mona lisas.

five years ago, today, my now ex-husband and i went to a wedding together. the only reason i even know this is because someone in silicon valley came up with this idea to create 'facebook memories' which is really just a cyber vault way of reminding you, in a completely unsolicited manner, that "oh right. that happened."

so yeah. we went to a wedding. we had been separated for exactly four months and five days.

after all, we were still the millers.

after all, we were still navigating through the greatest pain that either of us had ever experienced.

after all, we were still committed to remaining as friends.

after all, we didn't really know what the fuck we were doing.

so we went.

he wore a tuxedo and i wore a plum-colored dress and was told by a number of people about how skinny and great i looked.

i wasn't skinny and looking great because i had all the sudden taken up yoga and an eye-roll worthy diet consisting of kale salads and fruit smoothies. i was skinny because i was dead inside and hadn't eaten solid food in exactly four months and five days.

but i thanked those who were naive to my current reality and danced the night away anyway.

we had sex that night. and again a few months later.

ask me why, and i would give you the same response that i would give you if you asked me how many pennies it would take to fill the room i'm currently sitting in.

which is: "how the fuck should i know."

because i don't.

there's that overused and tirelessly cliche saying that goes along the lines of something about how certain people come into your life and quietly leave, while others will come into your life and leave tiny footprints on your heart and you are never the same again.

truth.

cliche, but truth.

five years later i wrestle with that cliche a little, as i sit on a pile of shit otherwise known as "hey thanks, twenty seventeen. you've been the year of loss and tears and i'm over it and also fuck you."

but it's also been the year of great gains and i need to remind myself of that, despite the fact that my eyes are wet and swollen today. and possibly again tomorrow.

this evening, i nestled up to a kitchen counter in a home i don't own, in a town i don't live in, across from a dear soul who genuinely cares about mine. over matching bowls of ramen, we discussed love and loss and the power of goodbyes. we talked about the cathartic act of writing, which i suppose is why i'm here now. revisiting this place far sooner than i ever anticipated. we talked about loving ourselves more than loving others and taking chances in spite of outstanding odds and mounting fears. we talked about this year. the year that took many things away from me, physically and otherwise. but also the same year that welcomed into my life invaluable lessons, irreplaceable people, life-altering experiences, and an amount of self discovery that in no way has done anything less than morph me into a better version of the person i was meant to be.

this was the year that i was reminded of my value. this year reminded me that i am better than what a select few people of the past had sometimes lead me to believe. reminded me that love is possible, and could begin to make it's way into my orbit again. it was the year that i walked through central park, holding his pinky with my forefinger, while realizing that there will be unplanned and unexpected moments in life when your soul aligns with someone else's at the just the right split second, and the entire universe makes sense again. even if it's just for that moment.

and even if it might have been temporary, it existed.

the wet and swollen eyes help me now understand that it was real.

the tiny footprints lay on my heart and i will likely never be the same again.

additionally, elton john was mistaken when he said that rose trees never grow in new york city.

they do.

it's like riding a bike. i think.

i missed my flight, which really did me no favors except for squeezing an extra five hours out of this west coast experience which i will fondly refer to as "Two Weeks of Living Amongst The Grapes." 

someone should write a book and title it that.

maybe that someone should be me.

upon realizing i would be spending an additional unwelcomed five hours in an airport, which by all accounts is my idea of a waking nightmare, i figured i had about three or four different ways of occupying suspended time. i don't fare well when being asked forced to sit still for extended periods of time confined to uncomfortable furniture and recycled air conditioning hovering somewhere around 57 degrees.

this is probably why i don't work in a bank.

but alas, i could:
(a) find a bar and get bombed. meh.
(b) walk around and buy things i don't need. also meh.
(c) pick a fight with TSA for trying to confiscate the shell casing from my grandfather's funeral. super meh. i'm trying to get home, not in lockup.
(d) write.

so here me is.

i haven't been here in a bit. and by a bit, i mean five years. and while i find it painfully familiar, i'm also not entirely sure i know how to do this anymore. or maybe it's a bike-riding situation and i just need to find the pedals again. my legs are longer than they were the last time i was here, so it's quite possible that i just need to adjust the seat a bit.

i had all but forgotten about this space entirely until a few months ago. i met a man in the middle of america, by happenstance completely. about a billion things had to cosmically align for us to end up in the same room, at the same time, but cosmic shit is bigger than me and i don't really try and fully understand it. because as soon as you think you've figured it out, the sun shifts. the stars do their cosmic thing. God says hello. and then you're just back to putting one foot in front of the other while systematically reducing your intelligence level to "1+1=2 and that's all i know right now."

so i try and let happenstance remain happenstance. and pray that the yellow brick road will be kinder and a little less winding this time around.

anyway. it was that man in the middle of america who somehow found this place, liked me enough to read more than i'm certain he found amusing, and suggested i maybe revisit it again now.

so here is me.

i spent the last two weeks of my life looking at this every single day.

every. single. day.

i also spent the last two weeks craving a conversation with someone who disbelieves in a god, or God, or something bigger than us, and asking them, "but, really?"

there's this long road that weaves through the napa valley called "Big Ranch Road." i put almost a thousand miles on a rental car during those two weeks. up and down Big Ranch Road. most of my mornings were met with sights of hot air balloons which filled the sky in a way that flies fill a vineyard in harvest season.

this is harvest season.

flies are a plenty.

the flies like the sweetness of the grapes, and i'm on board with that. the flies like things which are sweet, and i like things which are sweet. we all should. so let's align ourselves with the flies and be less consumed with the over-annoyance of their swarming all around, and realize that we are like-minded in the simple fact that: sweet things are nice.

the hot-air balloons helped me remember why we're all here. we all just want to see this world from a vantage point that is greater than us. we all want to be a part of something amazing.

if i make it back to Big Ranch Road again in my little lifetime, i will consider myself a lucky girl.

i laughed there. in abundance. i cried there. with my heart in my hands.

i lived there.

for two irreplaceable weeks.