By Jody Lee
radio host, author, political and lifestyle blogger, media consultant
Published: November 16, 2009

What is it about the time change this year?  Usually I breeze right through it and barely notice.

This year, though, something is different.  Maybe it is the time change, or maybe it is some other changes that have coincided with it.

It either case, it’s kinda freaking me out.

Is it just me or is the dark a little darker and the early a little earlier?  Truly the dark seems deeper and seems to set in earlier than it used to each fall. 

I recently lost someone I had once loved deeply.  Every woman knows that when you love deeply, it never completely goes away.  A part of your heart is forever devoted to that love, like it or not.  I liked it.  I liked thinking that some day, one day, we might even find our way back to each other.

He didn’t just die.  He died in a fiery plane crash.  And frankly, the world in general has seemed a bit darker since it happened.  So maybe it’s not the time change after all.  Maybe it IS me.

Even though he was not a part of my daily life at the time of his death, his absence has left me feeling - - well, different.  Changed somehow.  Maybe even profoundly.  And in a way I cannot quite put my finger on.  It is not good, not bad.  At least, I don’t think so.  It’s just different.  And I find myself scrambling to figure out how to deal with it.

Anybody?

It’s funny.  Just when you think you’ve got a handle on life and how it works, it throws you a curve.  At my age I should be used to it.  But as it turns out, not so much. 

His mother gave me an old ball cap of his.  I find myself wearing it a lot, hat hair be damned.