Full Circle

Tomorrow morning, I'll be on my way to Virginia Beach for my friend Lindy's wedding. Last June, just one month after Rick died, I spent a day at the beach with my three friends - Libes, Beth, and Lindy. I documented that day here on this blog.

"All three of my friends are getting married in the next year," I wrote that day. "I hear them talk about their plans and smile. All three of them deserve so much love and happiness. I am so excited to share in their joy and to see their lives unfold. It is a stark contrast to my own life, though, and it couldn't be clearer. They are starting their lives with the men they love and my life is just a blank page."

Well, Lindy is the last of the 3 getting married. The year of those 3 weddings, and simultaneously my first year post-death, is about to come to an end.

I remember that day at the beach and how I struggled to live in the now... turning off parts of my brain as needed in order to be able to smile, talk, and laugh. I have been lucky to have such good friends - those 3 among them - to punctuate this past year with many days of enjoyment and camaraderie.

Even back then, after that day at the beach, I wrote: "I don't have to think about my life pre-death or my life post-death. I don't have to draw a marker down the center of the timeline that is my life. I try to put a positive spin on the hand I've been dealt: I'm a writer, so a blank page has always appealed to me. I can do this. I have to live in the now, because there is no other way."

As a woman who is all about self-reflection, I love it when things come full circle. So here I am, kind of proud to say that for the most part I've learned to live in the now. And it's served me well! I still get impatient at times or find myself, like any normal person, letting my thoughts jump to the future, but I think that's healthy and only natural. I know, though, that I've learned to enjoy living in the moment. And I've been given the gift of so many great moments lately. I have been collecting so many moments of awesome, happy, special, and meaningful over the last few months. And as for how I feel about my life moving forward...I've discovered that living in the moment is actually the best way to begin to fill that blank page with the things that really matter...and the things I really want.