WatchingTedLasso

Labor Day, 2024

One year. But not really. Not yet. But, still, a year.

“But I won’t cry for yesterday, there’s an ordinary world somehow I have to find.”

This song has visited me like a ghost throughout the year…

It came to me first on a cool down ride very shortly after Charlie’s passing. I had turned to the bike that goes no where as an escape, a sweaty solace wrapped in spandex. That first time, I wept, openly sobbed across the handlebars. No one was there to witness my complete undoing when Simon sings, “Where is the life that I recognize?” and the answer is simply, “Gone away.” It felt terrible and wonderful to let it go. All the pent up anger and hurt and devastation at the utter unfairness of having to face the future. And somehow, my legs kept turning.

So did time.

It then joined the “Healing” playlist on Spotify that I’ve leaned on increasingly less, but still revisit from time to time – the tunes there make me smile. They make me cry. They also make me smile through the tears. The playlist was borne from a close friend who has suffered a similar loss sharing a song that was special to her. Telling me that her song touches her to this day. Letting me know that it’s okay to feel all the things. That crying is healing. And somehow, we hit shuffle and we heal.

One replay at a time.

I very recently came back to that cool down ride. Knowing full well the previous effect it’d had on me, but facing it with a chin up optimism that I hadn’t known was in me a year ago. This time, tears filled my eyes. But I did not weep. This time, all of the emotion came from a place of pride. Not prideful that the words didn’t break me. Pride that this year hasn’t. Pride in my own survival.

“And as I try to make my way to the Ordinary World, I will learn to survive.”