I love Fall. I love pretty much every single thing about it. I love the colors, I love the cooler weather, FOOTBALL, and most of all the fun family things we’ve always done. Hunting, tailgating, lazy Sundays watching football. Early Sunday dinners, getting back into a much-needed routine after a crazy summer. Being the nerd that I am, I love getting our entire school year planned out. It has always felt like a breath of fresh air to settle into our new schedules. 

The problem with all of that awesomeness is that it is not the same – not even close – without Mike. I am trying to find our “new normal” and it’s hard to decide what to discard and what to keep of our old life. Our old life was so great that it doesn’t make sense to get rid of anything. The issue is that so much of it makes me sad. It’s heart-breaking to wish I could change every single thing about myself so I wouldn’t feel this tremendous void. Especially when I really like the old me. But a lot of the old me died when Mike did. There was some of me and some of Mike, but mostly there was a lot of “US”. And “US” worked really well. There is no one else in the world (besides Drew to a small degree) that understands how one sniff of the early morning Fall air smells like “deer season” and the song “Boys of Fall” makes me cry like a baby, but only if I hear it during football season. Or how deeply truly in love with the Seahawks I really am.  I’m weird, especially for a girl, and Mike got that about me. Mike LOVED that about me.

One of the many, many crappy things about grief is that she manages to take most everything I love and make it painful. What a pisser. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to completely enjoy Fall again. We went out shooting the other day and ended up having a blast. But getting there was awful.  Looking through Mike’s things to find the hearing protection was emotional. Trying to decide which gun is the best for Emrie felt incredibly overwhelming. All things that I have never dealt with and frankly don’t feel even remotely equipped to handle. Driving up to my parents’ I couldn’t stop crying. Mike should be here. Plain and simple. It is ridiculously unfair to me and ridiculously unfair to these kids that, although fine and well-adjusted, should have their dad here teaching them how to shoot. I guess it’s just that constant reminder that life isn’t fair.

The good news is that once I get through the hard parts, we always manage to have fun. Mike would love that we are out there and I know he would be beaming from ear to ear watching Emrie shoot her pink BB gun. I will continue on with all our Fall (and other seasons) fun, but just wish it would get a little easier. A least you are consistent, grief. You giant pain in the butt.