I am so completely ready for warm weather, in RL and in SL. I finally took some time to de-winterize my SL house and make it a little greener and warmer looking. It felt pretty good, so it progressed into a bit of stealth landscaping at ground level. That was a thing the husband and I would do from time to time, we’d wait until the sim was empty, then buzz around the island and swap out trees or reroute waterways and install little groves and tranquil ponds on a whim. Sometimes I’m surprised we’ve remained on the estate manager list for so many years. 😀

We had done some impromptu redecorating about week before he died, we’d wandered around and left a few new landscape elements and some silly little decorations. One of the Halloween pumpkins he’d picked up somewhere is still sitting near the music stage, I don’t think anyone has had the heart to return it yet, so I’ve just left it where he rezzed it. One of these days I’ll pick it back up, but for now it’s his little memorial pumpkin, I guess. It made me smile when I looked at it the other day. Smiling instead of bursting into tears is a good thing. Maybe I am beginning to heal, gradually.

I’ve noticed, in the past week or so, that I’m more comfortable taking Ravensong back in world, and it feels kind of nice to be “myself” again. I began to avoid it because I didn’t want to see her on her own, roaming around the world all alone, without her Natureszen on hand to lead her on an adventure. It felt easier to go in world with my alt instead, and give her the makeovers and cute outfits. I’d thought I’d use her as a symbolic fresh start, but in the past week or so I noticed I was really turning her into a clone of Raven. They’d always been similar, but the amount of duplicate inventory I was starting to accumulate suggested it might be the time to return to my main girl instead of recreating her on my alts.

I’m not quite sure I’m ready to follow Ravensong’s example and rejoin the outside world myself, but maybe spring will bring me a little more RL motivation to begin moving forward. I think everyone I know has told me, at one time or another, that grief has no time limit and I should take all the time I need to heal, but I know I can’t stretch that out indefinitely. At least, I can’t stretch the hermit phase out indefinitely. Eventually it will be time to go forth into the sunshine.

For now, though, I think I have the time to just lounge on the bridge and watch for the first signs of spring.