Widowed: The Blog

Entry 150


 

I have been blogging for just over a year now. I started on MSN’s Spaces with a blog I called Widowed: The Blog which I just recently closed down and after I salvage from it the pieces I want, I will delete. Why? Because it’s mine,  because it’s served the purpose for which it was created, and because those services are no longer needed. I used the blog as a way to vent, sort through feelings and work through the issues of my life at the time. Occasionally I even wrote something that was topical and entertaining. That blog however represents a time in my life that is over. I was okay with sharing my early journey for a time, but I decided recently that I have shared enough. I could say really that the time has come to move on, because that is what I have done, but Rob hates that term. Normally I use “move forward” out of deference to him, even though that merely implies a forward momentum that is taking you from the point where you were to the point you are. It doesn’t convey, in my mind, the struggle and the introspection that  propelled you. Perhaps moving on then is also inadequate. Maybe what has occurred is that I am living now as opposed to existing. I am planning instead of waiting. I know what I know. I am pretty darn special, and I like myself. 

 

This blog too will one day exist only as an archive. I can’t write forever about my personal journey simply because it’s not all that interesting, and it’s not what I am interested in doing. I read other blogs. Blogs by widows. Blogs by women on a myriad of issues big and ordinary. Blogs by snarky wanna-be sports commentators and political pundits. I learn a little bit from everything I read. Makes me think, sometimes. Makes me laugh, depending. Makes me marvel at the beauty and complexity of thoughts captured in the written word like images in a camera lens. They remind me that I am not nearly the writer I need or want to be. They inspire me.

 

Today is my 150 entry on this blog since I began it on March 13th of this year. I blog nearly every day now. Somedays I even manage to be something other than egocentric. I am not going away anytime soon and even then it will only be to a website I am going to create for myself as opposed to using someone else’s templates. I have found that I like being a blogger. And I would like to take this last sentence today to thank those of you who have read, for whatever reason, and those of you who have commented. 

 

A New Blog


I have moved my blogging to a .mac account. I like to play with the features, even though they are a bit cheesy and what really matters is the writing. I guess marrying an engineer has geekified me. And it has corrupted him somewhat as well as he annouced the other night that he is considering “going Apple” with his next computer purchase. I am not sure why. He thinks the iTunes mp3 format is “stupid”, but I guess I should have seen this coming when he bought the iPod. iPods are just a gateway electronics. You think, “Oh it’s just an iPod. It’s not like I am abandoning real computer technology. Linux rules.” But, well…..Steve Jobs is one of Satan’s minions, luring us all with the ease and simplicity of functions and cool features that Windows users can only dream about. Before you know it, the iPod isn’t enough. You need a Powerbook and a .mac account. What would Dilbert do?

Selling My House


SALE

Image by Gerard Stolk presque 64 via Flickr

One of the more major things that has to be done in regards to moving to be with my boyfriend is selling the house where I live with my daughter. I actually find that a scarier prospect than quitting my job. I am not sure why.

The house represents nothing but the time that my husband was ill. It was my prison in many respects and yet the idea of getting it ready to sell threatens to swamp me emotionally. I think some of it is I will need help to get it ready and I hate asking for helping and letting people help me. Why? Probably my early life experiences have conditioned me to expect people to let me down. My past encounters with “help” have nearly always been that people are willing to help with what they perceive your needs to be rather than what those needs really are or what you would actually like them to do for you.

My initial feelings about this selling business is to just sell it as it is. Whatever I get, I get as long as I don’t sell it at a loss. I just don’t care that much and I really don’t have money to put into it. A fear I have about selling is that it will take time (though I think this is just a fear; something tells me it will sell before the summer ends) and then without a job, how will I pay the mortgage on it while waiting for someone to buy it. Which leads me to other money issues, how do I finish paying off my debts without a job?

I don’t want my boyfriend to do things like this for me.

Even though we have talked (very indirectly) about marriage, it makes me feel imcompetent. And maybe that is what it comes down to really. I am feeling as though I did a very poor job taking care of things this last year or so. I have some debt issues.

The house has updating and minor repair issues that have been neglected. If I were staying here and teaching next fall, I had planned to get all this stuff taken care of but the year’s end. The whole point of getting the master’s degree was to turn the financial situation, imposed on me by Will’s illness and death, around and I knew this woud take about a year.

Going to Canada cuts that time in half, leaves me jobless and with bills still to pay plus a house payment.

Details.

Yes and I know what I have said about details. They work themselves out.

Not calming the inner control freak who really hates for people to know when she is scrambling to come up with solutions to problems simply because she doesn’t want to admit that she is in a bit over her head. I know that the sensible thing to do is to tell R that I might need more time.

I don’t want to do that. Not because I am worried about his reaction. I honestly think he would tell me it isn’t a problem and we’ll do what we need to if I have to work the first semester before coming up.

I just know that taking those extra months will not make the transition easier. It might solve the money issues but for my daughter the better thing would be to go and not come back. It would be better for R and I as well. Trying to go back to the LDR thing will not be easy for either of us. So, of course the thing to do is talk with R about all of this. Why is that so hard?

Probably the money thing for a start. I don’t want him to know about the credit card debt. Half of it was emergencies – car and surgery but the rest was stuff that could have waited and wouldn’t have been an issue but for the emergencies that caught me off guard.

Why do I think knowing this might change his feelings for me? It won’t. It’s that conditinal love thing I learned growing up and really didn’t have enough time with my husband to fully shake.

Communication.

So important and so hard.