Holding on to letting go...

There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief.

- Aeschylus

I've been listening to my new Randy Rogers CD a lot lately and the song "Holding on to letting go" kinda speaks to me. The song doesn't so much pertain to my life but the title sure does.

I haven't "let go" of much because I don't want to move on without Andie. The stack of cards on my dresser just keeps getting bigger, the flags presented to me at his funeral are still in the same place I set them when I got home that day, his boots are still by his chair in the bedroom where he left them, and so on.

Yesterday I "let go"... but just a little. I needed to reorder checks from the bank and so I got online and hit "quick reorder". Up pops a picture of how my checks will look and the bank is asking me to verify that all the information is correct. There I stare, for what seemed like an eternity at "Andie or Brooke Simmons" on the top of the checks. I knew I needed to take his name off-he can't write checks now, afterall. "No," I told myself, "you can do it later". I almost hit confirm, then I stopped...."push" yourself, this is a small step....so I hit edit and deleted his name, letter-by-stinkin’-letter. And then the tears started...AT WORK!!! This was the first time I've broken down at work. I actually had to leave my office and go to my car. I had to remind myself to breathe-how is something so mundane like ordering checks so traumatic?!?!?

In that moment it all became so definitive, permanent, finite, real...I was literally “deleting” him from a part of my life. I can still remember going to the bank after we got married and combining our bank accounts. I was giddy with excitement that we were merging our lives- two became one. And now, I’ve come full circle.

So, I’m “holding on to letting go” and digging in my heels. No surprise there for those of you who know how stubborn I can be! The universe will have to pry him from the grips of my love and I won’t let go until I’m damn good and ready (and even then, it will be little by little).