The graveyard has been cleaned up and almost all of the leaves are gone. The place is definitely settling for winter now.

After Nadine died, I immediately started to force myself to socialize. I often saw no sense in going to pubs or concerts and kept asking myself before leaving the house: “Why are you doing this when you’re mostly thinking of something else anyway?” But it finally helped. I regained the ability to enjoy these things without bad thoughts and I’m doing them more often now than I used to over the last ten years. At the weekend we had a party in my hometown with lots of old friends and good music which I was able to comletely enjoy. Friends are definitely the best medicine in the world…

As much as I appreciate this development I still suffer from a lack of real purpose. As I realize now, my major task during the last decade was  to keep Nadine happy and to make the rest of her life as pleasant and enjoyable as possible. I did this with all of my heart and could not find any replacement yet. I’m not talking about another person, I’m talking about purpose in general. I try not to think about that too much and remain patient: time has already done a lot, but there’s still some work left…

Due to my holidays I haven’t been to the Waldfriedhof for more than two weeks. When I arrived there on Tuesday, the site was all covered in leaves and I expect winter to arrive soon.

During my stay in Southern France I deliberately chose not to follow any memorizing rituals in order to find out wether I still need them. It seems like I don’t. I also visited the graveyard only on the fourth day after my return which would have been unthinkable a few months ago. I can see that things are slowly going to change and I feel ambivalent about that. On the one hand side I feel guilty about reducing routines I interpret as acts of reverence. But on the other hand I start feeling better and seem to regain the ability to look forward. I don’t have any clear ideas about my future yet but maybe winter is going to turn that page.

I’m going to leave for Southern France tomorrow morning. I will visit Fitou, the place where Nadine and I spent most of our holidays from the very beginning of our relationship. The place where she always loved to go and felt relaxed immediately . Especially at Leucate Plage, as you can see in the picture. I haven’t been there for about one and a half years but I feel that it’s the right time to go there again now.

This time I will travel with a few guys from my chessclub. We stay at Fitou for one week and take part in a tournament at Cap D’Agde later. So you propably won’t hear from me again before November.