And so it goes

I returned to work this week with a new account and new hours. I'm working later, which has its benefits, and I finally have the whole weekend (Saturday and Sunday) off. Before, it was Sunday and Monday, and I did like that arrangement as it allowed me to handle chores I couldn't do during the week since I had to begin work so early. Bonus on both accounts: weekend and later starting time to get necessary chores done.

The new account is (at least so far) a good account. The doctors (even the foreign doctors) speak clearly with a few minor exceptions of motor mouth and mush mouth. I doubt that will ever change. The account itself is straight forward without a lot of "except in this case" situations. So far, I like it, and I still have my once primary, now secondary, account and it was at least familiar and workable. I've gotten used to the motor and mush mouths and the doctors who have trouble enunciating and pronouncing English words. I can deal. And I don't have to do the very complicated children's hospital account, which I did not like at all.

Mostly though, life after returning to work has been fraught with nerves and trepidation. Work should help the grief, but it really doesn't. Work takes my mind off things for a few hours, otherwise how could I function and do my job properly, but the grief descends like the clouds preceding a bad thunderstorm and promising tornadoes. C'est la vie. (That sounds so much nicer in French.) I still have moments when I break down and times when I drift numb in a sea of emotional ice. I suspect that will always be the case, although it will happen less frequently as time goes by and the loss is less fresh, less keen-edged. I've been through this before with Dad and other people I've known who have died. It gets easier, except when it isn't.

I have been wallowing a bit, as one would expect, but less and less. Books took me out of the real world and put me in places where someone else's problems and dangers consumed me. That's not such a bad thing. I did enjoy what I read, even if I haven't yet finished A Dance With Dragons yet. I had to take a break as it felt as though, good and engrossing as the story is, it was going nowhere at a snail's pace. I understand how the book earned so many negative reviews. It does go on a bit -- a bit too long. It's not that the characters are not as unique and engaging as before, but that it feels time to cut to the chase, especially since this is the second half of what was supposed to be a single large book. It's enough already. Let's get to the dragons and Westeros and removing the Lannisters from King's Landing already. It's time to bring things to a head. There are wights to battle and the winter that never ends headed up by glowing blue-eyed Others we have yet to see. Wights we've seen, but, again, let's cut to the chase.

In the meantime, I've a new shipment of review books that I have to open and read this weekend, but I have a weekend in which to do it, with a whole half day before the review needs to be written and sent in. It feels like a luxury of time and I intend to wallow in that instead, especially since the weather cannot make up its mind if it's winter, spring, or summer. We've had all three in the past 2 weeks. About the only constant is the April sprouting of the lilac hedge out front and the pervasive smell of lilacs through the open window morning, noon, and all night long. After a while, the pleasant scent of lilac becomes a stench, and the honeysuckle has yet to bloom. It will be in full scent by June, complete with the moths that appear at dusk and crowd around the blooms spreading pollen and getting their probosci full of nectar. The year turns and turns and turns.

Life goes on even when it feels like it should stop for a while, a galactic moment of silence. And so it goes.