Back in a Moment

The further down the path you are, the more you forget.  You forget the hurt, the pain, the reality of it all.  Even starting a new life, I look back as if I'm watching a movie. My emotions are limited, best compared to the reaction I felt as I watched The Notebook, or Titanic.  Except its not Kate Winslet playing the lead, its the vaguely familiar girl, who I don't realize at first, is myself.  Its sad, it pulls at my heart, but it doesn't feel real.  That is until the moment comes...

Someone says something, you walk into a familiar place, or facing a new experience alone.  Suddenly you are back, and it only took a moment.  Your mind, heart, and soul fall back in that moment, and its real.  The triggers are unexpected, and can't be tracked.  Throughout my journey as a widow I found myself back in the moment, in the oddest situations: attending preschool parent night, walking into the restaurant where he took me the night he proposed, attending an industry training meeting.  Last night it was hearing someone say "I want my wife to pass on first, so she doesn't face the pain of burying me." POOF! I was back in the moment.

I felt the overwhelming confusion, why did I go back to work? How did I even function.  And I felt this sadness slowly creeping over me.  I thought about kneeling at the grave the day we buried him, and saying "I leave it all here.  I'm burying it all."  Why is it that our emotions do that? Why does a simple phrase, smell or location take us back to the moment?  Perhaps thats how healing works.  We move on, we live life, and every so often our emotions flex out of shape.  Just like a broken bone acts up when it rains, our pain lies dormant, and when the weather changes, we remember.

Healing is a process, its not an event.  I know that no matter how wonderful life is, how complete I feel, that moments like these will happen.  I know that the longer I live, the less often they will be.  Perhaps these moments are for my benefit.  Maybe I need to remember, so that I can truly live.  Remembering makes me realize how far I have come, how much I have grown and how amazingly God has turned my life around in 2 short years.  Remembering helps me reach out to those who are on the path I once walked.  Remembering is important.  No matter how long I live, how strong and happy of a marriage I have, I want to remember what I have been through.  I want to look back on the movie of my life, shed a few tears, then turn off the TV, wipe my eyes, and enjoy the reality of the life in which I now live.