Memories

In the back of a dark closet a memory patiently slept for me to rediscover and unzip its contents this morning....

My wedding dress...

Sitting on the floor fingering the aging lace on the simple, high bodiced, oh-so 70's A-line dress my dearest aunt so lovingly made for me to wear that stereotypically sunny, Southern California Saturday afternoon, July 31, 1971 came flooding back as if it were yesterday...

sights…

smells...

sounds...

feelings...

memories...

such loving memories...

so many folks now gone who shared that day with us…

not the least of those the man for whom the reason existed...

and memories of another day nearly 31 years later for which he was also the reason…

memories…

20 years old...

I thought I knew so much about life back then...

sigh

So long ago and yet…

still…

yesterday…

The lessons learned since that day.

And, yet to not know the more to life at all.

Standing in the sunlight of those precious memories…I miss him.


The Way We Were (Barbra Streisand)

Mem'ries,
Like the corners of my mind
Misty water-colored memories
Of the way we were

Scattered pictures,
Of the smiles we left behind
Smiles we gave to one another
For the way we were

Can it be that it was all so simple then?
Or has time re-written every line?
If we had the chance to do it all again
Tell me, would we? could we?

Mem'ries, may be beautiful and yet
What's too painful to remember
We simply choose to forget

So it's the laughter
We will remember
Whenever we remember...
The way we were...
The way we were...

I'll never forget.

Phases

Phases…I’m going through them again. Full moon…waning to the unseen New Moon…waxing again to that which is full.

Serenity flees when I don’t feel well. Unsettled and mentally disorganized.

I swear that little “germ” was driving a half-trac…all over my bones.

I hate being sick…it makes me whiny, wimpy and weepy…brings back shadows lurking behind unseen corners.

Even so…the visit is short…stronger for every fall back into the grey mists of memories, I look for that well worn path and come right again…or as right as I’m going to get at any rate.

Searching Rhapsody for some Outlaw Music to bring some bounce to my step…there it was…

A file named…

Grief Music

aka Music to Cry By…

aka Songs for Dark Nights of the Soul…

Guaranteed to drag me into the black, oily bog of the swamp of death’s misery much the same as an alligator submersing its prey into the watery deep until rot and bloat soften it for razor sharp teeth tearing into bits of edible fodder.

(sigh)

No need to open it…I know what’s in there:

I Grieve – Peter Gabriel
Angel – Sarah MacLachlan
I Miss My Friend – Daryl Worley
Grace of God – Keith Urban
You’re Still You – Josh Groban
To Where You Are – Josh Groban
Remember When It Rained – Josh Groban
Chances Are – Bob Seger
Against the Wind – Bob Seger
Ventura Highway - America

The list goes on…so many more…many, many more…

Hours of music for one demented enough to listen to them on purpose.

I was…I did…hour after hour…tear after tear.

Ending with the one whose video is guaranteed to put me on the floor:

Probably Wouldn’t Be This Way – Leann Rimes

I probably wouldn't be this way
I probably wouldn't hurt so bad
I never pictured every minute without you in it
Oh you left so fast
Sometimes I see you standing there
Sometimes I feel an angel's touch
Sometimes I feel that I'm so lucky to have had the chance to love this much
God gave me a moment's grace
Cause if I'd never seen your face
I probably wouldn't be this way

Somehow feeling the pain helped me feel the love. I needed it to be connected to him in a way I could not seem to feel otherwise; swallowed in memories of a past gone in the space between heartbeats with no thought of a future in sight.

Looking back from the vantage of almost 5 years, I can only wonder how much mental health was truly found in those purposeful sojourns down that hall of horrors. Why did I feel the need to subject myself to the self-flagelation of that masochism when I was already haunted by the sheer absence of his presence in this house, in my heart, in my soul…in my life…at every turn.

Madness.

Pure…simple…grieving madness.

That folder has not been opened in well over a year…mayhap even two. I don’t feel that tug…the need to deliberately drag myself down that dark road…more to the truth of it…I don’t WANT to visit that place any more…there is nothing living in that place..

His life…his love…his essence…live right here…inside me.

I could toss it…but, don’t.

Yet, just like that cedar chest full of memories I know it’s there. In some shadowy and twisted manor I am comforted by thought that I can go to either if I am yet again willingly decided to torture myself.

It is fact that…

Life will never be the same.

I will grieve his loss the rest of my life. Yes...grieve...actively missing his physical presence here with me. Actively learning to live without him in my living, breathing world.

I am not the woman now I was then.

It is also fact that I live…I breathe in rejuvenating, living air…life has color, texture, richness to it once more…I’ve even allowed myself the daft decadence of thumbing my nose in death’s maleficent face and loving again.

I WILL survive…I DO survive.

All because he loved life…saw purpose in experiencing joy…loved me...and I loved him… always will.

Perhaps it’s time to make a file called Songs That Make Me Smile.

In the mean time I’m listening to Gretchen Wilson, Bonnie Raitt, Bonnie Tyler, Annie Lennox, Emmy Lou Harris and every other strong minded, outlaw woman I can manage to find in my Rhapsody files.

(image courtesy of Royalty Free Images)