It’s St. Patrick’s Day. Downtown is maddening and I am running late through traffic to arrive at a hotel for dinner with the ladies of our Wine Club in San Antonio.

That sounds so crazy to be part of a wine club, but when I moved back I had one brave friend who slowly held her hand out to me on the ledge I was standing on to walk me back into the window. Allison, she was always there for me, before I left San Antonio and all this madness started and afterwards. She was that one person who always did a mental health check on me.

When I arrived back she invited me to her Wine Club dinner and it was so much fun. I recall the food and people being so nice and really it was one of the hottest days in July in San Antonio. But I signed up and since then she has literally been working on me to slowly side step off the edge of jumping into a downward spiral of depression.

I arrive late to the hotel, start to Valet and then the attendant says, “oh you are at the wrong hotel!” I freeze...seriously? I jump back in the car, and work my way through more party revelers and to the right hotel only to find out they don’t valet.

You know, when you are married, good or bad, you have someone to walk with to park with to just go through all of this stuff with. So I have to back out and get in line for garage parking. I start up the round and round and round we go to find parking. As I get onto the 8 th floor I literally think to myself, “this is nuts, I am out of here to go find a spot to eat and I will meet the ladies there...OR I will just go home.”

So as I start to go down I say to myself, “self, you can do this, you can’t keep running. If you find a spot on the way down, it was meant to be. Calm down the nerves, you can do this.” As I go down and down and down, I start to feel a little guilty, I tend to always do this, look for the way out. So I am rounding the corner to the 2nd floor and boom, right there is the spot, wide open. I can not believe it. I pull in and look up, “Thank you mom.” She has been my guardian of parking spots. I jump out run to try and figure out my location to the hotel I need to get to. I am so bad at directions, it is funny.

My kids sometimes think, they just don’t want to know how I get to point A and B. It’s a chore for me. Carl was the navigator, hence being a Sailor, he just had great sense. East, West... but not me.

I run in sit down and Allison does the head nod. You made it. I sense all the ladies are a little shocked I am there. I am shocked. I order my celebratory glass of white wine and settle in. We made plans in 2016, like July of 2016 to go to the play “Beautiful.” So yea I needed about 8 months to prep for this day and evening out.

As we eat, chat, I think, I am actually having fun. It’s a huge weight I carry as I sometimes feel so lonely without my person. Going alone seems so lonely. Then there are other times I think, how powerful is it to do this all by myself? I am doing it.