Paying attention means knowing these things - love and beauty and sadness and loss - are present in everything, every day.

Love and beauty, sadness and loss.  These are the emotions of life, love and grief.  Everything is present at every moment.  Life is full of beauty.  My surroundings are majestic, but I feel deep sadness when I look around.  My love for Tommy is still full of beauty, at the same time, sadness and loss.

Right now, kids are going off to college.  I’ve been avoiding social media because I know that the triggers will be too much.  I can’t see all of the shiny faces in the new dorm rooms knowing that I’ll never have the chance to experience all of this with Tommy.  At the same time, I am wanting to see these pictures.  I’m so infinitely happy for this experience of his friends and their parents.  It’s a strange dichotomy knowing that what brings joy also brings so much sorrow.  

Some friends have stopped talking to me about those experiences that they’re having right now. I know it’s not ill-intentioned, but just an awareness of the stage I’m at.  It feels like even more of a loss.  I am letting them know, slowly, that I still want to be in the loop.  The loop may be smaller, but I want to know what these kids will do with the lives that they are so lucky to have.  Once Tommy was gone, so were all of the furture experiences that we would’ve shared with these friends.  They are going on to live their lives, and I am grasping with what information I can handle seeing.  It’s a cruel reality, but a reality just the same.