@maggie45

And a car accident on top of it all! You've had a full plate this year.

My wife and I love our home on ten acres, but it can be a positive or negative thing. The positive side - quiet days and nights, space to breathe, surrounded by cultivated fields, a warm house on these cold days, plenty of space to plant trees and gardens, lots of room for our dogs to run and play and explore. The negative list is shorter - a lot of time required for building and yard maintenance, isolated, too far from church to get to meetings and visit with people we're getting to know, unhealthy isolation associated with mental ill health.

I'm pleased to know that you have someone you can talk to. That's been a life saver (too literally) for me, to have access to therapy, where I can talk about things I'd never before told anyone.

The grief process is sometimes presented in a set format of stages. I've found that most people do it at their own pace and don't fit the formula. I hope people haven't tried to tell you that you should be getting over it by now. (That's something I've heard with regard to my depression.) That's so unhelpful. For one thing, many of us never "get over it", even 5 or 10 years in. It isn't healthy to rush it. Much better to take it at your own pace and in your own way.

One of these days I'll post a list I've made of things not to say to a hurting person.

Gotta go. Stay safe.

Jim