home

We're all home from our week away. The kids spent the weekend with my mom and I headed up alone to the town where Jeff and I met. Fell in love. Had history and many stories. Our town.
The last time I was here was the day before Jeff died. I picked him up and brought him home to go to the doctor.
I avoided the dock where the boat had been docked that day but visited many of the places that contain so many memories...the lighthouse we went to so often in the middle of the night when I had finished my shift....
The pub where we met, that I worked at for so many years and the scene of many of our hilarious stories...
Went to some of the beaches with friends...
Watched some old favourite activities...
And scoped out various things that I remeber looking at with Jeff...so long ago...a different life, it seems....Now all alone.
I felt the lack of his physical presence constantly. I went out dancing with friends...it felt fake and forced. I enjoyed seeing friends. Trying to laugh. But I carried this cynical angry feeling with me as I watched everyone moving and laughing. I tried to pretend to be feeling the same things. The joy. The lack of loneliness.

Don't get me wrong, it was soothing to be there. Like coming home. Feeling wrapped in the familiar. So many memories to relive....
But feeling the hole where all the memories of our future together should have been...
I sat in places that he and I would sit and talk. Crying. Wishing he was with me. Wishing I could have prepared myself for the loneliness of my life without him before he was gone...and it was too late.

I know nothing could have prepared me in all actuality...But I would have sat here with him longer. I would have held his hand harder. Now there is just me. Just me and this lighthouse. In the wind and the sun. Not in the dark watching the strobe of light from tower, listening to the melancholy sound of the 'can-boy' off in the distance while coccooned within Jeff's arms and his jacket.
I saw some of the fisherman and boats that we knew. It was comforting to share the burden of the loss of Jeff with someone else. To have someone who missed him too be close to me.

Someone that I hadn't seen in about six months asked me how Jeff was. Fucking painful and awkward. I didn't want to do this. I didn't want to have to tell the story yet again. But I did. I tried not to cry. I told him it was okay. He didn't need to apologize for not knowing. But I just wanted to leave. I wanted to curl up in my bed with my sweet little ones and sleep. Forget. Disappear.
But this difficult encounter was made up for by the constant presence of loving friends who I am so very grateful for...

The reconnection with dear old pals who I hadn't seen in awhile...
And the comfort from those who miss Jeff so very, very much as well.


I will go back 'home' soon now that I've 'ripped the band-aid off'. Liv wants to get up there too and see people we're close to. I want to bring my beloved Eli up there for one last visit to the village he and I spent so very many years in to get his big old paws sandy on the shore he loved to tear around on and to sleep on the lawn of our favourite restaurant while I eat my lunch on the porch.

It was a wonderful, bittersweet weekend. I'm glad I went...It was another 'first' I've conquered without Jeff. I am hoping that subsequent trips won't as painful.