one more thing

So I called Vanguard today. I think this is the last place I have to call. My dad had a bunch of IRAs, I don't even know why, and so my brother and I split two of them (one from Fidelity and one from Vanguard) and my mom got the rest and it's just a lot of effort to call places and deal with this

At least at Vanguard they have a "transfer specialist" so you don't go through a phone-tree. He walked me through the big, heinous form I had to fill out

So that's done. And so am I. I have to go back and work on stuff and be available for students but I really just want to go back to bed.

This really IS like having a whole second job that I don't know how to do and am not very good at. (And another job I have now - analyzing all the intro-class pre-test assessment data; I inherited that task from someone who "jumped upstairs" to take on an admit position. They left exactly zero instructions as to what to do and I admit I have been putting it off because it is just one more thing I can't mentally cope with).

I'm praying this grief thing gets easier over time. Right now it is very hard. And I don't know if making it chemically easier (e.g., medication) would just draw it out longer or if this is one of those "rip the band-aid off" things.

****

I will say this is hands-down the hardest thing I have ever dealt with in  my life.

the prior hard things:

- being an unpopular kid in school
- being "dumped" by a good friend abruptly
- being asked to leave my first graduate program
- taking on a Master's degree elsewhere, completing it
- doing a Ph.D. (And the lead up - going to my advisor and asking him if he thought I was "smart enough" to do a Ph.D., given the previous history at the other school)
- moving away from everyone I knew, 700 miles away,
- earning tenure after a rocky start here
- surviving in one year: congregational split, suicide of a cousin, sudden death of a close friend's husband, my dad's cancer diagnosis
- the 2016 budget cuts.

Any of those were easier - and maybe even combined - they are easier than this.

I know I will survive this but right now it is just hard. I am telling myself "It's only been a month" but man will I be glad when I get out of the mode of "do one (1) task, and then have to sit down for fifteen minutes"