Trinette moving in, is commencing. Probably in the next couple of weeks. Trinette turned her notice in yesterday where she is, and Mona is turning hers in, I think tomorrow morning here.

I've found a job, and I'll be working shortly. Once Trinette has moved in here, I'll be both watching her little girl after school until she gets home from work, and then I'll be working myself part-time. Things are stabilizing, in spite of myself. It'll take some adjusting, on everyone's part, but it's probably the best thing I could have done for myself.

So while looking around me, right now, I feel like something is missing, and it is, and I'm sad, I know that I can't stay this sad forever. Something will give, one way or another soon enough. I can't just walk in the same place, treading the same path, indefinitely. That isn't healthy for me. I either need to move forward, or take a few steps back. I chose to push forward.

Maybe Phil will come back eventually, and maybe he won't. Maybe I'll fall flat on my face working, though somehow I doubt it. The job itself is ideally suited to me, and I should do just fine. I'm sort of afraid of how things will work out toward the end of the year, when it's time for Trinette to move on, and move away, leaving me living on my own, but even that will probably work out just fine. It's more of a fear thing because I haven't actually lived completely on my own since I was eighteen, before I had my daughter.

Wow. All that because there were leftovers in the fridge.

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.