I have a new deadline looming... we now know her attorney has the key to the storage unit and we need to have both attorneys present when I go through the storage unit... my attorney is going to be out of town for a little while so I have almost two weeks to get my garage completely in order... I put a sizable dent in the chaos when I bought the new shelves and put up all of my indoor Christmas decorations... I still have to get my tree down from outside and all the other decoration off of my walkway... all good things because doing that will keep my mind off of what I know is ahead of me... I feel some anxiety about going there... between it smelling like him and knowing that these were items that he used on a daily basis, I'm unsure of how it'll hit me... there's a lot of mixed emotion when it comes to Chris... you all knew what a massive pain he could be and he had a knack for getting under my skin, but I loved him anyway... just like we love our kids, no matter how bad they're behaving, we still love them... I guess I had grown to look at Chris as one of the kids... God knows he didn't act much better... but it feels weird to have to make room for his stuff again since I spent a long time trying to purge all of those things... I'm going to have to go through and see what the kids want, take out the shirts so I can make their blankets, and put aside mementos that I know the kids will want when they get older... the rest is going away... either a garage sale or Metrocrest... I know it's unhealthy for me to hold on to all of those things because they are not what's important... what's important are the memories that I hope I can keep alive for the kids and a few keepsakes that have special meaning... I know I'll have to take a Kleenex box or two with me when I take inventory of the storage unit but I hope I won't have to use them... I've been purging the house anyway of extraneous items and the last thing I need are more of them... part of my journey over the last couple of years has been making room... in my house, in my life, and in my heart... and the thought of bringing any of that clutter back feels like I'm taking a couple steps back... the thing is, I'm actually pretty happy these days... most variables in my life are gone and the few that remain have an end date in sight... this whole mess with Chris' estate will be done by April because that's when I have to report back to the judge... there's not too much more to do and the rest of my time is being spent the way that I want instead of having to haggle and barter days for when I'll have the kids and when I can have me time... now I have me time at the gym where I can blow off steam or get pampered at their spa or both... now I can get a sitter to take the kids when I need to get out... now I make all of the decisions and enjoy that freedom... and knowing that once April comes, I will never have to deal with the girlfriend again... ever... so please bear with me over these next couple of months as I go through an endless array of emotion... the end is near!

I've been getting all of my papers in order as I'm trying to unearth my desk... there are so many new legal papers that need to be easily accessed so I've been diligently going through my piles... in there I had found a list that I printed off of Grief Works website to know how I'm doing in my grieving process... I've always known it was going to take a while and as I read through I found that I have achieved most of them and feel that I have a good handle on the situation... but with that said, I thought there wouldn't be too many more places where things would pop up and bring on the tears... I found this yellow construction paper homemade folder that said "Hannah's letters"... I know Hannah's always writing at school and I have filed away all of the notes that she gets from her friends but her folder for that stuff is getting pretty full so I figured I could go through and toss whatever she wouldn't miss... and as I start going through the letters, I realize that these are letters from her classmates that they wrote the day after her dad died... wow... talking about it to other adults doesn't usually affect me much anymore but to see it in 7 year old handwriting in note after note... I had to put the rest of them back into their yellow folder and put it with the rest of Hannah's work from this school year...

I really thought this wouldn't happen again until I finally take possession of his belongings... a certain someone is dragging her feet at getting us the key to the storage unit where she put his things... I know she didn't include everything but it buys her some time as I sort through what's there before I go out to her house with a sheriff to reclaim the rest... she doesn't want me over there but there's not much choice on her end... she has to comply with the court order...

So I guess that leaves me going back through the rest of my papers and hope that I don't find anything else... I've cried enough over him throughout the years and I really would like to be done with it...