Crawling Out of Bed to Blog at the Eleventh Hour.

Damn. It's the 28th again already.

Not that I've made it a rule, but I have been trying to blog each month on the 28th. But to be honest,  I really didn't want to today.

In an attempt to avoid it, I crawled into bed before 8:30 and watched two episodes of The Voice and last week's episode of This is Us.

This is Us. I love that show. But I want to hate it. I've watched it from the first day - although always in delayed fashion thanks to the life-changing invention of the PVR.

Sometimes I'd be watching a recorded episode and Albert would come into the room and I'd shut it off so we could watch something together. Or nothing at all.  And he'd say, "Go ahead and keep watching it."  But I never would. It's not a show you can walk in and just pick up on. There's so much jumping around from present, past and future it would really be impossible to keep up if you didn't watch it all.

In this episode the "past" scenes dealt with the first year of coming to grips with Jack's (the husband and father, for those who don't watch) death and adjusting to life without him. Well shit. So here I am crawling out of bed at 11:30pm to blog.

I'm avoiding blogging on October 28th because this day marks eleven months without Albert. Which means the one-year anniversary is coming next. And I don't want it to arrive. As if somehow not blogging will make it go away.

I don't even know how to explain this. The feeling of simultaneously wanting the pain to ease while wanting to hang on to it as if it proves your love or something. Wanting time to pass, yet wanting it to stand still.

I'll be frank. I don't want the one-year anniversary to arrive.

Not that I have expectations of myself. And I really don't give a shit if others have expectations. But I somehow feel 'safe' in standing under the umbrella of being "a recent widow." Like I'm still covered by Albert's provision - which he was really effing good at.

But in some obscure way I feel like when I step over November 28th I will be entering new territory. Territory I know nothing about. Being independent. And quite frankly, it's a bit scary.   I've been standing under this umbrella of Albert's protection for 39 of my 54 years.


****

On another note...

I recently listened to a podcast by Dr Caroline Leaf, a noted communication pathologist and cognitive neuroscientist with a Masters and PhD in communication Pathology and a BSc Logopaedics, specializing in cognitive and metacognitive neuropsychology, titled "Why Swearing May Be Good For You"  (Click the link to listen to this life freeing podcast) I also recommend (even though I am not financially compensated to do so) that you read her books. (I confess the books are really intellectually advanced and they are way easier to listen to in audio version than actually reading if you are prone to falling asleep with a book in your hand.) She's also a Jesus lover.

Seriously. IF YOU FIND SWEARING LIBERATING... click HERE... even if you are a Jesus lover.