This has been a week, I will not call it hard or difficult because that word would not do it justice. There have been good, bad and ugly events, so I’ll just leave it at that.

I had an energy audit courtesy of our friends at Duke Energy and as the guy walked through my house I thought “my house is a mess” and felt embarrassed. Now to add to that I will say that I spent the majority of the week in my bedroom ( no, not sleeping you silly person, that would be AWESOME but not possible) cleaning out Sonny’s things.

I cleaned out the cabinets in the bathroom and said good riddance to all the accumulated medical supplies from the last 3.5 years, including the boxes of unused hospice necessaries. No longer needed, I was happy to see them go somewhere useful. I cleaned out his cologne, his toothbrush, his grooming tools (that thing he used to trim his ear and nose hair.  I am sure he really misses that!). The cologne was the hardest, he loved to spray it on then come rub himself all over me because I thought it was too strong. Memories. Now It sits in a box somewhere waiting to find a home in the trash or with one of our kids.

Then I tackled the closet and his chest of drawers. It was an ever-present reminder that he is gone. Their presence was not comforting to me. It was if a ghost was living in my closet. The up side it that I found I have more than enough space in the closet to store my stuff. Although to be totally honest, I would rather have my husband. That is not possible so instead I get a full closet and another dresser, yea me… Alyssa had to convince me to put stuff in the drawers instead of trying to find a way to store it in the closet, it felt like a betrayal to take his space.

Afterwards I added a few feminine frills that he would have never liked nor could have worked after he lost his leg. He needed room to maneuver with crutches, no more. So I added a fluffy rug and storage that I can sit on, thoroughly female and me. It does help but that does not take the crappiness out of the situation.

But I digress, back to the energy audit and the mess. The guest bedroom, the gutted bathroom (no floor, open to the crawl space, attic, and vermin)  the upstairs bedroom with everything piled in it….The front room ( office) has not been touched since April, unless it is to add to the huge piles of stuff or something that came from his work office, or the never ending piles of paperwork that I keep AVOIDING. I just can’t make myself do some of it. I don’t know why but I cannot face it. I got a phone call this week ( didn’t recognize the number so I didn’t answer) the message was about the paperwork. GAH! I. Just. Can’t.

On the surface, it all looks neat, there are smiles and laughter but on the inside it’s a hot mess. My house, my life, this terrible anxiety,  my brain.  Speaking of my brain, I wrote that Sonny had died four months ago. I argued with my kids that it had been almost 5 months….It has only been a little over three months. My brain is a fog. They didn’t argue with me, their brains are also in a fog. Grief and loss does that to you. It’s awful. I wonder what else I have missed these last 3+ months.

I have kept hearing Sonny say, “Get your shit together Theresa”. You can do this. Some days it really feels that I cannot. But at least it has only been three months and not four. Maybe by four months I’ll have it somewhat together, at least a floor on the bathroom and the paperwork completed.