Preparing for the next part of the journey!!

Well Babe, I think if you want to visit me, you really need to do it in my dreams.  Honestly, if it was you, it freaked the hell out of me. I’m on the phone with my sister and all of the sudden the google mini starts playing music out of nowhere.  At first I thought I hit something on my computer or phone and I couldn’t tell where the music was coming from.  I started to walk around the house and I finally heard it coming out of the google mini.  I’m sure I might have said something to trigger it even though I was in a completely different room and never said “Hey google, play pandora!” But it must have heard something like resembled those words since it starting playing music on its own.  I don’t know the name of the song that started to play, but the lyric was something about “the one that got away!” I’ve heard the song before, but no clue who sings it or the title. My sister said it was you trying to say hi to me, so she yelled, “Hi S!!” I yelled, “Babe, don’t ever scare me like that again!  Remember, I have to live in this house by myself!” It was the strangest thing and kinda left me unnerved. Maybe you were trying to tell me something!! I don’t know!  I also had a dream about my great grandmother last night. She came to visit me and was trying to tell me something, but I couldn’t hear her (I know, what’s new?!  You’re probably saying, “SY, why don't you wear your hearing aids?!” I remember when I first got them you would called me from a different room in a very low tone, and when I responded, “Yeah!” You would say, “I was just checking to see if you were wearing your hearing aids!” 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️) Anyways, I kept trying to ask her to repeat what she was trying to say but I still couldn't hear and then I abruptly woke up.  So, today was an odd day between the dream and the google mini playing music by itself. All I have to say is, “You better not haunt me! I will kill you when I see you again!!”

Anyways, for the next part of my journey, I’ve been trying to figure out what things I should finalize and close out in this life while I start looking around for what I want to pack and bring with me to the next chapter of my life, whenever I’m ready to open the door and walk through to the next part of my journey; a life where you’re never coming home again.  I’ve also started pruning and cultivating my garden of friendship, hoping that it grows larger and becomes more vibrant, since my survival without you depends on it. Another thing I’ve been doing that I haven’t told you about is preparing myself for a life without you; laying a foundation of what I would want that to look like.  You’re probably wondering, “What does that even mean?!” Yup, that was my first question to the therapist also.  Once again, small baby steps. I don't know yet what it means or what it will look like, but I'm sure it will slowly come to me as I continue prepare for this journey.  The first few baby steps my therapist wants me to to is to start looking at your things and asking myself what I want to do with them. I don’t have to make any decisions or take any actions, but just look and start cataloging. I haven’t really done this just yet, but I did at least start organize some of your stuff. Another thing she wanted me to do for this new life without you was buy a personalized return address stamp with just my name on it.  This was a big step for me since I wasn’t sure if I could do it nor did I want to do it.  The very first time I ordered a return address stamp was when we lived together at our first house.  I wanted to add a more formal yet personalized touch to our holiday cards. I remember when I found the designed I liked, I was still hesitant to purchase it because I kept thinking, “What if we broke up?!  I would be stuck with this stamp that I wouldn’t be able to use anymore.”  (Yes, I know we were together for like 10 years already, but still, nothing is ever guaranteed in life, right?!  We still had the potential of breaking up!)  So, I mulled over the decision for a couple of days and decided to purchase it anyways!  I figured if we broke up, I could just throw the stamp away and never have to use it or see it again! So, it's No BIG DEAL, right?!  Well, we didn’t end up breaking up; instead, we got married and eventually moved to another house.  So, the stamp became obsolete anyways, but it was by choice.  So, it wasn't devastating like a break-up.  When we moved to the new house, I decided I also wanted an upgrade and bought an embosser for small jobs like everyday mail and the stamp for bigger bulk jobs like holiday cards.  (I'm in operations, I think about efficiency, run time, and UPH (units / hour), that's just how I'm built!  I can't help it!!)  So, I bought a new stamp and an embosser with my new last name and our new address on it.  This time, the stamp and embosser had our last name on it since we share the same last name now! I didn’t even blink an eye or hesitate one bit when I bought the stamp and embosser with my new name and our new address on it.  I guess when you start thinking things are a guarantee in life, that's when you're faced with a rude awakening. I did use the stamp once for our holiday cards last year and I never even have the chance to use the embosser before you passed.  So, when I started to send out some thank you notes via snail mail, I pulled out the embosser and started using it as planned.  I was determined to not have it go obsolete without ever using it.  I think that would break my heart too much!  So, when I told my therapist I was still using the embosser with our names on it and followed it with, “I’m going to keep using it. I don’t care what people think,” she thought it would be a good time to purchase a new one with just my name on it for whenever I'm ready to use it.  I told her I don't think I can do it, but I finally did it today.  I bought my own personalized return address stamp with only my name on it (I didn't invest in an embosser -- I didn't feel ready to make that kind of investment yet.  They aren't cheap you know, and who knows if I can even use it!).  The therapist said I didn't have to use it until I was ready, but she wanted this to be the first thing I do that symbolized I was ready to look at that door and face my new reality.  Honestly, Babe, I actually love the design, so I'm kind of excited to see it and start using it.  I had it personally designed by the person who did our wedding invites.  I felt if I was going to do this, it had to be special and meaningful; it had to serve some higher purpose than just a return address stamp.  This was going to be my new brand, so it had to be awesome, right?!!  The designer used a script font for my name that I didn't like, so when I told her I wasn't in love with the script font, she remembered how picky I was and went back to our old wedding invite files and decided to update the script font with the one used for our wedding invite.  Before she did this, I was kind of thinking of using the fonts from our wedding invites also, but I was hesitant because this was supposed to be the first thing I buy for my new life without you, it felt kind of weird to use or wedding fonts, so I didn't say anything and wanted to see what she came up with it.  But when she sent the revisions with the wedding script font without me asking, I loved it, but it took me half a day to respond to her to say I wasn't sure because it's the same font as our wedding invite and I needed more time to think about it.  She responded with she was hesitant to use it also but she remembered how picky I was on our wedding invites and she said if these were the fonts you chose before, then they would still be your fonts now, so that's why I decided to use it.  I wasn't sure if I really wanted to go this route even though it was always on the back of my mind when I started this project, especially since I had finished organizing our wedding invite in the wedding shadow box.  But, then I remembered the therapist saying I didn't have to go through the door naked and leave everything about this life behind when I'm ready to open the door and walk through to my next life.  So, I consulted her about using our wedding invite fonts for my new personalized stamp, and she thought it was a great idea and this was an example of how to start planning for the next chapter in my life without feeling like I had to leave everything from this life behind and walk through the door naked.  So, now I'll be honest, I'm totally excited to use my new stamp since it embodies my entire story and journey thus far.  It's inspiring and meaningful while it doesn't exclude our past or our love story; instead it celebrates it by using our wedding invite fonts.  So, I guess this is what it feels like when you pack your bags and start buying the right things to take with you on the next part of the journey.