I slept terribly, despite sleeping on the more comfortable “mattress hump” in the middle of the bed. I had turned the hall light, which has been on for 10 years, off because I no longer needed it, and if I awoke wondering if all of this had been a horrible nightmare, that would be my clue that it had not. I woke up multiple times and each time I couldn’t stop going over the whole situation in my head and stressing about the loneliness and financial instability that will come.Finally around 7:30 I awoke and it was light so I stumbled into the shower. After I got on the computer, I noticed I wasn’t the only one crying, my bedroom windows were too, due to the extreme heat and humidity last night. It was a surreal realization.

I started out doing the inevitable Facebook cleanup, removing family photos and friends of my wife’s that no longer made sense in my world. If you were one of these, no offense was intended but I can’t bear the pain of her name coming up. If you really wish to be my friend, you can request it again, but bear in mind that I will not discuss the situation beyond what you read here.

At first I wasn’t sure I should press the “Single” relationship button on Facebook because of the enivitable questions I don’t want to answer and the pity I don’t want to receive. But everyone will find out about this sooner or later. Still, I put it off until the afternoon when I could be on the computer.

After that I took a longer-than-usual walk/jog first thing in the morning. It was hot out already while I whisked through local neighborhoods I did not know so that memories wouldn’t crop up. I tried to tell myself that I was thankful that things hadn’t gone worse; they absolutely could have.

It was tough. I didn’t listen to music for the reasons explained yesterday, so it was hard to keep my mind off the subject, though I was still a bit numb. It’s much harder than I anticipated to avoid thinking of the family that I knew yesterday morning.

I went to the post office and bank to file some papers and spent my last few dollars at Wal-Mart buying empty boxes. Every red stoplight and chatty kathy seemed to annoy me much worse than usual and it was tough to smile.

This afternoon, I cleaned the house thoroughly, removing traces of my former family from the walls and filling the boxes up so that memories wouldn’t arise as often as I walk around the house. I could then “pretend” that I was purposely starting my life over (it didn’t work). Exhausted, I collapsed in the living room and watched some TV – “V” – my wife never did like that show.

The cat (Star) seemed confused this morning wondering where everyone was, but once I let him fall asleep in my lap he seemed content. I’m sure he misses his mother and sister.

I had to use the heating pad on my shoulders due to the stress ball from the night before, and on my leg (I got a charlie horse after the run – awesome).

I was able to eat little — my stomach still filled with acid from the night before, it wasn’t easy and was the only significant food I had consumed in the last 24 hours of dazed confusion. I almost fell asleep watching TV, which is something that I never was able to do in the living room before.

After that I hung up some replacement paintings and photographs on the walls that my father had created – I had brought them back from Mom’s house earlier this year. As a result, the house now looks a lot less like the “family” home that it had been, and that helps. I left the TV on CNN in the living room. I like hearing it out there because when they were here, it was always on.

Now I hope to be actually be able to do some online work, if I can keep my mind on it. I fear silence at this point. All morning I listened to the news stations, trying to concentrate on the stories they were telling – no music as explained yesterday. But you can only listen 24-hour news stations For now I’m daring to surf the XM channels for something unknown and upbeat.

Ah here we go. My cousin always drifted towards The Grateful Dead during hard times. So shall I.

I think it’s time to press that relationship button on Facebook now…