The dreaded marker of five years has come and gone.

Yet, I do not feel the weight lifted like I have in the past. People keep asking excitedly, how was your trip to Canada? I respond, it’s done. Much like after a tragedy, and time has past, the person asking the question, how are you doing? Looks like things are going great for you! Um, yes, there are some great things, and…

Yes, Canada, especially Victoria was amazing, and….

You remember why I went, right?

I am too honest for my own and others good sometimes. I hate to lie and say it was great, so I end up saying, it was a really tough week.

I never did have the breakdown I normally do. I was, and have continued to be numb, apart from myself. Typical of this roller coaster ride, it changed course without notice and said, yeah, no release, it is all just gonna sit within and manifest in a different way. It showed up via being edgy and wanting to control everything, testing my poor families patience. We drove back on Mother’s day, which was a mistake, I am usually far away for it in places that do not commercialize it so much, so it is not in your face. Not so much in Canada. That did not help the edginess.

I came back and an exhaustion hit me, a heaviness that forced me to slog through the week. I went into self care mode, getting home from work, spending time at dinner with the fam, and then burying myself in my puzzle or my book, escaping from myself and others.

F and I had a talk the day after we got back. We agreed it was a tough week away. He is still learning, on a much faster track trying to figure out how to support me and in the impossible position of only being able to up to a point. He does not have the background of being there through it, in the direct aftermath of the storm (think a F5 tornado). The basic cleanup had occurred (think after a tornado, then a couple of years later), he met me after A LOT of self reflection, therapy, and the pure steel will of survival and desire to figure out how to live again. He has realized the double gut hit of the anniversary then Mother’s Day and how it messes me up, and he has looked up over the next couple of years how it gets closer and closer together. We are figuring out the best plan for next year. My instinct is to run away by myself, as I am miserable, so why do that to my family? Time will tell.

I feel like this past weekend a shift finally happened, which I am grateful for. I am still numb and detached, but I can touch happiness around me again. We had a great and productive yard day together Saturday, and saw the Avengers Saturday evening. We were in sync again, which gave me some grounding. We are preparing for our honeymoon, which is about a month away. I realized this past weekend, this will be the first time since I was pregnant with Oli that I will have taken a significant chunk of time off of work for something besides family trips, holidays, maternity leave, or “forced” time off, meaning after they died and our escapes in May. I am grateful to be able to do it, and we have gone to amazing places, but there is the underlying reasons of why. We leave right after Bella’s birthday, which I did purposely. I wanted this to be 16 days of pure vacation and pleasure no strings attached. I am curious to what my body will do. My therapist is ecstatic over the idea of it, seeing she wants to prescribe a month minimum of R + R for my body to heal, which I really never have had. I am beyond stoked to see a new place, and to have this precious time with F.

Meanwhile, I am busily preparing for a keynote next week, which I am honored to do. I am ordering too many shoes via amazon to see which will be the best walking shoe for Greece (is it too much to ask to have a cute tennis shoe that I can walk 10 miles in?!). I am looking at the backpack which I am determined to fit 16 days worth of stuff in. And, I am being grateful that the edgy is abating a bit, allowing me to see the beauty of the spring around me, allowing me to see the beauty within the pain.