You Never See Me in The Club? Well I Never See You on the Cliffs.

Had my second anniversary with the ghost husband since his passing, (22nd in total) this week.

I have come real far, y’all.

And just… do you know the strength it takes to not be miserly in pouring light back into your own life? You have to really ignore moderation to do it, I’ll tell you that. Takes some real fucking dedication to self.

Anyway. I talk too much like that and I’m in for a smiting… so I won’t go too much more into it, (DOUBT) but that is what it takes. And then also couple that with the realization that I didn’t do that work solely alone, either. The gratitude I have for the way the people around us have held us these past years… that too has been so vital in bringing us all back.

Same as last year, I went out to Pace Bend Park and hiked along the cliffs where Lucas and I met and where he proposed.

Last year’s post found here.

And same as last year I listened to Lucas’s music all the way there.

The park, again, was empty. The campsite we loved looked fully abandoned now. The tree we used to pitch our tent under, a beautiful sprawling live oak… is now dead. I am guessing they don’t let people camp there anymore until it falls down. The grass was 3 feet high. No one had been here in a long time.

Nothing lasts forever. The center cannot hold.

But this was okay for my nervous system this year. Must something last forever to be beautiful? I stood there for a bit and then decided that no. No it doesn’t need to. It is okay.

The reverse of the Japanese concept applies here: Mono no aware: “the pathos of things” or an “appreciation of things in the shadow of their future absence.” I didn’t have that at the time, looking at all the beautiful, living things around me… so it’s almost the opposite now- to look back and smile at the dead and gone because they were once alive and lovely.

I came through this all- hey look at me! But I didn’t come through unchanged.

I am in fact, grateful for that too.

Black humor also helps.

It was so windy out of the cliffs. The lake was up and the wildflowers were blooming. I checked on the painted rocks I’d tucked under some cliff overhangs and they were still there. That they had looked out over the passing days and changing weather for 365 days, a whole year, since I had put them there… That was such a feeling to see. I hope they had a beautiful year.

This time I went late in the day and watched the sun set and the stars come out. The wind whipped my hair around and I just sat on the same rock Lucas did in that picture from the early 2000s (he stole my sunglasses that day, I remember… very Scott Weiland) and I just talked to him. I am almost positive I didn’t cry.

I poured us champagne and I talked and talked and talked- not updates on goings on (he’s there for all of those, I know) but just thoughts and memories and wishes and hopes. Look at me, I told him. Again with the hopes… what a change.

It felt like hanging out with my best friend, because that is exactly what it was.

At dusk an osprey wheeled right over me for a very long time. I drank the two glasses of champagne. I poured out the rest of the bottle. I watched the lights across the lake twinkle on the water. And I was still, with not a thought in my empty, empty brain for who has any idea how long- I was just existing as a person sitting on the surface of the planet… here for my own very short time, however long that may in fact be.

It was a good anniversary.

Short one today, because what else could I say after that… but Imma still leave ya with some memes too. Don’t think I won’t.