Four Months

I don’t know how it’s the end of June, how it’s been four months…. At first time seemed to crawl and now it’s almost like I’m in a race to keep up.  But summer always goes by so fast.

I’ve been trying to stay busy, which is good.  Busy is good, better than too much free time, I think.  I’ve been working more and went out of town the last two weekends.

We did our annual family raft trip on the Grande Ronde River in Oregon over Father’s Day weekend.  I’ve been doing this raft trip since before I met Kris, but it was so strange doing it without him. I think Kris rafted the Grande Ronde with my family for the past seven years.  

The first year I brought him, we had him on a little fisherman’s cat boat, and he flipped over backwards in the very first rapid.  I remember thinking, “Oh my gosh, we told Kris to stay to the right and he went straight for the center. And he flipped.  And this is the first time I brought him on a family raft trip…” I can still see him flipping over backwards in my mind. I was so concerned with Kris flipping his raft that I wasn’t paying attention to where I was and then I ended up running into a branch and flipping as well.  Always a great way to start a raft trip… But that trip is what started Kris’s love for rafting. He’d been rafting before, of course. But that was the first overnight trip. We bought a raft in 2016.  That raft is why we hadn’t had a baby yet.  I didn’t want to be at home while Kris was out rafting without me.

And then last weekend I went to The Gorge to see Kings of Leon.  A group of us went to The Gorge in 2010 to see KOL. I thought it’d be fun to sort of “relive” the memory, but it wasn’t the same.  A lot of people were interested in going at first and then it only ended up being a small group of us.  That’s how it goes, huh? And I think KOL might be past their prime?  The campground at The Gorge was empty…so strange.

And even though it was different, it was a great weekend.  The people who went to the concert and hung out in Spokane made my heart happy.  We drank and laughed and cried and laughed. We laughed a lot. All the love to Kendra, Ben, Greg, Moniki, Jamie, and Nick.

Going out of town when you live alone is a lot of work.  Just so much to do to get the house and yard ready.  I have to start my to-do list two to three days in advance.  Normally Kris and I tried to get out of town almost every weekend during the summer, but that’s not going to happen for me this year.  I can’t do it.  I don’t want to actually.

Being busy is good, but then sometimes I feel like I’m behind on everything and have to play catch-up all week.  But I never really get caught up… self-imposed, never-ending lists of things I need to do. I had a pretty good to-do list going on the other way but then just decided to put my swimsuit on and go sit in the sun and read for about an hour or so…. Got to do what makes you happy, which is being outside for me, and have some downtime. It’s not like my to-do list won’t be there tomorrow.

I think the end is in sight of my phone calls and emails.  My “to-call, to-email” list is getting shorter.  I still need to do a few follow-up phone calls, call Social Security again. I called Social Security at the beginning of June and got an automated message that said they’re too busy at the beginning of the month and the beginning of the week to take calls, and then got hung up on.  The automated Social Security message hung up on me! Did you know that because I’m not a 60 year old widower, I only get a $255 lump sum death benefit from Social Security. All the money Kris put into SS and it pays out $255.

I haven’t been posting on social media as much.  Honestly, I just needed a break from Instagram and Facebook.  I don’t know if I’ll go back to daily posts.  I haven’t watched TV in about a month.  I finished a book.

I don’t cry as often, actually not very much anymore.  I hate crying. I’ve never been a big crier, just meaning that it’s always taken a lot to make me cry.  I’ve always prefered sad, tragic books and movies over comedies. Being sad all the time is exhausting.  I’ve been so sad and cried so much, I just don’t want to do it anymore.

I am finding myself happy most days, for the most part, which, sometimes, is difficult.  Like I shouldn’t be happy…it’s hard moving on with life. But life does keep going.  Moving on does not mean that I love Kris any less or don’t miss him every day, but I do find that I’m not dwelling on his death as much.  It’s not consuming me.  There is nothing I can do but keep going.   My life will never, ever be the same, but I still have to make something of it.  I know that Kris would want me to keep living and be happy.