I recently returned from a five day trip to Tucson where I attended my niece’s wedding. My family and I had a good time – we laughed, danced, ate, drank, and caught up with one another’s lives. I travel with more confidence now. This trip was easier than others because I was with my family most of the time i.e., there was familiarity and structure to my days. Nor did I stay at a hotel.

Traveling alone is hard for me. I can’t say I enjoy doing it, I just know that I can. It is critical for my sanity and unfolding life to know I can do anything and everything on my own – that way I am not trapped or limited. I also know who to call when I don’t know how to do something. I don’t know if I will ever savor the experience of planning a trip alone, but I am grateful that my world has expanded to its current dimensions that includes traveling.

I miss Roy when I am at airports … I watch other couples and am pulled back into 23 years of memories. I remember our extensive travels: memories of holding hands when each flight took off and landed, sipping champagne, and watching each others’ carry on bags when a bathroom break was required. I miss planning trips with Roy, traveling together, and feeling his warm body next to mine in unfamiliar hotel beds. I just miss him. Period. However, now I get the aisle seat on flights … One tiny pleasure that I can admit to on my blog.

The journey to today has required the simultaneous embracing of fear and being committed to healing from this tragedy. I am still catching up emotionally with the new landscape of my life … I cognitively and realistically understand all that has transpired, but feel my emotional intelligence is continuing to unfold. I still wonder what would Roy do in particular situations. I suspect I will always wonder because I have internalized him into my inner world … I argue and agree with my inner Roy on a regular basis. I love having him there … Wherever “there” is .. My mind, my psyche, my soul? This is part of the grieving process – to detach from our loved one’s physical presence while internalizing them into our inner world. It took me a long time to do this. I feel that I have successfully made the separation and yet feel joined with Roy in a new and different way. And as I said I miss him everyday. This is the complexity of death and loss – we who are still here need to choose life in order to heal which entails saying goodbye to what we knew. It is hard yet doable.