A Glimmer of Light

A couple of days ago I had a moment that, in and of itself, wasn't anything big. At the same time, the profundity of it was earth-shaking. I think if I hadn't still been sick and depleted and low on energy I would've been thrown for a serious loop. At least I had enough presence of mind to recognize it for what it was, the first real glimmer of light on this long journey.

As I've often told people before, I really, REALLY hate being sick. One of the main reasons for it is that it seems all of the negative, unpleasant, uncomfortable emotions get amped up by an order of magnitude. I don't just get a little irritated, I suddenly have to reign in volcanic fury. I don't get a little disappointed, I get soul-crushingly depressed. I don't just get a tad anxious, but instead have to try to keep a grip on terror that wants to run wild. Irritatingly enough, it never seems like any of the positive emotions get that kind of enhancement, which is wildly unfair as far as I'm concerned. Anyway, dealing with being sick and changes at work and general stress from around this time of year was less than fun toward the end of last week. One thing that's often helped settle things out during those times is going for a walk-'n'-talk with God, where I'll walk for a couple miles, usually have a few smokes, and have a chat with the Deity-of-my-(VERY)-Limited-Understanding. Thankfully, the weather wasn't too cold last Thursday night, so I was able to head out after work to spend a bit of time with that.

As usual, it seemed to be working. Getting to walk around and vent (quietly) to the Divine seemed to be helping take a lot of the intensity out of those emotions. It made it easier to think straight, or at least straighter than I had been for most of the day. It took a lot of the sting and burn out of the caustic jambalaya of feelings that had been roiling for most of the day inside of me. In and of itself, that wasn't a big surprise. I'd found that'd worked well before, and worked well consistently. It was the main reason I was willing to head out into the dark and cold for awhile. No, the surprising part came toward the end of the walk.

For a couple of minutes, as I was nearing the end of the loop I usually follow through my neighborhood, I found myself in a bit of a daydream, as it were. I found myself imagining what it might be like to work somewhere else. For the first time, when the idea of having some challenges with a new job came to mind, I wasn't reacting with panic and recoil, but instead finding myself thinking of some ways I might be able to get those worked out. I could see myself meeting new colleagues and co-workers and getting to know them and getting along.

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN NEARLY FIVE YEARS, I COULD IMAGINE A FUTURE WITH SOME OPTIMISM AND HOPE.

It only lasted a couple of minutes, ending shortly before I got back home. There was no intense closure to it, no abrupt departure. It faded like a mildly pleasant dream during a midafternoon nap. I wasn't left with a radically altered perception of life and the cosmos. At the same time, I knew something had happened that was deeply meaningful, even if it was small and relatively quiet. A part of myself that had been inactive for a long time had briefly sparked to life. It had breathed a quiet whisper into my psyche. Thankfully, I knew better than to try to make it happen again at that moment. It was enough to know that it had happened once. And that, if it happened once, it could and likely would happen again.

I know it's not the end of the journey. I know there's more yet to come, more to face in time. There's more work yet to be done. But this is an indicator that it's been paying off. It's a tiny thing in and of itself, and yet it speaks of huge change behind the scenes. And, at the same time, it's just a bit terrifying that it's taken nearly five years to have a couple of minutes of optimism and hope for the future again. Because THAT speaks of just how catastrophically me darlin' wife's suicide had hit me. I know that others from the outside'd seen more of the devastation than I did at first; there wasn't enough of me to be able to perceive it at the time. And it's always hard to grasp the dimensions of a labyrinth while trying to work your way out of it. But that moment provides just a bit of perspective on how horrific that damage was, and what it's taken to come just this far.

But it's still a glimmer of light, bright and pure and true. It happened once. I trust it'll happen again.

Whimsical

Yesterday was her birthday, the fifth one since her time in this world ended. She would've been 50. Like many other events over the last couple years, I found myself at a loss for just what I should be doing for it. After all, the general assumption would be something somber and serious and tinged with sadness over her no longer being here. And that felt...wrong. I know it's what might be expected, walking through the dark alone, lost in thoughts of what no longer was and could never be again. And, like I said, that just seemed...wrong. What was difficult was that I didn't know what might feel right. Which is more than a little bit frustrating. Those cultural conventions are supposed to give us the ideas of what we should be doing, the “right” steps to be taking. And they yet again seemed to be failing.

