So weepy

Today I have been so unbelievably weepy.
Or at least I thought it was unbelievably until I spoke to my counselor.
Of course I'm weepy.
It makes perfect sense to her.

For the last few weeks, I've been talking about the changes my life is going to be going through (besides the obvious) and now those changes are starting to take place.
The wheels have been set in motion and there is pretty much no going back.
The ball is rolling down the hill.

First, I am officially unemployed.
It is sweet relief.
I do not have to go back.
I don't have to face those people with their weird glances at me and their weird tone of voice.
I don't have to be observed by others to see how I am doing because I don't think I'm doing much better. Or that I should be at this point in their eyes.
But unfortunately there still isn't a day that I don't cry at some point.
There still isn't a day where I don't want to go back in time.
I'm not better. I don't even think I've truly started by some things I have read.

I don't have to finish the project that had become the thorn in my side.
Bleeding all over the place.
I don't have to continue doing the monotonous task of building order sets over and over again.
I don't have to sit in all day meetings to discuss things we have already discussed a zillion times before and no one is listening to me.
For now, I can just breathe in and breathe out. Just be. Just exisit.
And I, thankfully, have security as well.

Second, I went for a campus tour today at UCF.
Such a dorky thing to do I know but the campus is huge and it was overwhelming. So to avoid that feeling, I did the tour.
Amazingly, my emotions bubbled up. I am still surprised at when and how they show up.
I started thinking about how Roger was there.
How he took classes in these buildings.
How he walked this campus.
Then we went to the UCF Gym.
Thank goodness for sunglasses because I couldn't help but start to tear up. He spent many hours each week at that gym. He loved it there. He loved the martial arts club there. And he spent a lot of time talking to me on the phone as he was parking or walking to Aikido.
The first night I ever visited him at his house he had just left the gym.
Part of me just wanted to run out of the gym and part of me wanted to see exactly where he practiced. To be where he was.

It was also a realization that because of his death, I am now able to do this. I am now able to fulfill my dream of going to school full time. And this was just the beginning of that dream.
And as excited as that is, it is also scary.
It is also because he is not here.
And that makes me hurt.

Thirdly, I gave up my engagement ring and my wedding band to be made into a custom ring. They took it on Friday so my hands have been naked since then. Today I went to see how it will look and to sign off on getting the wax cast made. I saw my rings for the last time as they are now and how they have been. And I started to tear up.
I know I want to wear those diamonds and I know I don't want to wear them the way they are now, but at the same time it was sad.
They were being changed. They will never be the same.
I am not married and now I no longer have a wedding band.
It hurt to give them up.
I remember standing at the exact same spot just barely over two years ago putting the engagement band on for the first time.
At the time, I thought I'd never change it or take it off.

So the changes truly begin.
And I begin again.
For better or worse, I am still here.
I am being changed.
Like a river rock, I am being tumbled and shaped.
And it hurts.
And I cry.