A month has passed by since the death of my dear friend Christopher Michael Gonzales. The sorrow of his loss is still very fresh, and I have not yet begun to heal. I am in stage 2 of the 7 stages of grief – pain and guilt. The guilt that I feel is over not spending more time with him, not planning more events for us all to get together, and most of all not going home to see him on his last birthday. I was in San Diego that weekend, and it would have been an expensive plane ticket to get to San Antonio on short notice.
In the month since Chris’ passing, I have basically existed in 2 states. State 1 – working non-stop, and then state 2 – cuddled up with my dog on the couch when I became too mentally tired to work anymore. On the upside, I have gotten a crazy amount of work done. On the downside, this is no way to live. At the start of this past week, I made up my mind that I would take the weekend off, and that I would get back to being social. This meant that on Saturday I would attend a neighborhood event, and then a birthday party for one of my neighbors.
I almost cancelled. I am so glad that I didn’t. The neighborhood event was so much fun, and the event reminded me of all of the wonderful friends that I have made. I reconnected with a number of people that I know from my kid’s school that I did not realize lived in my neighborhood. One in particular is a really great guy that is a fellow single parent. I hope that we will hang out more in the future. I love my married friends, but it is always nice to have other single people at social gatherings.
The neighbor’s birthday party was also a lot of fun. It felt good to be social again.
On Sunday, I went to District 249 with my doggie :). We watched the Cowboys win. More importantly, we spent time with friends. Yvonne (Dog Mom), her husband Page, Scott S (Saint), his girlfriend Steph, Scott D, Barry (tree-climber) and Ian (Red-headed Yankee). We had a good time. The big news right now is that Scott and Steph are buying a house together. It feels so good to see friends so happy. I am definitely looking forward to that house warming party.
Thank you Lord for blessing me with wonderful friends and neighbors and the best doggie in the world :).