So I had to fall back on something I've learned to do in the last few years: be open to inspiration. Let me be clear on this. Just because I've learned to do it doesn't mean it's the first thing to come to mind or that I'm comfortable doing so. But it's served pretty well thus far, and was pretty much all I had left, short of doing nothing and then likely afterward feeling like I'd somehow fallen short. So I just tried to leave myself open to whatever idea might come and then not to think too much about it (which always gets in the way of inspiration coming along, at least for me). Running some errands seemed like a good way to provide a distraction for my conscious mind, to get it out of the way. Kinda like giving a little kid a toy to play with outside when you're trying to cook or clean up in the house.

And it hit me while I was driving around. She'd had a whimsical side to her. I still have some cartoon sketches she'd done a couple times. One was from when we'd gone out for karaoke. She wasn't one for singing, but she liked hearing me sing, and I always saw her face light up when I'd sing one of a couple specific songs directly to her. This sketch was of our pets forming a band: cat and rat and ferret and snake. There was definitely that innocent, playful side to her, that showed up in a lot of ways. I think it was a good counterbalance to some of my darkness, and I think it was one reason why I sometimes felt so protective of her. That included a couple times of putting myself in harm's way to protect her, but those are stories for another time. The recollection of that aspect of her felt right. So I hit a local crafts store and picked some things up. I got a tube of some plastic animal figurines. I'd thought of just finding a cat and rat, as those would likely be common. I thought a ferret would be good, too, but also exotic enough of a pet to likely not be there. Much to my surprise, one “tube” of animals had all three of those, plus a lizard, a bird and a fish. That rounded out all the animals she'd kept as pets over the years. And then I'd also picked up a coloring book and some colored pencils.

On her birthday, by the candle I lit, the plastic animals were arranged. And I spent about an hour sitting on the couch watching a movie she'd liked that'd made her laugh and coloring in the book. It felt like the right thing to do...and it was. If nothing else, if she'd been here, I think those were things she would have loved getting as presents, and that works.

More's been coming up for me since. See, I hadn't thought of that aspect of her personality in years. I don't think I'd forgotten it. I just think it was something I wasn't ready to remember. Because it opens up my own enjoyment of whimsical things like that...and the vulnerability that comes with that kind of innocent enjoyment. I don't think I was ready to deal with that before. I think things had been too raw, too scary. And now they're not, or at least not so much. I spent some time sitting with that tonight, and was good with it for maybe half an hour before I found myself closing up again. I guess that's OK for now. Being able to connect with that part of myself again, and to remember that part of her, is the important step at this point. I guess it just goes to show that healing does happen, even if we don't see it going on. Sometimes it will just surprise us from out of nowhere. And maybe it says something for me that, even though this felt somewhat strange, I was able to sit with and appreciate what it means.

In Inferno and Escape from Hell, there are references to the attributes of saints developed by those who have gotten free and wandered through Hell to try to help others through. In the second book, the main character at one point is surprised to find he has one of those gifts, the gift of tongues. There's never any mention of what he specifically did to earn it or how it came to him. He was just doing what he felt was right, trying to get free and to free others. And it just came. Much like the gift of the whimsical came to me on her birthday.

Does It Ever Get Better???

Being part of several widows & widowers groups, I think I can say honestly & accurately that this is the question I've heard come up the most often: does it ever get better? It comes up in different forms, sometimes worded just like that, sometimes asking if it keeps going like this forever, sometimes hidden in questioning what we did to deserve this. It's even often implied underneath statements of not feeling like life's worth living now or not being sure how much more we can take. There's that question that follows and haunts and taunts us. Does it ever get better?

I don't know that I can answer that with solid authority. I'm coming up on 4.5 years out, not as long as some other folks I've gotten to meet have made it. But I have lasted this long. And I've seen others who've come along, too. So, while I can't answer this question with regard to what can happen over the span of decades, I can speak for a period of almost five years.

