It turned out okay

Me on Christmas Day.

I was given a lot of warnings about Christmas, both publicly and privately. It could be a very hard time, I was told, especially the first year after a loved one dies. Perhaps those warnings paid off because it turned out that Christmas wasn’t bad after all. In fact, it was okay.

I said a few times that since Nigel and I didn’t have any particular Christmas traditions, aside from spending it with family, I didn’t think that Christmas would be bad. I was right, but it helped that I was with family. Next year our Christmas will be at my new house because our family tradition, of sorts, has been that whoever’s moved into a new house hosts the Christmas after that. This mainly applied to Nigel and his siblings’ families, and it seemed for a time that someone was moving every year.

I posted a couple photos on Christmas Day, which allowed me to share a bit of my day and, I think, helped to show others that I was okay. The trip to the new house gave my mother-in-law her first chance to look inside—by peering through the tinted windows, so it wasn’t perfect. I’ll have to make sure she’s there, too, the first time I unlock the door.

So, Christmas wasn’t bad. In fact, it was good to get together with family, as always. We talked about Nigel, of course, but the tears were fortunately minimal. Mostly, we laughed and joked, including about Nigel, and all that means that we included him, in our own way, and it was good.

One of the bridges across the Waikato River. Note the pigeons roosting on the far side of the bridge.

The next day, Boxing Day, I went with my brother-in-law for a walk along the Waikato River while my sister-in-law went for a run (a photo of one bridge from that walk us up top; note the pigeons gathering on the far side of the bridge). And therein lay disappointment.

I was adamant that we walk for 15 minutes so that we’d walk back 15 minutes, and in that way I’d close the exercise ring on my Apple Watch. I was keen on doing that because closing that ring one time would give me a special award (Competitive? Me?!). However, for some reason my watch didn’t count the exercise, even thought it counted the kilojoules burned, the distance I’d walked, and the number of steps. Unless our technology validates our experiences, they didn’t happen. Obviously.

Seriously, though, I pushed a little too hard, considering I don’t move much these days due to the prescriptions I’m on always leaving me extremely tired. At the end of the 30 minutes, we sat and rested until our runner came back and joined us. A bit of water (and an iced coffee—for sugar, really), and I felt better. But I didn’t feel normal until I had a short nap.

Today I left late morning, bringing my mother-in-law with me so that she could spend the weekend with one of my sisters-in-law (she comes to my place Sunday or Monday). Leo insisted on sleeping on her lap, with the air conditioner blowing in his face, and he frequently looked out the side or front windows—and for the first time since he came to live with us, he didn’t get car sick. Maybe my mother-in-law will always have to be with me when I drive anywhere with Leo.

Tomorrow afternoon, I’m going to a little gathering at our next door neighbour’s house. They have a lovely garden, and tomorrow is supposed to be a nice day.

Apart from that, I just have a (very) little packing to do—just stuff that I want to be able to find the day I move into the new house. I decided last week to bring in movers to pack up the house and then move the stuff to Hamilton, a decision that took an absolutely enormous amount of pressure off of me. My target date to move is January 15.

Jake and Sunny enjoyed their Christmas Day.

As I said on my personal Facebook earlier this evening, I wish I could be excited by the move, but I’m just not. The whole reason I’m moving is because I don’t have Nigel any more—if he hadn’t died, it’s highly improbable that we’d be moving anywhere right now, though we may have moved later in the year. So, the only reason I’m moving is that Nigel died, and that fact keeps me from being excited about the new house. Maybe I’ll feel a bit differently once I have the keys in my hand.

Even so, there are plenty of things I’m looking forward to, because there are fun things about a new house—especially a new house that’s literally brand new, something I’ve never had before. That means that I do have things to look forward to, even if it’s not the same—and definitely not as fun—as it would be if was I were moving with Nigel. Maybe it’ll be enough? I’ll find out soon enough.

So far, then, this period has been going pretty well, and that means I’m doing pretty well, too. As I say so often, right now, that’s enough.