Today April 1st, marks the two-year anniversary of coming back to San Antonio. In some ways I look back and it feels just like yesterday.

Nathan was driving me and the dogs back to Texas from Colorado to another new beginning and in other ways it seems like it’s been forever. I can remember how sad I was when I left San Antonio in August 2013. I was driving away from everything that was normal and safe to me.

Carl and I were starting a new life on our own, and I was moving the first pawn in our chess game of life by moving to Denver. Denver was new and big and scary. But, I was amazed at how quickly it started to feel less scary and more like a new adventure. My obligations of paying attention to my father’s needs still ran thick in my veins, but I also knew I was starting down a new path with Carl. We were going to find new everything. New friends, new restaurants, new hair salons. It was all going to be new.

I now look back and see how the universe was placing me in Denver to learn how to live by myself. Carl was still living in San Antonio. He was winding his law practice down and he had not yet moved with me to Denver full time. We had a plan and I knew I had to be patient. I now know that there is something more powerful that directs my life, and when I think “am I supposed to be here or doing this?” I know not to question it. I look back and in retrospect it was obvious what I was learning in Denver. I just didn’t realize it.

Recently, I have had a few people say that I am really not alone since I am so close with my kids, and that one day I will really have to learn to be alone. Choosing to be close to my kids it is a two way street, yes somehow we have anchored to each other. But when I hear someone say that I’m not really alone I wince inside. My heart gets crushed just a little bit more. They don’t see me alone in bed or alone when I walk in the backyard or alone when I wake up and don’t feel the body next to me or hear the soft breathing of Carl. They only see what they want to see, and are so quick to pass judgement on how I feel. I feel alone.

Loneliness happens in those moments when you have to decide to get up and go somewhere, alone. Walking in a place where you see couples doing couple things together, and knowing you have to walk in a little taller just to make up for the difference of being alone. It isolates you.

Others see what you have lost but somehow put their own timetable on when you should be ready to rise alone and be okay with it...IT is an everyday thing. Like learning how to walk, you learn how to accept it. Loneliness.

So, as I sit and look back on this day, I reflect on how much growing I have done in two years. Leaving Denver a place that had become somewhat normal for me, and a place where Carl wanted me to remain, to come back to my home in Texas was hard. I was leaving the last place Carl and I had been “us.” The real growth started when I got back to Texas.

April 1st is a new day to celebrate me and all the new things and people I have found since I got back, old friends, family and new friends. April 1st is no more April Fool’s Day to me, it is a day I started a new life back at home in Texas.

I am happy I am home.