One more day spent mourning. Now, on to a new approach.

I tried. I really tried not to let the sadness come back, and I really tried to push it away when it showed up. But unfortunately, copying those audio files to my hard drive meant that I had to hear them. And hearing them did trigger another round of sadness. I've come to the conclusion that I need to treat this exactly like what it is. Grief. This is a round of grieving, even though this person, unlike the FIVE family members we lost during the course of 2012, is still alive. There is a sense of loss as I reconcile the person I thought I was dealing with -- the person I'm grieving for, frankly -- with my new comprehension of people and situations as they currently stand.

So yesterday, I dealt with grief. After this brutal year, if there's one thing I have experience with, it's dealing with grief. I wound up just letting it happen and acknowledging to myself, "Yes, I'm hurt and disappointed."

Today, I'm going to do what I started out yesterday trying to do. Focus on the good parts of the past. Kind of like celebrating the life of a person who has been lost. I'm going to tune in to those Fezziwig parties, things like trips to the AC boardwalk (back before the casinos), and the numerous good things that made up the happy memories. Nothing can take those away from me. The present cannot sully the past. The only reason why the present IS so disappointing is because it compares so unfavorably to the things that came before it.

But I've spent my time being sad and acknowledging loss. I'm not going to dwell on it anymore. Obsessing on sadness is not going to fix or change anything. Fortunately, there is no reason for me to re-sadden myself by hearing those audio files again. They're downloaded, they're emailed, and unless something changes, there is no need for me to play them back again anytime soon. And I think I will have an easier time turning my thoughts toward positive things now, because I can acknowledge to myself, "I've processed this sadness already. Time to focus on happier memories." And there are lots of those, because those Fezziwig days really did rock. Those were some good times.