One Month Out

 So far I have been doing well with slowing down on posting. I ended up taking a bit of a break from my writing to focus on Christmas and whatnot with the holidays coming up. That has worked out pretty well. I feel like I decompressed a bit, and I think I'm ready to start work on some of my bigger projects.

 A month out. I can hardly believe it.

 As much as we think, in those moments of pain and loss, that we will never move past it, we do. We might not actively move forward for some time, but time keeps moving on. The wheel continues to grind forward, pushed ever on by enseen hands, and those sharp seeds are crumbled down as it passes over and over in it's travel.

 You wake up one day and find that you can start taking steps again. I've been back to work a little over a week now, and that's going well. It is restoring that sense of normalcy I'd been looking for for so long. It's funny, but the hardest part of my day is when I walk out to the car and check my phone.

 I find that I'm expecting to see a message from Robin, but it isn't there, it won't be there. It usually take a moment for everything to register, and it does. There is that pang of sadness, like the one I'm having while I write this, but I usually just take a deep breath, and finish what I was doing.

 I keep getting asked at work why I'm back so soon. I look at the calendar, and it was almost a month before I came back. I had been off almost a month before she died as well. I guess what I'm saying, is to me, it felt like a much longer time. Add to that the sense of guilty relief that comes when someone who has been sick for a while passes on, and to me it felt like a lot longer stretch of time. It felt as if months passed.

 You might ask what I mean by guilty relief, but I can't think of a better way to put it. Robin was sick for a year, and I had to watch her slowly die. At the end, she had lost so much, and I knew it was a relief for her. It was a relief for us as well. But you feel guilty. You feel guilty for feeling glad that it's over. But in the end, you start to get rid of that guilt, when you realize that it's alright to have that sense of relief. It was a long, hard, painful road, but you are at the end of it. Your loved one isn't with you at the finish line, as they have moved off to the winner's circle, so you don't have them to share those feelings with.

 I think you have to embrace that feeling, and it's hard to do that. We can embrace it because of Hope. We can rest on that Hope, because we know are loved ones are waiting for us with God, and someday we will join them.

 Any of you who know me, know that I feel that faith is a very personal thing. It is between you and God, however you feel about Him. He is on the other side of the equation waiting on you to make a choice. No one can do it for you. That is your personal Faith. My Faith, and my inner strength, and the strength from Robin and my family and friends is what has carried me through this. Emotionally, it has been, and will be a rollercoaster. My Faith has stayed strong, though. I may have had questions, and anger, and hurt; I still do, and I'm sure I will for some time. But I still have my faith.

 If I didn't, I know I wouldn't be here now, writing still. I'd rather be with her, away from the pain, but like one of my friends told me: "Your story isn't done yet. You still have shit to do."

 So here we are, a month out. How do I feel about it? I'm still sad, but the wounds are beginning to scar over. I have a life to continue with, and a story to keep writing.

 I have a Christmas to make spectacular for my children. And their smiles and hugs and "I love you's" make it easier to keep going.