Some of these drafts are so far away and long ago, so removed, that they seem as though they were written by someone else, another me. This is definitely one of those, and there was a hesitation to post, but I suppose most of these will have a taste of that about them. 

This one is again from the summer of 2013, a few months yet before I found a job and this place. All pictures were actually taken November of 2012, in the weeks after Tim’s death and I was all on my own up at the lake, waiting for spring to come and I could go back to Dodge, to my family, and start again.

Yesterday was awash. Got all caught up in meandering through images I’d tried to put up on the shelf. Yet these things will not stay put, and so I found that I was wistfully longing towards them. Flesh is dust, yet these places, are just as far away. Maybe I do dwell too much, I know. As positive as I try to remain though, I still can’t deny some of this.

Every time I look through my photo collection I am reminded. Pictures upon pictures of these places, those times, that day, and the way I felt tucked away inside me. I can day by day conduct my life and struggle to carve out a new life, but I am often flashing on photos from those four bohemian years. That life has value far above other memories I used to dwell upon. Those years seem far away, and I am trapped in new, more colourful daytime demons.

I walk these old paths of my hometown – and I find much comfort from them – yet today I find even they are lacking. I see only those Grey roads, against the blue sky, and the gentling rolling hills hiding Alpacas and fishing boats, frog ponds, and big fish stories, Newfies and Hungarians.

As I was drinking my coffee this afternoon I was gazing out at the river running past, but all I could see was this one place in particular across the road from the lake. Its an abandoned woodlot owned by someone from Oshawa, I believe, and there is nothing conventionally picturesque about it. I just always found the most wonderfully rare plants over there. Little gems hiding in the overgrown winding logging road. It’s not the type of memory I could take a picture of, but the one I have is etched vividly.

I’m dancing in the kitchen here earlier to songs from Tim’s playlist, and it was like he is the DJ and the rotation is him speaking to me. I glide back and forth like a Temptation, and I let the joy fill me. These moments now are more fleeting, here, then gone. The wind of young girls and daily worries wipe them away normally. Today though is different and I am more keenly aware of my grief, sadness and sense of loss. It feels like weights are drawing down my legs, and I am red-rimmed and raw. I hesitate to use the big D word for it, naming it makes it no easier. I’m not sure anymore if it’s cathartic or damaging, these sojourns into my widowhood.

I too I suppose am feeling lonely and abandoned. After everything, I sometimes feel a little ripped off. I know, ridiculous. But still, it’s there. I just wonder why it just couldn’t all be easier, and on with that new beginning and those feelings of abandonment I thought would disappear. Today I realized that being alone is not as easy as it once was. Standing at the top of that hill now looking down that lonely path is a little scarier. Maybe for now I’m just exactly where I need to be.