I awoke this morning as usual~
grabbed my phone-aka-bedside clock from the nightstand
gently <squeekingly!> closed the bedroom door to John’s slumber
flicked the kettle and stretched as it began to sizzle and stir towards boiling.
coffee.
Once properly beveraged I sat propped on two throw pillows
journal on lap, pen in hand, glasses perched on nose.
And I dated my next entry:
1 April 2014 am
I began to write.
then felt a stir of remembrance.
Today would’ve been our 25th wedding anniversary.
The beautiful ginger-ranga’s dad and I weathered so much…
this anniversary I realized just this morning is
no less an anniversary because we are not.
It is still ours.
Today we would’ve been married 25 years
and this is our anniversary-
of the years we’ve lived.
It is so easy to see the hurt, pain, betrayal, mistrust, divisiveness, let-down
that divide things once put together. One could spend a lifetime lingering there.
It is decidedly much more difficult to look at the right that came from those wrongs.
Yet even amidst the initial days and months of ‘done’ I always had a niggling in the back of my brain
behind the anger
pain
frustration
guilt
terror
That was telling me we,
he and I,
were okay.
It was alright.
This was the proverbial ‘for the best’ and in that niggling voice I could never hate him.
I could never lash out. Grow despondent. Shout to the world my frustrations.
Because in it I knew what we’d done and been and built and even demolished together
was what is and would make us
altogether
in the end.
The niggling grows stronger each year.
As April 1 rolls around,
or in the case of this year, nearly passes unnoticed expect for its Fool’s Day celebratory distinction,
I realize the niggling has become my very life.
That the destruction we created
has only been a clearing away for a new foundation to be built.
Mine.
His.
Theirs.
I am living my best.
He is living his best.
They, blessedly, are living in and toward their best.
Not in spite of; not despite. Because of.
Because.
today would’ve been our 25th wedding anniversary.
And I celebrate.
Look what’s come of it afterall, after all….
always and forever
in love.
trish.