I walked on a dock today.
Nearly 3 years ago I’d walked out onto that same dock, my green army jacket zipped tightly around my chest, my unruly hair tamed by a ponytail as the wind bit my neck, my heart heavy with grief.
I’d thought it was the end of everything.
I didn’t realize then that the following years would hold so much more darkness than light, that events would keep spiraling down until I felt as insubstantial as a shadow.
But they did. And I did.
I’d think about that dock sometimes, that first walk down it, how the unshakable, aching coldness I felt on that October night at sunset seemed to reach into my very heart – and how it set up camp there against my will in the many months that followed.
I may have been hibernating in a state of winter all these long months, but I’ve finally looked up to find that the sun has come out.
Today was the first time that I was able to say a prayer of thanks for the events that have happened these past 3 years, as I was determined not to say it before my heart truly meant it.
Today I said it.
Those events led me here.
They led me to this day.
I walked on a dock today.
Nearly 3 years ago I’d walked out onto that same dock…but today was different. The sun was shining, the same sun that was warming my face as his fingers laced around mine. Our feet beat a pattern against the wooden slats as the wind blew both of our unruly heads of hair. I felt my heart beating to a new rhythm, a lighter rhythm.
3 years ago, I’d thought it was the end of everything.
But it wasn’t.
It was only the beginning.
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