There has been so much happening that it's hard to keep it all straight. We are tying up loose ends all over the place. And saying goodbye. This weekend I say a final goodbye to my grandmother. On a mountain. In Montana.

Last week we said goodbye to Kman's home. We moved his mother to Oregon. We emptied his childhood home. Only the ghosts remain. I hope they are content. It was harder than I thought it would be.

We are also in the middle of a house hunt of our own. We found the perfect house. Then there was a bidding war, and we were no longer in the hunt. So now we sit and wait until another perfect house arrives on the scene, and hope for the best.

I am also in the hunt for another job. At the same company. But would love to find something else. Something overall more rewarding. More money too. But that is another topic for another day. I try not to let my bitterness show, but it's there just beneath the surface. I hate that it is this difficult. I can only hope that if and when it happens, it is worth the effort. Otherwise that would really, really suck.

It has been quite the summer so far. That is really about all. Just no time to catch my breath and really reflect on it all. So I keep moving forward and hope for a clean moment of time here and there to figure things out.

Saying goodbye

We're getting ready to move my Mother-in-law out of the house they lived in for over 30 years. I've had 18 of those years. It is sad. I'm not looking forward to driving away with all of her worldly possessions in the van. It not only means a concrete and irrevocable end to that part of my life and hers, but it also means that things will never revert back to normal. There is a new normal. And we get to deal with that.

It also means that I have aged, and am not who I once was. Recognizing that is generally not traumatic. But when it means walking away from people and places that have significance, there is pain.