Millstone

It's been a while since I wrote in here.  I should make a point of doing it more often, I think it is good for me.

So, I made it past the one-year mark of Jo's passing.  I think I'd be lying if I said it was easy.  I probably made it look easy though, I am good at making it look like I have it all together.  And in fairness to myself, I expect I'm a lot closer to having it back together than I was at this time last year.

I keep thinking about how my church's pastor went on a sabbatical--an actual one, traveling to various places for a spiritual healing journey--during the first quarter of this year, and specifically, the effect it seemed like it had on her.  I hadn't noticed how weary and broken her energy felt, until she came back and seemed like a different person.  Her energy was brighter, her outlook was positive, she was glowing in a way I hadn't seen before.  Honestly, it took a moment or two to recognize her, the difference was so great.  It was a change that I don't believe she could have created in herself, if she had tried to do it without stepping away from her day-to-day "grind."  She had to get herself away from the millstone that was wearing her down, so she could build herself back up.

It makes me wonder if such a thing would be good for me as well.  It's been over a year since Joanne passed now, and with the exception of starting a new interest, very little has changed--everything is basically still right where she left it.  Including me.
It is going to take a lot of energy to really rise from the ashes, and it is energy I'm never going to have as long as the millstone is relentlessly grinding away.

The thing is, she's left me in the place where I could be okay stepping away from daily obligations for a few months, with what I inherited from her.  I let myself worry about what would happen with my health insurance if I spent a few months unemployed, but I expect I could figure the logistics of that out.
More importantly, I would want it to be a 'real' sabbatical, like the one my pastor took.  I would need to figure out what it is I think I would need to be revivified, and then I would need to step away from the normal grind--all of it--and put all the energy I have left into doing that, so it can all come back to me magnified.
What I wouldn't want is to get to the end of the time I had, and look back and see that all I did was waste three months messing around on Facebook and that still nothing had changed, and I used the reserves Joanne left me for no benefit.  It was probably one of the most important things she did to abstain from social media of any sort during her sabbatical.

Right now it's just one of those things that I'm letting my mind play with.  To the extent that there's a process, I'm at the point of trying to figure out what it might be that I would need.  There's no point in doing it unless I know what "it" is.