End of a long weekend...

So, I spent all day Monday reading a book. Which is my favorite way to spend a day alone. My favorite way to spend a day ever is clearly with my girls. But they were with their dad and his family on Monday. I try really hard to be okay with that-I got Christmas and Easter, he got Memorial Day and the 4th of July. I mean, I clearly made out on the deal. But it's still hard-if you have read some of my really old blog posts, you know that Memorial Day was a special day for our family, a day that we spent with each other always, even as life kept twisting and changing around us.

So this Memorial Day weekend, I was alone. I went shopping with April on Sunday, which was fun (it does boggle my mind that I like to shop now, but I do). I managed to do pretty well-two tops from American Eagle (my absolute most favorite store), a new workout shirt and flip flops from Old Navy, a swimsuit (a bikini, good Lord-April insisted it looked good), a new pair of sandals, and, of course, a book.

What Alice Forgot. By Liane Moriarty. I know that Moriarty is kind of a big deal right now, but I had never read any of her books and only knew what this was about by the blurb on the back. Basic plot summary is that Alice hits her head and thinks it's 1998 and that she is newly married and pregnant with her first child. In reality, it's 2008 and Alice has three children and is getting divorced. It seemed well suited.

What would myself of ten years ago think of the me of now? I flatter myself to think that she would really like that I work out and spend time on my hair and, you know, have a job and support myself and the girls and am "an independent woman of substance."

I always told Nick that I was "an independent woman of substance." It was a joke, because I was the farthest thing from it.

In truth, the me of ten years ago would probably be appalled at the me of today. Who cares about your hair or your abs? You have lost Nicholas. That is what she would say.

Which is sort of the point of the book. What we have in the beginning is so changed by the end that we can't even recognize who we used to be. But, young Joy of 27, I do recognize you. I do validate you. I want so to tell you to enjoy this very minute because everything is about to change. The first big terrible is about to happen. The first big terrible is the first truly awful thing that you have ever endured. And it changes everything between you and Nick. Not right away. At first you cling together because you are all that you have. Then Nick pulls away and everything falls apart and then HE COMES BACK. And this is truly the worst thing, but I won't deny you living it, because it is the greatest feeling ever.

In my lifetime, I have been kissed three times that were magical. Every time was with Nick.

The first kiss was in my parents driveway, December 6, 2000. It was our first kiss. I was scared to pieces to kiss Nick because I really liked him a lot, and I had kissed just a few boys in the past (two, I had kissed two), but it never, ever lived up to what a kiss was supposed to feel like. It always just felt like lips. But the first time I kissed Nick, there were fireworks and explosions and everything that happens inside of you to let you know that this has been what you were waiting on.

The second kiss was when he came home from Iraq. He scooped me up and kissed me and held me so tight and we both just knew that we would never, ever let go.

The third kiss was when he decided not to leave me. The decision had been made, he was set on leaving, he wasn't happy living with me anymore. It was February 2009, Betsy was 4 and Felicity about to turn one. And just as it was all settled, Nick came in and scooped me up and carried me upstairs and kissed me and promised never, ever to leave.

It was that particular kiss that was my downfall. Because I believed that kiss over anything I ever felt again. Even when Nick got distant, even when everything felt slanted and wrong, even when I knew that something was so off we could never get it back-I would remember that kiss and that promise and stake my whole life on it.

We are almost a whole year out from all of this. I wish so much that my life would turn away from grief and sadness. It does sometimes, and I feel such relief I can't explain, and then it comes crashing back over me like a wave.

It's not really that I miss Nick. I miss the ghost of someone long, long gone. That may sound like a cop out, but it is true. The Nick that I talk to now is not the old Nick of those kisses. Nick was careful and smart to draw strict boundaries around us. I do often wish that we could joke around like we used to, that we could have even half of the friendship that we used to. Maybe, someday. But for now the wounds are too fresh, the guilt is too heavy in the air between us. And, of course, there is the fact that Nick moved on right away, while I am over here like a snail trying to climb a mountain. We are in different places.

So, dear Joy of 27, no, you cannot understand at all how any of these decisions that the next ten years are going to force you to make could have led to where you are. And that's a good thing. Because of everything that I know, the one thing that I am most certain of is that I wouldn't change any of it. Changing anything would have led to a different place, a different life, a different family. I am as happy as I can be with our family the way that it is. I am genuinely glad that Nick has found someone who is able to love him unconditionally. I refuse to begrudge him his happiness. Because I would never want him to begrudge me mine, when and if I ever get somewhere.

It's hard though. I need a new word for hard. A word that conveys such sadness, and grief, and just despair that I am never going to see the end of this. I know that I will. I know that the me of ten years from now will say, oh, Joy, stop being so dramatic about Nick. He's not the be all, end all. I know it in my head. Someday I will believe it in my heart. And until then, I will pretend that I am sure that this is how it is supposed to be.