Morton and Changes

 Dear Alden, 

I spent today in Morton. I've been able to go every weekend for a while now. Today I was meeting with some workers who are going to clean things up for me. Get things to a place where I can more easily maintain them. They actually will start work on Monday. I'm excited to have the place back to the blank slate it once was, at least partially. 

Remember bring here on our honeymoon? How we watched all that bulldozing work being done? I took videos for our niece of the trees being moved around. It was all a big blank slate then. Everything is so over grown now. You'd be eager to bust out your big mower and get some mowing done. You always enjoyed that. You said it was hard work but you didn't mind it. You loved seeing how you could make progress. You would have had plenty to keep yourself busy now. However, I don't think you'd have let it get so bad. I'm sorry for that. I don't want to let it get so bad again though. 

I got a few things done around the house while I was here too. I reorganized the kitchen cabinets so things make more sense in where they are. I put out some pinecone "flowers" I bought for our bedroom here. I think they fit the theme perfectly, but maybe need something a bit more. Not sure what yet. 

I also decided to go through that blue Lego box of yours. Remember that night you let me look through it with you? You showed me that you kept all of your old notes. All of them. From back in high school and forward. You were quite the heart breaker back then, Mr Lavin, haha. You also kept some old photos...some of yourself even. Gosh you were handsome. I don't know why I never saw it before. I mean, I've known you all along. You've always been there in the background of my life. But I guess it was for the same reason you were never interested in me in that way...we weren't ready for eachother yet. 

I also did something my counselor said I should do - I screamed. I screamed so loud my throat now hurts. I screamed and fell to my knees and sobbed. I never did scream when I lost you. I've just been so numb. So unable to feel. I felt like I should have screamed that morning...when they came and told me you were gone. Or when I heard them announce the time. I knew what that meant.. . but I just sat there. I cried, but I felt like I swallowed my scream that day. But today...today I screamed. Maybe you heard it. I'd like to think you did. That you heard me finally express how this feels. It's an anguish that I've never before experienced. Had someone come to me and said - "Alicia, you are going to go through something. This thing is going to cause you to feel a deeper pain than anything you've ever physically experienced before in your life. Surviving it will become the hardest thing you've ever done." Even if I had been told those very words I would not completely comprehend what it feels like. My scream today...felt good though. I finally let out what I needed to let out. What I've been holding back for almost 3 months. And if you heard it...maybe it brought you to me so that I wasn't alone as I cried. 

As I'm writing this I'm laying here, in the loft. I'm looking out the window at our favorite view. It's been cloudy today...our favorite morton weather. Now it's raining. I lay here and I'm flooded with so many memories. So so many. I'm back to us dating, when I was tucked into your arms as we talked about a possible future together. When I said that I didn't want this relationship to just be a summer fling, and you said it couldn't be. I'm back to us having just been married. You are downstairs fixing dinner and chatting with me about wanting to claim me in the next life too, if there is one (your words). I'm brought back to us laying down and watching so many movies together, in your arms. So many talks and discussions...so many snuggles. Laying in this loft is where I realized I was in love with you. Every time I'd lay here I would look at that same window. I'd see that same view and I'd always smile. It's a beautiful view. Even on that last trip here. That last time we snuggled in the loft together. Even then we looked out the window and commented on the view. 

This place...this is you. Every inch of it is you. I see you in absolutely everything and my heart...my heart is broken that you aren't here with me still enjoying it. You built this place for you...and it served its purpose for you...it brought you peace until you said you found it with me. I hope to have it serve that same purpose for me. I hope it will bring me peace when I get overwhelmed too. I'm working on making it better suited for that, for me. I'd like to think you'd have liked what I'm doing to the place as well. 

Alden, we have forever to look forward to. I know that in my core. I have no doubt in my mind that we will be together again. That I will see your smile and not ever have to say goodbye to you ever again. It's just hard, in this slog of a mortal existence that I'm still in. But I'm trying...and I love you...and I want you to be proud of me.  

So, as many of your girls in the notes you kept have said - I love you. But, I know that our love is different. It's our love. And that love will last both of our lifetimes and into eternity. Until then, I will miss you always. 

Your one and only wifey - Alicia