My editor lives in the next town over and knew about J.J. so she offered to take me out for coffee today, coffee being a code term for taking an hour to grab some sort of non-alcoholic drink and something sweet to eat, then hanging out together for a good old-fashioned bitch session.

There’s a place in Allen that I particularly like for their boba tea and mochi donuts, so we spent an hour there talking about losing pets, our quilting (we both love to quilt and often bring our latest projects to coffee time), her recent trip to her husband’s home state, and other things that were meant to soothe me and get me back onto an even keel.

Which I kinda need. I hate crying with a passion—it makes my eyes puffy, it’s hard to see, and I get whanging sinus headaches. So the fact that I’ve been bursting into tears every couple of hours has not been pleasant, as you might guess. I know grief is a process, everyone goes through it at their own pace, and at some point I’ll be able to think of J.J. and not tear up. But I haven’t reached that point yet (apparently I am in the Pain and Guilt stage of grieving)

So I’ll just keep a handkerchief on me and rely on my friends to cheer me up. Luckily for me I have great friends who are really good at doing just that.