The big news is, we found a place to rent here in Kona that has agreed to the dogs. It’s only up the block, so moving should be relatively easy. It’s expensive…but thankfully my boyfriend is with us for all the support both emotional and financial that it will entail.
It has not come easy. It took weeks for the owner to come around to us (apparently, two dogs are better than a group of young single people or a family of 10). We had to endure a long, detailed financial application and background check. And the hardest, for me, has been the emotion of it all.
My stay at the house my beautiful late husband and I shared is coming to an end.
I will leave part of me behind here. My heart, or most of it, it feels like.
But I am already trying to envision life in this new place. What it will feel like to get up and go through my morning routine in a new space. What it will feel like to come home after work and pull into a different driveway. How it will feel to start fresh, to decorate my new office, to cook in a new (or new to me anyway) kitchen.
I also can’t stop thinking how it will feel to drive by my old, empty house, when it’s all said and done. I think I will avoid it for awhile. Though I’m sure curiosity will get the best of me down the line. How long will it stay empty after the auction? Who will end up there, and what will they do to it?
I still have a lot of decisions to make regarding stuff. What I will take. What I will sell. What I will donate. You know, that age-old question widowed people must face. And it’s not just about Mike’s stuff, because I have already narrowed down the pieces of his that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. It’s about our stuff – stuff I shared with Mike, stuff we both lived with for so many years. Furniture, pictures, even kitchen things.
How much will change? How different will my life look a month from now?
It will always look different because Mike’s not here. That much I know already.
I will never be ready to leave. But sometimes life just happens and we have to go with it. It’s what’s best for my dogs, in this moment. Mike would never have left THEM behind, that’s for sure.
I will have to dig deep to find enough income to do this. I will push for more hours at the restaurant – I job I enjoy for so many reasons, but physically, it is hard. I will push for my new health coaching business, finalizing those last details and then marketing myself around town, and the internet.
I will work hard to bloom where I’m planted. A year from now? Who knows, there could be another move, more changes. But for now, I’m still here.
It may not be the place I imagine for myself long term, but I have familiarity on my side. I have many wonderful friends – a support system, partially from my years here with Mike, and partially from all the new people I’ve met since. And that’s no small thing.
Maybe a year from now I’ll be ready for more changes. I guess there’s no way to know. But what we do know is sometimes we have to go with it even if we don’t feel totally ready. Sometimes we have to make hard choices and roll with them, even as regret and old memories sting our hearts.