[JonInMiddleGA]

I hate to so frequently be the one who bumps this thread but, well, y'all have been on this ride a long time so it feels like you're just part of it, you belong.

Repurposing from my social media cause, well, easier.

Need to say something, not really sure what nor how. That usually leads to me rambling a bit so there's your warning I guess.

Today would have been our 29th wedding anniversary. Or should I still say "is", even if we don't get to celebrate it together? I don't really know how that works exactly.

And that phrase sums up the great bulk of the last six months or so: I don't know how any of this works.

I won't lie, I've been dreading today for weeks now. More than anything perhaps, from simply not knowing how it would hit.

Mostly, I've done what I do quite a bit lately: try to find ways to avoid thought as much as possible. Stay up too late with one gaming-related distraction or another, sleep well into the day, suddenly you've avoided half the day. It's imperfect perhaps but it feels better than a lot of the alternatives.

But I've noted in recent weeks that I seem to have like "delayed reaction" to some triggers, like the weight of something lands not at the time but a couple days later. And so now I'll wait on that shoe to drop too.

I've thought quite a bit in the past few days about how many people I know who've been where I am. Some as new to it as I am, others who've had decades of experience with it. What I suspect is that every one of them would have a different insight into how you handle these this stuff. All the stuff.

I don't think there IS a "right way" or a "wrong way", there's just the "do the best you can way". Imperfect, with all the bruises and scuff marks that come with imperfection.

Sometimes you just stub your toe, other times you fall down a long flight of stairs and bounce off the wall and hit every bannister on the way down ... and while you're tumbling, you're just hoping there's not a pile of barbed wire & broken glass waiting on you at the bottom.

Right way, wrong way, best you can way. As I get the tears back in check over here, I'm thinking about how many variations of those phrases were used in describing over 28 years of marriage.

That ain't how most people talk about anniversaries I guess, but it worked for us. How else could you explain anybody putting up with me for so long?
I went that route in observing our anniversary most years, she most often reminded me that she "promised it'd never be dull".

Oh what I wouldn't give for some dull, some routine, some normal-for-us.

I love you honey, and I miss you.