Turning Point

August 6th marked 3 1/2 years since James passed away.  I knew it was coming but it still seemed oddly abstract. How has this much time passed so quickly and at the same time feel like an entire lifetime?  I guess the good thing is time is no longer standing still and seems again to be marching forward, as it should. 

Something else seemed to happen around this time:  I just wanted to be done.  I know it doesn't work like that-I can't just say "okay, that's it," and never feel sadness or miss James again.  Those days still come though not as frequently as they once did and when they do come, they don't seem to last as long as they did. I've wanted to be done for a long time but this is different.  I don't feel that pull to look back like I once did.  In fact, I feel the opposite.  It sounds heartless but I just want James to be gone. 

I don't mean I want the memories or the love or the lessons I learned about myself from being with him and after his death to go away.  Far from it.  I want the physical reminders to be gone.  The things I kept when I first went through his things because they were important to him but that have no real meaning to me.  Like his books, which I thought I'd read some day to honor him.  The truth is I'm never going to.  I'm not a fan of fantasy and I barely make the time to read the books I do enjoy.  He is not the things that are still here.  He is the memories and the lessons and the love I still keep inside.

I posted the paperbacks that were in good shape on paperbackswap.com.  It was hard to mail the first couple but it is getting easier.  With each book I mail, I am getting a credit to use to request a book I will read.  I found I couldn't break up the hardbacks written by his favorite author and found friends to take them.  It was important to me they went to a home that would appreciate them.  That's all that has mattered when it comes to donating his things:  that they go to someone who appreciates them.

I don't really have a lot of his belongings left and I feel this step is leading me down a path to something-something I can't identify yet but that I feel is good.  But at the same time I feel like I am letting go of my security blanket and I don't know what happens when that blanket is gone.  When I'm left to truly stand on my own two feet for the first time since I was 25. 

I can do this.  More importantly, I want to do this.