Well, I made it through Thanksgiving. What I thought would surely be a dismal gathering turned out to be rather nice actually. Not everything was from a can or box, and I had the same meal as everyone else. All said and done it was so much better than I'd expected.
I miss Anjoy. I miss walking the empty November beach at Cherry Grove. How could I have not seen how very lucky we all were then? These are memories I study privately because I still can't talk about her. So many years flew by while I wasn't looking. We turned so many corners, ventured so far into the dark woods we'd never find our way back. And we didn't, not really. We fixed what we could and knew regret over what we couldn't. These are just tender places in the heart now that pull and tug and ache. Regret is an awful nagging than never leaves me. I could have been a better daughter in law, I could have been a better mother, wife. At the time I was doing the very best I could, all things considered. And no one ever told me how swiftly time would pass, or that once it was gone I'd never be able to go back and fix our mistakes. Of course I knew this on some level, but our lives had already taken on the momentum of a runaway train. Nothing short of the eventual disaster would have stopped it any sooner.
It's been years now, picking up the pieces, putting our lives back together. His addiction conquered, my emotional hemorrhages tied off. Is it any wonder I look around me now and recognize so very little? The child I used to hold in my arms is now a graceful young woman, almost a foot taller than me. I'm thankful my husband's genes figure more prominently in her makeup than mine. With any luck she'll be everything I could never be, including sane.
Christmas was odd this year. This was the first one without Anjoy. And again, as with Thanksgiving, it went off better than I anticipated. Maybe it's time to leave this pessimism behind. The world hasn't come to an end after all. Maybe there's still time left to put things right.
Things are not well in the low country, I'll drive down to Charleston in the morning. How I wish it were under better circumstances. Springtime can't come soon enough. We need to wake, all of us. Shake off this sleep and feel the sun returning. The earth needs to be planted again and hearts need to heal.
9:24 a.m. - 2005-02-11
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