Anniversary…

 Today would have been my 36th anniversary.

It has been 14 months. My life has changed. Oh my goodness, my life has changed so much. I am a different person than I was then. Not by choice, and not in a way I would have chosen, but I am happy with who I have become. In the past 14 months, I have…buried a husband, buried my father in law and his daughter, who had become over this past couple of years, one of my best friends. I watched my youngest son marry the woman he loves, and I’ve watched my oldest struggle with issues that have often broken my heart, but also made me respect him so, so, so, much. (as if I didn’t already) 

I have purchased a house on my own.

I moved to a different place…a city after many years of living in a small town.

I have marketed but not sold my old house

I have made many, many, decisions I would have never thought I would have to make on my own.

I have made mistakes

I have gotten things right

I have learned

I have grown

I wrote a note to someone recently and then had cause to go back and look at what I wrote. I wrote that it was worth it. Every. Single. Day. was worth it. Even the last one. Because love is everything.

So many things change…the anger is gone. The sadness and missing are not… They are usually like a dull ache that has actually become almost like a friend, and then suddenly, I see something, hear something, smell something and it is sharp like a knife. I still sometimes lose my breath it is so painful. But, those times seem a little less each day, and as I said, the ache has become my friend. It lets me know that he is still with me, and that I can still feel.

14 months…a whole year of birthdays, anniversarys, holidays, seasons. A whole cycle starting again.

So many things have changed. 

But the love is still the same. The love is everything.