The simple answer to that question of whether it ever gets better is: Yes. The problem with that, as with almost all simple answers to complex questions, is that while it's true it's also very inaccurate in its limitation. “Better” is a relative thing. It implies a comparison to some other thing or state of being. And it doesn't specify in what way or ways things are better. What's important to me might be relatively meaningless to someone else...and vice versa. And how much of a change does it have to be to qualify as “better?” Sure, from a purely mathematical standpoint, ANY improvement qualifies for “better.” However, when it comes down to how things feel, then it takes more than that. There's a minimum threshold (again, varying for each of us) that has to be met to notice the difference, for it to be meaningful. And, when we're still reeling from the loss, there's yet another complicating factor. At that point, about all we can compare is how life felt before the death/loss, usually focusing on the good aspects, to what life's become. We don't have the capacity at that point to see what it could become, and so usually the idea of “better” is framed in terms of closer to what it used to be.

So what do I mean by “better?” It's hard to come up with a specific definition for it. The easiest place to start is to give some examples, and then go from there. There came a day when I drove past the hotel where she'd gone to end her life and I didn't feel the urge to scream and claw my face off while driving off a cliff. And then, after that, there was the first time I drove by there and didn't realize I was doing so 'til I was past it. There was the first time I had a good memory of her come up and for the first 10 or 15 seconds it didn't hurt or make me want to howl. Later, there was the first time one of those good memories was only tinged with sadness, where that didn't become the overwhelming emotion that came along with it. There was the first night when I fell asleep and didn't realize 'til the next morning that I hadn't been thinking about how much I missed her being there. The first time I felt like I could make it through a whole day. Or the first time I felt like I could probably make it through one of the Big Days (birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, etc).

You might've noticed a theme here, of being somewhat surprised by changes. Well, that's the way it's seemed to go, for me and others I know. See, I think what happens is that we grow and heal in tiny increments every day. The problem is, when they're so small, we don't pick up on them. It's not 'til we've suddenly got a new capacity back or a notable improvement that it suddenly seems like we've healed. I think the truth is that we've been healing all along, it was just happening below the level of our awareness.

However, there's another piece to it, too. I know in the first year, it was more than just things hurting. There was a sense of being not only empty but also shattered. It came up with feeling like something should've been hitting me harder or meaning more, but it wasn't. That there was supposed to be an associated additional memory or experience, but it's just not there. Like trying to put together a puzzle and realizing that there are pieces missing. And at least one of the ones that's missing is the one that's responsible for how upset we end up feeling over things being missing. Part of what I saw only much later that meant things were getting better was that, in the second year, things hurt and were a lot more upsetting. I thought I was going backward, that I was going crazy, that I was falling apart. I understand now that it was the capacity to have things connect, to feel, that was coming back on-line. It didn't feel better, but it was a sign of things getting better. And this was only one thing that I didn't understand at the time, that I didn't see until later. There've been a LOT of those.

I remember being only a few months out from me darlin' wife's suicide and hearing the same from other folks. At the time, I didn't see how it was possible. I didn't think they were lying to me, but I couldn't fathom how it'd relate to me, to my situation. Sure, that was what'd happened for THEM, but that didn't mean it'd happen for me, too. And besides, how much was it maybe that they'd just learned to bury and hide it really well? That it felt better 'cause they weren't looking at it anymore, but it was still there? Or maybe I was just too broken to be able to do and have what they'd done and gotten. I didn't know. I just knew that I couldn't see it. And yet I could relate about so many other things they talked about. While I couldn't understand or believe, they gave me a critical element: hope. Maybe I could someday get somewhere near where they were, too.

So, does it get better? Yes, it does. When you're lost in the middle of it, no one can tell you how or when it'll happen. No one can give you an understanding of that journey. A large piece of it is just going through until you see it for yourself. When people tell you it can get better, there'll be plenty of times when it'll be hard to believe that. That's OK. If you can take it as something to give even a glimmer of hope, that can be enough.

How Have Things Changed??

This started from a post I saw from a fellow suicide widow in a support group on the 'Net. She's going back to school and posted the following: “Alrighty folks, I'm writing an essay on the effects of suicide. In your opinion, how has suicide effected your life? Financially, emotionally, long term effects? I know how it has effected me, but I wanted to hear from other survivors.” At first, I just had a couple of words come to mind. Then more than a quick response would really allow. As I've thought more about it, more kept coming to mind, and it occurred to me that it's a good question to deal with in a post.

