Typical New Normal Day
Today work was crazy — getting ready for back-to-school next week. Despite the current crazy, I love my work and my people at work.
I loved spending time with my friend who talks a lot different from me, but I still understand her. Her British flag watch is pretty cool.
And I loved ending the day with a 6-mile hike with a couple of my adventure sisters. The trees and hills surrounding us in the cool of the evening, the laughter and conversation about everything from food to future adventure ideas to how our kids are doing in their next seasons of life. Only one of us brought a phone. The one whose phone screen turns black when you try to flip it for a selfie. So the photo is pretty darn good considering Wendy took it sight unseen. It was anyone’s guess if all our heads would be in the pic or if it would look inspired by some special mushrooms we’d ingested along the way.
There were just a couple of tough few minutes today. The first, I would honestly have to scan my brain to remember the trigger. I do remember it was nothing directly related to Chandler. The second, I was driving into my friend’s neighborhood and saw some young kids setting up a pretend city in their front yard. I immediately thought of the countless days when Chandler would gather outside our condo in Irvine with friends and devise all manner of activities, most of which would not have been approved by any Safety & Propriety Committee. Details on that later. I miss those days and would give anything to live just one of them over again.
Driving out of the neighborhood, one of the little guys was being held in his moms arms, crying. I imagined what could have happened. And I remembered holding Chandler when he was hurt or sad or scared. His cheeks. Oh, his little cheeks. He snuggled so close. Anything. I would give anything to hold that little guy….that big guy….again.
It was a good day. And another typical picture of what this grief journey looks like. Random yet predictable. Painful and yet joyful. Shared yet lonely.
Tomorrow. Another day.
