Going off the grid to mark a one-year anniversary

It came from out of nowhere. An unexpected wave of overwhelming grief. Wham!

I was doing something that should have had me smiling, and for the first little bit I was.

I should have just filed the paperwork and been done with it.

But I just had to look over everything one more time. Leave it to me — smack!

It was just a vacation request form. I was being optimistic, I had consulted my calendar, considered all my options and booked all but three of the vacation days I’m entitled to during the year.

Road trip on Ruby in the warmth of summer. Check.

Time for a fall colour tour after Thanksgiving. Check.

And a day off to attend the only Friday the 13th celebration in Port Dover (it’s in May, if you’re wondering). Double check.

Friday, June 17? I started wondering why I booked off that day.

On the surface, it’s just an ordinary day. It just happens to be the date of one of my BFF’s birthday, of my parents’ wedding anniversary and it also will mark exactly one year that I was rushed to the hospital while having a heart attack.

Three-hundred and sixty-five days since I was faced with the real possibility of not being around to experience events such as my eldest daughter’s wedding, my youngest daughter’s triumphant start to her second year of university and my receiving the 2015 award of excellence from the company for which I work.

Leaving aside those more predictably “momentous” events, I also wouldn’t have experienced the extraordinary ordinary pieces of a life well-lived, such as the look on Kidlet No. 2’s face when she bought her first car or the heady scent of the lily bulbs I planted last fall coming into bloom, or the magical laugh of a friend’s infant daughter.

I’m a firm believer that you work to get through things long before you’re ready to begin the process of getting over them.

Last summer, I was so busy trying to prove to everyone — including myself — that I could jump right back into things that I never stopped to ask myself what I was jumping back into and if that was what I wanted.

When I was gifted with a new beginning and got my second chance at life, I swore things were going to be different. I promised myself I would pause more, reflect more, appreciate the little moments more.

I said things were going to change; I would change. I talked the talk and walked the walk, but little by little I started to fall back into exactly where and who I was before that day last June. I wasn’t being careful, and I forgot the promises I made to myself: To guard my heart, celebrate my inner child and trust and honour the things I knew to be my universal truths.

The act of booking off June 17 was the universe’s way of telling me I am back on track. Without realizing I was doing it, I was giving myself permission to celebrate me.

To mark the ending of my new beginning. To begin a new ending. Life lessons along the way have been that eventually you will find out that the one person who wasn’t supposed to ever let you down probably will.

You will have your heart broken probably more than once and it will get harder every time; you’ll break hearts, too, so you need to remember how it felt when yours was broken.

You’re going to fight with your best friend.

You’ll blame a new love for things an old one did.

And you’ll cry because time is passing far too fast.

I’m letting you know ahead of time that I will be going off the grid on June 17. So, don’t bother trying to text me, e-mail me or call me on my phone that day. I’ll be somewhere on Ruby and in the wind. Or getting my hair done. Or sitting on a hillside and watching the sun set. Living quietly out loud. Rejuvenating. Celebrating the fact that I am still here to celebrate.

In truth, it’ll just be another “first day of the rest of my life.” I do it daily. It’s how I got from there to here, and how I plan on getting from here to there, whenever (and whenever) “there” is.

One day at a time, my friends. One glorious, happy-to-be-alive, making-a-point-of-taking-sometime-for-me day at a time.”