First off, how about the effects I see as bad/negative:

• After 11 years of marriage and almost 15 years together, I've been having to figure out life on my own. That not only includes things like goals and plans, but also a fair chunk of my own identity.
• Financially I'm in a harder space than I was before. It's always easier when you can split the bills with someone else. She was also the one who kept on top of getting them paid on time, and I'm still struggling with that.
• In terms of emotions, I know it's harder for me to be happy than it was before. I just don't seem to have the same strength or intensity of positive responses to things that I used to.
• Along with that, it's easier for less pleasant emotions to hit hard. Thankfully anger seems to be fading back down to about what it was before, at least overall. However, it's still substantially easier to get sad or anxious these days.
• Physically I don't have the energy that I used to. I've recovered a fair amount, but not back to where I was. And, added to that, I picked up an arrhythmia in my heart since her death, and it's hard to think that didn't have at least some to do with it.
• I have a harder time being as focused and productive at my job. Thankfully it's not so bad I'm in danger of losing my employment, but I also know that I'm not doing as well as I used to there, either.
• I can't say I'm sleeping much worse now, because I wasn't sleeping real great in the last couple years before she took her life. However, I was able to handle running low on sleep better than I can now.
• I know this is more on me, but I picked up smoking again. I'd been quit for several years before she'd died, and was even able to stand outside with her when she'd smoke and be OK. I know it was my choice to pick it up again, but I also know that I very likely wouldn't have without having to go through dealing with not just her death but all the extra crap that comes with suicide.
• There are still a fair number of things I wish I'd have been able to do, or do differently. Those thoughts don't come up as often, but I suspect that they'll never fully go away.

These are, however, counterbalanced by some things that are positive:

• I would likely never have learned as much about cooking, and how much I enjoy it, as I've done in the last four years. At first it was primarily driven by necessity. Now, though, I'm finding there's a great deal I enjoy about it, especially seeing if I can make/do new things.
• I also likely wouldn't have gotten back into hiking the way I did last summer. And one good thing that came from that was getting to see that I can still manage a really tough hike in a pretty short amount of time, even 20 years after the first time I did it. Not bad for a middle-aged desk jockey.
• I wouldn't have made the friends I have through some of the groups that I've been lucky enough to become part of. There are some truly amazing people I've met, several of whom have humbled me more than once by what they've said and done...though never with malice. It's always been leaving me in awe, and wanting to be like them when (if??) I grow up.
• I'd thought I was a pretty good person before. However, in dealing with all of this, I've gotten to see I have depths of character I hadn't dreamed were there. Lord knows I've still got a lot to work on and some more growing up to do, but there are also aspects of me that I'm quite pleased with and proud of. One example was seeing that I could drag myself to the memorial service for a co-worker's wife who'd passed away...five months after me darlin' wife had shuffled off this mortal coil. I hadn't wanted to go. I hadn't planned on going. And yet I showed up and was able to offer a few words of condolence and support. Plus, I didn't start crying until I'd left and gotten out to my car.
• As hard as it is to admit, I'd feel like I'd be lying to not admit that my life's now better for not having to deal with her anxiety and depression and isolation and rage.
• At this point, I think I've got an overall better sense for who she was, both good aspects and bad. However, that's counterbalanced by knowing that my memories of her have gotten a bit faded and fuzzy with the passing of time, and so I'm not sure.
• I firmly believe that us being together bought her a fair chunk of the last 15 years of her life that she might not have otherwise had. She'd told me several times in the last few years I was the main thing that kept her holding on and kept her going. Well, I can now view things as having in part been what gave her a chance to deal with her stuff, and that's a lot right there.

I'm sure there's more to it than that, but those are the first things that had come to mind. I don't want to write out a novel here, or use it as an intensive, in-depth therapy exercise. I do think it's good, though, that it wasn't too difficult to identify a decent number of aspects that're both good and bad. In slogging through the Hell of grief from suicide, it's sometimes way too easy to get lost in what's broken or tarnished or stained or just....wrong. That's part of it, but it's not all. And that's good to KNOW.

Four Years: My Progress and My Choice

February 4^th is the date I.....what is the right word? It's sure as Hell not “celebrate.” That's got too much of an implication of something that's appreciated and enjoyed and brings happiness, which this day doesn't. Perhaps the right word is “honor”....or even “remember”....when me darlin' wife died. I know it's not the actual day she died. They couldn't tell me that, but from what they described (and what I saw for myself) of the condition of her body, it wasn't that day. I have my guess of when it was, but I'll likely not know for sure, at least not in this life. Regardless, that's the day that's set aside. And this time 'round, it was four years ago.

