in between

Original date 10 May 2012

It was not physical or material. This love lacked inhibition and boundary. It was limitless and free of expectation or regret. It was effortless, all-encompassing love; given, received, and understood. I think it's rare in life to experience this kind of love.

In any relationship it ebbs and flows, but once you've had it, you crave it like no lustful urge you've ever had. I was filled with it on my wedding day, and again when my husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

If only we had the ability to live life as though it was so new or so close to the end that all we could do is give and show and become love. It seems that beginnings and endings teach us about this kind of love.

It is in between that we tend to forget.

Anyone who has had an experience like this knows the power in these words. It is what I have been trying to formulate words for and translate from my heart that I've been unable to do for so long.

But it could not be truer. When you lose something so precious, you crave to fill the space. You crave to feel something genuine, something authentic. Everything seems arbitrary up against something so important that you become frustrated with other people's pettiness. You lap up the moments that matter.

I am about to face another beginning...the beginning of my life with Todd. Facing this new adventure in my life brings me closer to that nostalgia of remembering what life is all about: love.

So I'm more sentimental, I try to be more careful with my last words to people, I steal extra moments with people I love. And grief tends to keep me running along with the same theme and keeps it closer to me for longer.

But that doesn't mean I don't fall into the 'in between' category every now and again. I catch myself doing it now, and at the end of the day, I can recognize it in a way I couldn't before.

And I start over every day.

It's a pledge I made to myself and to Brian that this was the way that I would love from now on. My life is forever changed, so there's no way I can act like it isn't.

Love fiercely. Don't get stuck in the in between.