"The world isn't the same place anymore for you. Your whole world changed," she said to me on the phone. That sums this year up for me. She's a cribbage player I used to see every week... but I haven't been to play in a cribbage tournament at the club in six months.

In January, I stopped going because I was usually at the hospital visiting with my dad. In February, when he died, I was home trying to be here for the kids as I'd pretty much not been around much for six weeks. In March, between moving Nikki and preparing for April's memorial for my dad, and other stuff going on, I still couldn't find time on Wednesdays for the cribbage club. In April, when a lot of dad stuff was taking place, I again had no time. But in May... in May I crashed. I had no more reasons, no more excuses, but I still didn't and haven't gone back to play cribbage on Wednesdays.

I can't seem to get back into some parts of my usual routine in life. I'm unusually afraid of people dying... and all of my hobbies include people who are up there in years... cribbage, Scrabble, volunteering. Didn't go to the Scrabble tournament this year for the first time ever, but dad's ash scattering took place that weekend, but I wonder if I'd have gone if it hadn't been? I'm hoping this fear, this overwhelming fear of anybody else dying, subsides soon. But every time I try to get back into my prior pattern with life, my heart hurts. My stomach aches to the point I feel like it's on fire. My mind seems to shut down, too. All I want to do is be alone (and that's not like me.)

Parts of my routine stopped abruptly with my dad's passing... Monday night dinners at his house, which we went to once a week for eight years, since moving an hour's drive away to Cape Cod. Yearly family Scrabble tournaments between my dad, Kenny and I stopped abruptly. I'm not sure, but I think part of the reason I'm having a hard time getting back into other patterns and grooves that still exist is because my mind is stuck like a skipping record on the bump of my dad's death. My mind can't seem to get over that scratch in life's surface. Eventually it will have to, but I'm going to have to give it time... I already learned that trying to force myself to just move on to some things before I'm ready will lead me to feeling wiped out and extremely and brutally sad and angry.

It's June. The year is half-way over.