My wedding anniversary is coming up on October 27th. It would have been 18 years, but instead, it is forever just under 5 years. Don and I got married in Sea Cliff, New York, at a beautiful venue on the Long Island sound. To this day, that is one of the most incredible days of my life, and also to this day, I still feel like I havent found a good way to spend my wedding anniversary. Whatever i do on that day, it just feels lonely, sad, and empty. That day was about me and my person, and my person is no longer here. So Im often like a wandering soul on that day – where do I go, what do I do to feel some kind of peace or connection or something to where that wonderful life used to be?

This year, I will be driving to NYC, just for a quick overnight. Because why the hell not, and because I feel the need to be in the physical place where we promised to spend our life together loving one another. I want to drive straight there, right to those rocks and that body of water where we took our wedding photos that day, and just BE. Just sit in the silence and the slight hum of the water and the wind, and feel something that feels a little bit like love. And then Im going to have lunch with my best childhood friend, and we are going to toast and talk about Don together, and then Im going to stay with some old college friends and enjoy some time with them. And the next day, I will drive the 4.5 hours back to Massachusetts, and back to the reality of my person being dead forever. But hopefully being there in that place where we danced to Harry Connick Jr and where we ate delicious food and where we celebrated US with family and friends and where we said our written vows and where I cried and he cried and where he held me in my wedding dress and said: “thank you for giving me a family.”

I need to feel a bit of that family on that day. I dont know if it will help. But I need to go there and try.

Thanks for reading.