Another Birthday

My fall break is coming to an end and another birthday has passed for me.  I'm 37, we found out Jeff had cancer on his 37th birthday.

This year I had a great break and birthday.  The first year after Jeff died was absolutely terrible.  Last year was significantly better than the year before and this year was even better than that.  I feel like I wasn't overwhelmed with sadness, grief, and guilt this year for once. I feel like I was actually happy and at peace naturally, not having to force myself to constantly remember that Jeff would want me to be happy or I should be happy.

This break, I flew out to Denver to meet up with Wyoming, then we drove back to San Diego via New Mexico and Arizona taking a few extra days to see some really cool sites like New Mexico's Carlsbad Caverns (unbelievably cool and we stayed for the bat show, which was totally worth hanging around a couple extra hours instead of heading out), Roswell, New Mexico (very kitchy but nice people), a little tour through White Sands National Park, then a quick lunch stop in Las Cruces, New Mexico (unbelievable hole in the wall Mexican restaurant called La Nueva Casita), and then down into Tucson (where we had a little delay because Wyoming dropped his phone in the hotel pool and we had to visit a Verizon store in Tucson before getting back on the road), then back to good ole San Diego just in time to celebrate my birthday.

I did think of Jeff a lot, but mostly how much he would have hated all of that traveling! Traveling always gave him a lot of anxiety, especially not really having a plan and not knowing where we were going to end up that night. So, needless to say, we didn't travel very often and when we did, I had to do all of the planning.

I miss Jeff, but it's not as painful as it was the previous years. I know it's a bit selfish, but I do have to admit, it is nice to be taken care of and just sit and enjoy seeing new things.