Cycles of revelation

I reread my first post in this blog last night. It seemed very familiar, and not just because they were my words. I've been repeating myself, apparently. In that first post, I said I'd started to feel a shift, that I'd begun to be able to envision a future without Sandy. That was in September. I said very much the same thing this week, and when I wrote it, it felt new to me.

I'm not sure whether the waves indicate tide going in or out,
but hey! Sandy liked the ocean. She's standing on one foot
in Santa Barbara; we rode rental bikes to the beach that day.

I've been told many times that this process isn't linear. I've recognized that I'm moving forward in fits and starts. But I hadn't seen the overall pattern until now. It's an irregular wave pattern, in which the bottom and top of the wave are both a little higher each time, but only a little. The length of each wave is just long enough for me to overlook the one that preceded it, and to forget that another one is likely to follow.

I use the same words each time, but they mean different things, I think. In September, envisioning a future without Sandy meant I was willing to believe that the seasons would continue. Now it means I'm willing to create a financial plan and plan the garden for the year, but there are still many thoughts of the future that stop me cold. I've no idea what the next shift will bring, but I'm certain that I'll think it's a brand new revelation.

When I was 20, I decided I wanted to be cremated, so I told my mother. Apparently, I made that decision and told her multiple times, because she was annoyed that I kept sharing this insight with her. I have no idea why it didn't stick for me; if it was such a momentous decision, shouldn't I have remembered that I'd made it? I was both bemused and amused by my own memory block.

I told Sandy about this revelation stutter years later, and it became a sort of shorthand for us. When one of us was sharing something we'd already shared, the other would say, "Did I tell you I want to be cremated?" And we'd both laugh. I know it's not exactly the same thing, because the meanings are shifting with each wave, but when I reread the first blog post last night, I couldn't help saying out loud, "And did I tell you I want to be cremated?"And laughing.