walking along the edge

big changes coming up in my life.  i accepted a promotion and a new store.  yes, it is official.  i think i'm going to make it financially.  if i'm smart and keep my belt very tight, no vacations, no splurges, just work and save and keep my bills paid, and then keep working, i think i'll be alright.

i wish i could tell him about it.  i wish .......  i do wish a lot.  i do dream a lot.  or day dream.  i make them up.  when i lay down to try and fall asleep, i pretend i still live beside the ocean.  i pretend i have a beautiful home and, in my head, as i try to relax and fall asleep, i decorate it in my head.  i sit with him on my glass porch, or my patio overlooking the ocean.

i miss the ocean and those words fall short of the emotions that back them.  i long for the sound.  i crave feeling the wind on my skin.  i wish i could smell the salt.

the reality is i had to leave the ocean.  i moved the day of my Dragon's funeral.  in that place that i go to in my heart to escape my reality, i am still there.  instead of moving away from where my Dragon and i lived, i stay along the edge of the ocean.  it's just over there.  it's just past the Mall where i work.  it's beyond the trees of where i live.  i can hear it on the wind, just behind it, through it.

bad things have happened to me since my Dragon died.  people have hurt my feelings deeply and there are new scars.  medical things have taken a turn for the worse, but i am handling it.  old fears are joined by new worries.  there are storms in my life that keep me on my toes, never relaxing at all.  not for a moment.

and when i am down, or simply when i come back from a very long day at work, i vividly remember his death.  i feel guilt for not being able to save him.  i have to turn off aspirin commercials when there is a couple sitting there holding hands talking about "surviving the widow maker."

  i cry.

i do not feel i have climbed out of where my sudden widowhood tossed me.  i am ambling around down here in this canyon smelling the flowers, sewing lots of things, talking to my Dragon, laying down when i am tired so i can cry and look at the moon.

then the next day i get up and amble forward through my own personal canyon of grief.

as i said, i don't think i'm climbing out or moving away from my Dragon.  i am over his death but i'm not.  i have days where i think of him and i am wistful.  i smile, yes, but it is a melancholy smile.    it is a lonely smile.

when i am back at the apartment, and i look at his urn on the mantle, i still get choked up.  what is left of him, his physical form, the form that i held and kissed and touched, is in there.  that's all that's left of him.  

and i grieve again.

it hits me all over again.

i got this job offer and i called my daughter.  i talked to my son.  both are so very proud and happy for me.  and then i opened the door to my apartment and i told my two dogs.  he was not there to sweep me up and kiss me.  i ate a celebration supper by myself.  and it's going to be like that for the rest of my life.  whatever that life means.

i stay beside the ocean in my head.  it is out there and one day i will actually drive myself over to it, walk along a beach again, walk out into the water and let it wash over me.  i will pick up shells again.  i will feel the breeze, smell the salt, hear the gulls.  i will taste it all with my heart and soul.  and in that sunshine will be his warmth.  in that wind i will hear his voice.  in the water that caresses me, i will feel his touch.  in the freedom beside that ocean i will be free.  i will be with him.  i'll stand in the ocean and close my eyes and he will be with me.

all the variable will be in place.  and for that brief moment i won't be alone.

i'll walk along the edge of the ocean in my head for the rest of my life and feeling close to my Dragon is the reason why.