I’ve made it past the two year mark, and this time it wasn’t that traumatizing. The firsts are always the worst, it seems. The first anniversary, the first birthday, the first road trip, the first Christmas.
The first September without John was terrible, leading to my escape to Spain. This one, I felt like i could coast through it if I just didn’t think about it. If I don’t look down, I won’t get vertigo. If I don’t get vertigo, I won’t tip and fall.

I’ve changed a lot over the past year, and I’d like to think for the better…or at the very least, not for the worst.
I still get frustrated when people say how “well” I’m doing. I suppose I am doing well, but part of me still breaks at a feathers’ touch, and I’d like people to know that.
But I have felt hope creep into my life. It just happened.
I see a light that wasn’t there before, and I’ve accepted that this new me is going to make it… but in reality, what choice do I have other than ‘making it’.
The other option isn’t one I will consider.

I am still devastated John only saw death as his choice. It shatters my entire being into millions of pieces. To think of someone so kind and sweet, to have lost all hope, is soul wrenching. I do still think back to that night when I found him; trying to wake him. I sometimes imagine that he woke up when I shook him.
I imagine what I would say to him at that moment; how much I would hold him, and how much I could love him and help him through his ordeal.
I think about that.
A lot.
But that old adage, “if I knew then what I know now” only comes to be by suffering a terrible loss, sadly.
I also think about what we’d talk about if he just walked through the door after 2 years. I’d ask him where the hell he’d been, of course, but I’m hoping we’d also talk about where I am right now.
He’d like the travels I’ve done, and he’d ask me where I’m going next. He’d be proud of the changes I’ve made with the home, garden, and the changes I made within myself. He’d still call me Beaner. I’d still call him Behr. We would chat.
I’d ask him all sorts of things that the deceased probably can’t tell the living (top secret ghost stuff).
I’d ask him if he can see where I’m going.
How much turbulence can I expect?
Should I keep the seatbelt sign on?

I’d ask him if I’ll eventually have a hand to hold. If I’ll find a matching heartbeat in someone new. Would he help me find him? Have we already met?
I’m not sure if I’d ask John if that new hand would ever let go of mine, or if his heartbeat will stop before mine, because I’m not sure I want to know if I’m to experience loss again.
It’s not my choice, anyway. My only choice is to love his heart with my entire being while we are here.

Of all of the choices I could re-do, of all of the other options I’d take in my life if i had the chance for a do-over, I still think I’d chose the same sorrows. I’ve been told we would always repeat our sorrows, because if we didn’t, we’d have lost out on the joy that came before. And also, we do not like the unknown. We enjoy comfort, which, on occasion, can be stagnant and draining.

As painful as they are, I can’t change my sorrows. And without the sorrows of my past, I wouldn’t be who I am today.
I’m starting to like her.

Gotta run.