So three months (give or take), is how long it’s taken for the manic denial stage of grief to pretty much burn itself out. Also I’ve run of Valium which isn’t going to help. Luckily I have a doctors appointment next week and he trusts me not to pop them like candy. Anyway that wasn’t the point I wanted to make, I seem to have burned out the manic phase that has let me get more done in 3 months than I have in the past 3 years. I have reduced the amount of stuff I own by at least 50%, which still makes me a very maximalist minimalist. I’ve gotten rid of countless amounts of stuff from inside my fathers house, probably 95%, and have started on countless tip visits to clear the property… and I’m tired. The adrenaline has long gone, the endorphins from making big noticeable changes is waning. The manic punk music energy that kept my denial up a running is not working anymore.

It’s now just a slog, and most people around me have gone back to their lives, so it’s an increasingly lonely slog. Hopefully I’m now at the move things along with paid help stage. It feels like that’s the next step, a rapid push for a month might make enough visible progress to motivate me to get in a finish things up, or at least offset the demotivation that is coming from probate and the amount of time it’s taking. I’m starting to think that I’m going to be stuck with the farm till next spring, which means a whole year of taking care of land instead of living.

As the film characters two days from retirement say, I’m getting to old for this. I’m definitely not up to farm life, I’m barely up to 6 months of fix farm up and sell it life. That’s one of those things that became crystal clear very quickly. I could spend 10 years turning the farm into a magical place with tiny eco cabins and artist retreats, and maybe 10 years ago I may have tried, but I have no heart to do it anymore. There are no ghosts that need exorcising, no farm dreams of my own that would be fulfilled. I will not be coaxed out of retirement for one last mission.

So it looks like my days for the foreseeable future will consist of clearing and repairing the farm, then coming home and decluttering my own stuff, because having to clear out my fathers house has made me committed to clearing my own stuff too.

It might be time to read break out the Swedish Death Cleaning book again…