life

In the run up to New Year’s Day there is the constant talk of the resolutions people will make. Come mid-January the talk turns to how quickly people gave up on those resolutions. Last night I listened to a news article about how January became the official start of a new year for those who follow the Gregorian calendar. One of the next articles was about how people tend to chose to start new goals on the 1st of a year or month, all which makes perfect sense, you have to start somewhere.

This morning as I brushed my teeth I was thinking on the changes I want for my life and I recognized that I could not ‘start’ today as some of the things on my mental list require preparation. As I pondered through this, I came to the realization that I have done some preparing, however unintentionally; more on that in other posts I am planning.

The advantage that the Gregorian calendar and an excessive amount of banked vacation days provides me is four unfettered days before returning to work. My intent is to use these days to plan and have Monday January 5th be the official kick off.

Planning will include documentation of what the goal and it’s terms are. As I am firmly believe the quickest way to fail at a goal is to be too rigid, I will build in exemptions and rewards when appropriate. I also am a listophile, yes it is a made up word but I like it better than ‘an avid list maker’, so having lists to track my progress is a tool for success in my opinion.

For an awareness exercise I went online looking at articles about what goals people are planning to set for 2026. I suspected that many of my goals would not be that different than then rest of the world. Interestingly I found a whole category that I had not even considered adding, which speaks volumes to my current isolation situation; improve relationships with family and friends. In recognition of this I will add a goal of facing up to my isolation with some intensive consideration on how I got here, should I stay here, and if not what changes need to be made.

Anniversary is the wrong term; the word anniversary should be kept separate from occasions of sadness, it should be kept for only good things, things to be celebrated. Let’s use the term day of remembrance for the sad things because that is what it is; a day to to remember both the unpleasant thing that happened on that day while also remembering, hopefully with fondness, the people impacted by that unpleasant thing.

Today’s weather is perfect for this day of remembrance; complete cloud cover, no chance of the sun peeking through, the wind pushing the Fall leaves from their branches to skitter across the ground wet from rain showers. The opposite of the weather that day 19 years ago; a bright sunny warm Fall day.

There was work to be done that Saturday; for me it was a few early morning hours in the office, for him…..

I had suspected, as the weather was so lovely, he would have taken the opportunity to get in a round of golf, and told him just that when I arrived home in the late morning and found him repairing the driveway. He admitted he had considered it, but knowing that we had guests coming for dinner that evening he determined it was best to get some work done around the house.

And he was industrious that day; inside the house he had cleaned the bathrooms and washed the floors, there was the aforementioned work on the driveway, wood was chopped, the lawn mowed. Finally he knocked off for the day, came in and took a shower. A short time later as I was upstairs I heard a kitchen cabinet close and came downstairs to teasingly admonish him to stay out of the dessert I had prepared for that nights dinner.

It was not a kitchen cabinet closing that I had heard, it was my husband collapsing to the floor as his heart gave out on him.

From that moment forward the day was a horror, and for the last 19 years I think of October 24th with a sense of dread and unhappiness. But this year I am having a bit of a rethink…….

Like anyone he could get cranky and be downright unpleasant at times, but they were brief occurrences, evaporating almost as quickly as they appeared. The majority of the time he was happy. There was singing (bad singing, but done with such joy you could overlook his habit of making up the lyrics), dancing (before I met him I never believed those movies that showed couples spontaneously dancing in the kitchen), and teasing (oh how he loved to tease people, prodding until you just couldn’t help but laugh with him).

If I look past the horror of what that day became I begin to remember the happy…

When I left for the office he murmured something as I kissed him goodbye; many an hour has been spent trying to remember what he said, but the clear memory I have is standing in the doorway looking back at him in our bed, smiling to myself as I thought “No one should be allowed to be as disgustingly happy as I am”.

I had a list of household chores to get done that day and I smile at the memory that he had done the two things on the list he knew I really disliked doing.

The simplest of the happy things that day that I remember is twice taking him out something to drink and the quiet enjoyment of sitting on the front stoop with him talking about nothing in particular.

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