First off, I never thought I'd get this far, either in terms of what I've dealt with or even just seeing this many pages on the calendar turn by. For a long time, my goal was to get to where I felt like I could handle a single day at a time, and that was months in the coming. Even just a single year? Forget it! The fact that it's now been four (and a spare bit o' change) is still somewhat surreal. I guess it'll sink in at some point, hopefully not too close on when I'll be coming up on year five.

I wasn't sure (yet again) what to do on the day this year. The only thought that came at first was part of what I'd done last year, namely buying a couple of flowers and leaving one in front of the hotel room where she died and another at a place that'd been special to us both, where we'd renewed our vows on our 10-year wedding anniversary, where I'd scattered a bit of her ashes. As I sat with it, that idea kept feeling more and more not-right, especially at the hotel. It wasn't so much about getting “caught” as the idea that it'd be passing on at least some confusion and awkwardness to others, if not some of the pain. And yet no other idea was coming. One of the prices to be paid for going with what feels right over having a set tradition and leaving it at that, I suppose.

The day before, when I was out having a smoke, I was mulling just that over, when an idea hit me. I've got a friend who uses the term “God-winks,” and I think that fits a fair number of things. However, this felt more like what I'd heard of as a “God-bomb” in one of Stephen King's books. Bear in mind that, as I write it out here, the whole thing blazed into my mind all at once, information that felt like it was carried on a spear of light. The idea was simply that what'd happened four years ago was tragic and painful and sad, and that a lot of why it'd come about had been due to tragedy and pain and sadness. Doing something to focus on those same feelings again would, in some ways, be remaining in and perpetuating that same dynamic. Instead, perhaps, it would be better to break that chain, to spend some of the time that day praying for healing instead. I can't claim credit for having thought of that. I'm not that smart nor that wise. I'm just grateful I at least had the capacity to listen and not reject it out of hand for not fitting with how I'd been looking at things. And the more I sat with it, the more right it felt.

On the day itself, I left work a couple hours early. After dropping off my work stuff and changing out of work clothes (and feeding the cat, 'cause I had no idea how long I'd be about this), I snagged a pocket-sized notebook and a list of places and headed out. All of the places listed were ones that seemed to have associations with things she'd been able to face down and overcome or places where she'd grown. And, at each, I spent at least a few minutes there, just reflecting on what she had done and what those places had represented for her, ending with jotting a few notes on what came to mind into that notebook. The places themselves don't really matter, at least not to anyone else, and I won't share them all here. Nor will I share all the things that came to mind, as some are very deeply personal still. Some I will share, though.

I stopped by the place where we got married. She'd been married before, and from what she'd told, it had ended badly and painfully. For her to decide to take a chance on marriage again took a great deal of courage and willingness to be vulnerable again. There's no guarantee with taking that step, and it represents both a massive risk of pain as well as an equally massive chance of fulfillment and joy. I get that now, much better than when we wed. Another was the school where she'd gone for her medical assistant training. She'd believed she was smart before, but this was a place where she got to show and see it for sure. She did incredibly well, graduating with a 3.96 GPA, which was far better than I'd ever done at my best (and I told her so repeatedly). A third was a coffee shop she'd gone to for awhile, checking out a local meet-up group. She'd been somewhat leery of reaching out to a community again, and this time around was able to find a group of her own, and some good friends. That took a lot of courage, too, as well as being willing to look at what role she'd played in some not-so-great experiences before in order to avoid repeating them.

All told, I was out and about with this for four hours. It was a real challenge to stay focused on those instances of healing and growth. The sadness and anger wanted to come up, did boil up hard a couple of times. At least I was able to set them aside for the moment while going through that. The couple places before the last were hardest, where I felt the most turmoil and resistance, but after the last it felt like a huge weight was lifted. I went home and lit a candle for her, and offered all the energy and good intention that revisiting those places—and even more importantly, those memories—had pulled together. I'd hope some would go her way if she's still needing it. I reckon some stayed with me, as that's often how those things seem to go. And the rest, whatever's left over, I offered out to the Creator to share with those as might be in need.

