mdlbear: Colleen is on the left with a big grin; I'm leaning toward her with my right arm behind her back (me-and-colleen)

So it turns out that today (assuming this gets posted on May 3rd, as intended) is National Widow's Day. Not to be confused with International Widows’ Day, which is June 23rd. The latter is specifically for widows and not widowers, which is fair: in much of the world there is a lot of inequality between men and women, which leaves a woman who has lost her husband a great deal worse off than a man who has lost his wife.

Some of the organizations associated with National Widow's Day, like the Hope For Widows Foundation, are also exclusively for women. Others, like Widow Wednesday, the faith-based group that started the observance (you can't really call it a holiday) in 2014, mention widowers as well, but not very prominently. A quick search only turned up one blogger who called it National Widow/Widower’s Day, and she dropped the "/Widower" part the next year.

I'm not here to complain about widowers' lack of representation today, though, nor about the heavily Christian slant of most of what's written about the day. I'm not really sure why I am here, except perhaps to use it as an excuse to put Colleen's name into a post. Not that I need an excuse. Neither do you. As this post on Hope for Widows says, the greatest gift you can give someone who's grieving is to let them know that their person is remembered.

I think there was something else I thought of saying when I started this post yesterday, but I've forgotten it. Thanks for listening.

mdlbear: a rather old-looking spectacled bear (spectacled-bear)

Content warning: sad anniversaries. )

A lot of things still need doing. Getting Colleen's name off bank accounts. Tracking down online accounts. Tracking down subscriptions. Finding a new executor for my will, and a health care power-of-attorney (which neither of us ever did because we were mutually next-of-kin). Find a lawyer, which we never did either.

Downsizing and moving is a big one. Deciding what to throw out, what to give away, what to move to Seattle, and when. What I can't bear to part with. What to sell, including the expensive and still-good items like the patient lift and her scooter. Scooters. Actually selling things, which I've been putting off for years.

And that's not even counting the stuff in the garage and scattered around the house that hasn't been done since we moved in, in 2017. (Some of which hasn't been looked at since we left the Starport in 2012.) Hanging artwork. Clearing off the workbench and installing lights in the garage. And the unfinished projects, most still hanging around from previous workbenches I never cleared off.

I think another large part of what's going on in my head is that I haven't yet adjusted to my new living situation. I'm splitting my time between Seattle and Freeland, and neither really feels like home right now. Maybe three months isn't long enough? Very little of my Stuff has been moved; I'm still carting a suitcase back and forth every weekend. I haven't put anything on the walls, or in all but two drawers of the huge dresser that once held most of Colleen's clothing while we lived at Rainbow's End.

There's no damned reason why I haven't done the things except that they're very uncomfortable to think about. Which I suppose is my usual reason for not doing things. Some, like selling stuff, are uncomfortable because I've never done them before. (Have I mentioned that I procrastinate? Or did I put that off as well?) I try to at least do one thing every weekend. It would be nice if I could get that up to one thing every day, but don't hold your breath.

I've been drifting -- going down Wikipedia rabbit-holes, re-reading the Foundation series, puttering around with computers (instead of actually, you know, writing code. Or writing much of anything else.) I guess I've been drifting for most of the last three years, but at least a couple of times a day I'd have to stop drifting and do something for Colleen. Now I'm just adrift. Caregiving was a major part of my life, and it's not there anymore -- there's this huge hole I haven't figured out how to fill yet.

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