Life Lessons - Learned and Still to Learn

  I was just reading a post from one of the pages I follow. It is a page about grief and I find so many of their posts to be really helpful. They remind me that what I feel is normal and okay. Today, one of the posts talked about triggers, about those sights or smells or sounds that take one back in time to a moment that is either incredibly happy or painfully sad. I commented that, for me, it more often a song or classical piece that triggers the tears.  I can listen to most of Chris' favourite songs or classical pieces without becoming inconsolable. I often listen to Satie's "Gymnopedié 1" - the piece his daughter Lucy played at the memorial service - and remember the evenings Chris and I would sit in the living room listening to music and just enjoying being in each other's company. I can listen to music from the Afro Celt Sound System or Moby, both whom were introduced to me by Chris, and can sometimes get through it with dry eyes. The only piece I can't l...

I'm not going to sugar-coat how I am feeling today. I am not going to "Pollyanna" this post. I'm hurting. It is the fifteenth anniversary of the day Chris and I first met. It was the day that changed my life forever; the day I began to live rather than just exist. Chris and I met on My Space, quite by accident. I had joined in order to connect with friends back in the States. This was, after all, very much a forerunner of Facebook. But every morning I would log in and find countless emails from men who claimed to be American or British professionals, but whose poorly written missives would expose them for who they really were - scammers from Nigeria. They were "cat fishing" before the term was coined. So, one day, I wrote a little rant about it. I hadn't joined My Space to find love. After all, my track record for good judgement in mates was exceedingly poor. No, I was there to reconnect with friends. But, my rant was answered by a man in Sussex called C...