I'm still reeling and recovering. It was an exhausting process. The way my mental autopilot has been making a lot more mistakes lately lets me know just how demanding it was. At the same time, I can also be grateful to have gotten to a point where that's something I can do. There will always be sadness and probably occasional anger or resentment about what she did. But it's good to see that I don't have to be ruled by it. If there was any question left, this proves (at least to me) that the grief and loss can no longer run or define me, not unless I let them.

Is this the final climb down out of Hell? The scramble along the frozen passage at the bottom, where the devil stands trapped in ice? The way to the Great Egress? I don't know. But if it's not, it's put me far closer to it than I've ever been. And that gives me continued hope.

Complicated Grief Study, Part the Second

It's been awhile since my first blog post about the Complicated Grief study I've been part of, which I put together back in early November of last year. At the time, we'd gotten into doing some exposure/systematic desensitization work to help make difficult/uncomfortable tasks more approachable. It's been some time since then, and there's been more that's gone on...and come up.

One of the biggest things was something we started doing a few weeks ago. It's called the “Imaginal Conversation,” where we work with one of the group therapists. It starts out with the group therapist taking the role of the deceased loved one, and we're supposed to talk to them as if they're really there, as if this was a miraculous chance for a last conversation with them. The therapist doesn't really respond, and serves more as a placeholder and someone to focus on, which I'm guessing is in part to help make it more vivid and more real. They might ask about a couple of the things we've brought up that were important, but that'd be about it. When we're done with that, we switch. We then take on the role of the deceased while the therapist switches into our place. And the next part of the task is for us to pretend to be the deceased responding to what we'd just said. Again, the therapist isn't really saying anything, with the possible exception of a brief comment about something that might be important to us. The third and final phase of it is switching back to the original arrangement, where we're again ourselves and the therapist is in the place of the deceased. This is a last chance for us to respond to what we thought the deceased might've said in response to us.

If it feels a little confusing keeping track of the switches and responses, you're in good company.

We got them done over two weeks. The first week, two of the women in the group went through it. I was very glad that I didn't have to, for two reasons. The first and lesser reason was that I had a presentation to do the next morning. I figured going through that exercise would stir up a bunch of things for me, and likely result in sleeping/resting quite poorly. The second reason, the one that was a lot stronger, was that when they first announced what we were going to be working on, my initial response internally was panic, followed quickly by anger bordering on rage. It made it hard to focus on and pay attention to what else was happening in the group. I think I did OK at that and at least offered some support and validation and encouragement to the two who went first. But I was very, very seriously afraid that if they'd gotten me up there on that first night, I'd have erupted in front of the group....and that would NOT have been pretty.

It was my turn the week later. At least by then most of the anger had subsided. The thoughts were still around, but the intensity of the emotion had dropped a lot. I was still exceptionally anxious about it. I recall talking with one of the older women in the group beforehand, with both of us stating we weren't sure we'd be able to handle it. To make a long story short, I went first that night...and I handled it. I had a token/talisman (story for another time) that I held on to and ran my fingers over the whole time. There wasn't the anger I'd been afraid of when I did my turn. Actually, the comment that's stuck with me and still bounces around in my head since then was about how much love and tenderness they saw, both when I was speaking as myself and when I was speaking as me late darlin' wife.

That's been the hardest thing to deal with, to come to grips with. I'm still not sure why. Is it that I'd wanted it so desperately at the end, and it had become so scarce? That I'd blocked that out as a way to get through? That I've been afraid of the vulnerability that goes along with that kind of tenderness and love? That it's been easier to cover that over with anger (either vengeance or cold disdain)? That there's been some guilt for having cared and invested so much in someone who ended up doing something that hurt me so badly? I don't know. I'm still trying to sort it out.

What I can say is that the last week we met, we went through telling the story once more about what happened to them. And this time there was more of the tenderness in how I told the story. How I felt while telling it. What I remembered and what I shared. And that, with the anniversary of her death coming up, I feel the sadness more pervasively but less intensely than I have before.

The only other thing to mention at this point from the group has to do with the Memory Forms we've filled out. The first two were things we recalled about the deceased, good things about them and good times we shared. This latest one, though, is entitled “Some Difficult Times.” It asks about times that were hard and qualities of the deceased that we didn't like. And even of possible ways that life is now easier that they're not here anymore. I'm not sure why that's being done now, at the end. But I'm trusting they know what they're doing. It's worked out well so far.

Two more weeks to go.