I like kimchi a lot more than I used to. Ate a whole bowl yesterday with some duk mandoo gook I took out from a local mandoo place. I even enjoyed the smell and purposely inhaled deeply a few times.
I have a really hard time using explanation marks in my writing now. Like even when I leave someone a Facebook message wishing them a happy birthday amidst lots of other excited, "Hope it's a great day!"'s mine is just "happy birthday."
I think a lot about how much I've already changed since you died and how, should you walk in the door right now, we'd have to become reacquainted in a whole new way. I don't know why I waste my time thinking about this.
I think also about the days and hours before I would receive that phone call. Though I haven't asked "God, how could you let my husband drown?" a whole lot, I do find myself wondering quite often, "God, how could you watch me those days and hours before, knowing what was ahead for me...how could you watch?"
Another new friend who lost her boyfriend tells me how frightening she's finding the spring-like weather we had last week. I concur. It was horrible.
I usually dread the winter and wait all year long for the spring...I've always found it intoxicating. And I thought for most of this time, I'd find it that way still...hopeful- Easter, flowers, and green leaves. But I was wrong. This is the first year I've enjoyed the winter. All of the snow was a good excuse to stay inside and rest...it eased the pressure...it was a buffer from the world outside. The exuberance of spring will be less welcome. It mostly means seasons are truly passing and the one year anniversary is approaching. I hear from most women that the second year, after all the "firsts" have been accounted for-
is far worse.
I received a brief and kind note from an old friend yesterday saying she prays for me and Audrey and that she trusts God is comforting me and holding me up. I want to tell those who haven't gone through this- "No, I have felt no comfort. There has been nothing supernatural when I sit alone each night and turn off the light when I'm finally too tired to stay awake and I have no tears left. I have felt abandonment, not 'God with us.'"
But then maybe I have no choice but to acknowledge the "holding up part." I remember telling you that if anything ever happened to you, "I would just die." But here I am.