All I Need

This past weekend, I seemed to get a lot of advice about my lovelife. Specifically, a number of people, from some of my friends to a woman I don't know who was also at the yoga weekend, have strong feelings about an upcoming trip I have planned to the East Coast.

Here's the thing. I'm not the only one who fell in love with the man who moved from New England to Wisconsin nearly three years ago. My kids did too. And when he decided to move back, it was my kids who were most accepting of his decision. They really only wanted to know one thing -- well, in my daughter's case two things -- when they were going to see him again, and whether he still loved them (respectively).

One of the things that really worked for the four of us was going on adventures together. Camping, biking, climbing, hiking. And ever since he decided to move back, he's been talking about how much fun it would be if we came out there to visit.

So this winter, when we were headed toward reconciliation, I booked three tickets to Maine and a campsite in Acadia in August. What can I say? I'm an optimist. I like to travel. I love my kids. And, well, yeah. I love the man too.

Now that it is clear to both of us that things aren't lining up for a romantic partnership, I get why it doesn't seem to some people to be a super wise move for us to still go on the trip.

But we're going. And I know we're going to have a great time. And it'll be hard, yeah, to be all together and then go back to being separate again, because we all really like being together. But that's just the way it is.

In the meantime, after months of being uncomfortable with the amount of time I've been grieving, I've decided I'm just going to be ok with it lasting as long as it lasts. Because I really get why it's so big. For anyone who watches/watched Grey's Anatomy, it's a Derek and Meredith kind of love, and it's the kind of love that my new favorite hottie singer croons about in this song:

Here it comes it's all blowing in tonight
I woke up this morning to a blood red sky
They're burning on the bridge turning off the lights
We're on the run I can see it in your eyes
If nothing is safe then I don't understand
You call me your boy but I'm trying to be the man
One more day and it's all slipping with the sand
You touch my lips and grab the back of my hand
The back of my hand

Guess we both know we're in over our heads
We got nowhere to go and no home that's left
The water is rising on a river turning red
It all might be OK or we might be dead
If everything we've got is slipping away
I meant what I said when I said until my dying day
I'm holding on to you, holding on to me
Maybe it's all gone black but you're all I see
You're all I see

The walls are shaking, I hear them sound the alarm
Glass is breaking so don't let go of my arm
Grab your bags and a picture of where we met
All that we'll leave behind and all that's left
If everything we've got is blowing away
We've got a rock and a rock till our dying day
I'm holding on to you, holding on to me
Maybe it's all we got but it's all I need
You're all I need

And if all we've got, is what no one can break,
I know I love you, if that's all we can take,
the tears are coming down, they're mixing with the rain,
I know I love you, if that's all we can take.

A pool is running for miles on the concrete ground
We're eight feet deep and the rain is still coming down
The TV's playing it all out of town
We're grabbing at the fray for something that won't drown...

But what I've learned over the past year and change is that sometimes we have to let go of even the big loves. It's harder. It's hard as hell sometimes. But it is sometimes necessary, as it is in this case for me, and it feels more and more possible every day...