The 13th anniversary
Felt like sharing something I’ve written, today on our 13th wedding anniversary.
Michael learns to rock. It’s a separate playlist I made two weeks ago. I listen to it on this bright Sunday morning, full of breezes and winter chills. All that’s needed is a hot cup of tea, yet another one, yes. And all that’s missing is you.
The songs stir me, the way only music from your youth can. And now with the notes, comes a knife too. It twists my insides, piercing through that pain in the center of my chest. A tangible wound that I now walk around with all the time, and sleep with at night. Sometimes the pain is dull, when I’m with a friend, or laughing with our son, or watching an episode of my favourite crime investigation television series. And sometimes, it shoots through me as sharply and fiercely as the day I lost you, and the tears start and can’t stop, and my heart wants you back even when my head say it’s not possible.
This song is one we have danced to many many times, under many moons. Half the songs on this playlist fit that description. My heart smiles. I remember. How my cousin taught you to foxtrot at our very first dance together. The look on your face when you came to pick me up and saw me all dressed up as I opened the door. What you said to me, with your words and with your eyes. My peach dress. Your tall and slender frame in your grey suit. My hand on your shoulder. Your arm circling my waist. Floating together on an endless night. And then on the way home, when the whole world slumbered and dreamed and lay still, we walked down the street where only the two of us existed. The kiss in the shadow of the tree, its sweetness making my insides race and the night stop right there, in surprise and wonder.
The knife plunges deep, into places that I never knew were inside me, hurts that are new and raw. Do they ever get old, I wonder? Does the pain stop being fresh? Do the teardrops lessen in count? No answers. Once more.
For now, on this beautiful and painful Sunday, I am glad to know an exceedingly beautiful love. To have you look at me like I was the only girl in the world. To call you mine across time and decades. To love deeply, and be loved deeply, far far more deeply than this knife’s reach.
