ANCHOR

We recently took a vacation to Florida; it's the first time I've been here since Steve and I took the girls in 2011. I did o.k. I think. I was really good until we stopped at the same rest stop where Steve had taken a picture of me and my girls under the "Welcome to Florida" sign. As soon as we pulled in there and I realized where I was, a flood of emotions hit me. 

By the time we arrived at our condo, I was doing better. Until, we went for a walk on the beach. I watched Jamie and Angel walk and leave footprints in the sand and then I watched the tide come in and wipe them away as if they never existed. The impact of that simple yet very complex moment hit hard.  All the things that Steve and I did and the "footprints" we made together  vanished so quickly and at some point it will be as if WE never existed. In 100 years, there is nothing on this planet that will prove the love we had for each other. There is no DNA combination of us that will continue on for generations. There's nothing left but my memories. Just like the ocean tides wiped away the girl's footprints, time will wipe away any existence of US together. It is impossible to wrap my mind around something that can mean so much to two people just vanishing and not only vanishing, but after I'm gone,  no proof of it's existence will remain except for a marriage license document and very few pictures we took together over 18 years. All of that hit me pretty hard while I was standing there watching the tide roll in and out. It took me a couple hours, but I re-focused and snapped back to the reality that there's nothing I can do to change any of it now.

I will probably forever grieve in different ways, but I can't anchor here. 

I have finally come to a place where I have found a new "normal" and, naively, I thought things like this wouldn't take me by surprise anymore. I was wrong! I've been struggling for a few months with realizing that the longer I continue to live the more distant my previous life becomes. Sometimes when I think about Steve or situations we experienced together, it feels more like a dream than reality, and I hate that. I know it's a natural cycle of loss, but I guess I had hoped it wouldn't happen to me.

The only way to keep it from happening is to stay so buried in the pain that you can't live.

For a while, I didn't have a choice; I was buried. But, eventually I got to a point that I felt like our love was somehow diminished if I tried to stop hurting so much. I felt like it somehow meant I didn't love him enough, if I was able to find a way to live without him. It wasn't guilt, it was something completely different; I don't know how to explain it. I'm a pretty black and white type of person, not many shades of grey exist for me. I finally had to give myself permission to figure out how to live in a shade of grey when it comes to all of this. I couldn't be black and white with this level of tragedy. I couldn't stay buried in grief and I couldn't just move on like nothing ever happened. So, I've been charting new territory and learning how to keep living , yet giving myself permission to grieve when I need to. It is a different kind of life and just like everything in life, I know I will screw it up sometimes, but I'm living and doing the best I can. I'm finally to a place where I can say, 

Life is good again; it is different, but it is good. 

P.S. The rest of our trip was wonderful. We made many new memories and took TONS of pictures :)

2011 - Me and the girls

2015 The Girls

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