O Chitty, U Chitty, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Mom loves her repaired air in her car and uncle says his is running great, too. My friends at Hull's Auto Repair really did a good job by us. I had to wait awhile for the test drive to be over to pay the boss before Mom and Uncle got there but it was worth it. I like surprising people. It seems like just when I get worried about being broke something turns up. I am even thinking about doing Ebay seriously again. I still have a few things I want to list there, I just can't seem to get interested in it right now.

So the car trauma is resolved and Mom is leaving the fifteenth for her annual, OMG why didn't I go in the winter, trip to Florida. The cousin that has been stayin with her is going back to college down there and Mom will be riding down with her then visiting my other sister older than Cee, Vee. She should get to see the neice, Vgirl, too, as well as her friend. I think she is going to sell the RV she has parked down there this trip. She hasn't really used it so I think she should.

The animals and I spent the evening napping by the air conditioner again last night. I made a salad and a sandwich then went for a nap. Got the email, checked the blogs and went back to bed. The new bed hasn't worked out like I had hoped. While it takes up less room I keep thinking I am going to fall out of it. I keep waking up with my feet hanging off the end and I'm not all that tall! I guess I will move it upstairs and then get me a queen mattress so I have a little more space in the bed and less in the room.

I got two more boxes of stuff out of here this weekend. More going all the time. The place looks cleaner and emptier and stranger to me every time I go home. If I keep it up one of these nights I'm going to think I am at the wrong house and leave again! LOL.

The mate is never out of my thoughts, still. My friend 2Tall had a great show in Washington and came home very happy about it. He met a woman who had just lost her mate and wanted my blog link for her. I guess I put this paragraph in for her. The mate is still the first person I want to consult with over anything I am doing or thinking of doing, still the one I greet in the morning and say 'sweet dreams' to at night. I have moved the photos to the bedroom because I can't bear to have him become just a photo in an old picture frame to me. It has already happened with dad and I know it will come with the mate but, by forcing myself to recall him instead of look at pictures, I hope to keep him real to me a little longer.

I no longer believe I am crazy but I do believe there is a drop in the joy and quality of my daily life that I don't know if it can ever be corrected. So many things I have tried to do "for fun" have just been killing time instead this year. It seems like it should be fun to ride a poker run, go to the fair, visit the kids, have the grands over but it all just accents the great gaping hole at my side. The place the mate would be riding, standing, sitting-

How can I ever expect to find a partner that makes me happy just being in the same house with them? It's not realistic. How do I reconcile the need for a functioning and willing body with the need for a partner and friend? How do I refuse to let the memories of the best friend I ever had influence my next friendship? No answers, just lonliness, yearning and confusion. But this is so far from where I was in February that I have to see I am progressing, just more quickly and much slower than I would like. I would like to already have solved the physical lack here but I don't want to leave the mate behind me any sooner than I have to. He was all I had and all I needed and all I ever wanted.

I still don't know how to move all the way on down the road, one part of me is always reaching bahind me to try and hold on to what we had. But it's not crazy, it's just another measure of the love we had for each other. I am moving on, I see that I am going forward and looking to the unknowable future. If there was a real time machine, I would be already gone, though.

Forward Ho!