Life has a funny way of constantly catching you off guard.  Sometimes everything feels good, and conversely, sometimes everything feels awful.  Sometimes it takes every ounce of energy and concentration just to get from one day to the next, one hour, one minute to the next.  It feels like walking underwater – slow, and muffled and everything just slightly out of focus.

Last night John cooked again.  I was supposed to, but life felt like it spiraled out of control halfway through my day and John rescued me.  I’d marinated steaks and planned to do baby golden potatoes and asparagus but luckily, John is more creative than I am, and he swapped out the potatoes for riced butternut squash.  It was insanely delicious.  He cooked it simply ~ in the oven for about an hour with butter and salt & pepper spread out in a glass baking dish.  He made some whipped cinnamon sour cream as a garnish.

The asparagus and steaks were cooked on the grill.  Probably about ten to fifteen minutes for the asparagus and a minute per side for the steak (we like our red meat rare).  The marinade keeps them tender and is (if I do say so myself) delicious.  It’s my mother’s recipe and when I finally focused long enough to make it instead of just winging it (as I did for the first few years John and I lived together and when I began to cook) it was so worth it. Now, steak feels naked without it.

We ate outside at our new bistro table.  John and I have a small spending problem ~ when we see something we like and can envision it in our lives, we tend to buy it.  Lowe’s was having a sale and this little table with two bar stools spoke to us.  We brought it home, assembled it (ahem, John assembled it) and have been using it at every opportunity since.  I picked a nice bottle of Pinotage and we had a really wonderful evening.

I have to admit that when we sit down and eat dinner and talk it’s truly wonderful.  There are certainly nights when we are both so exhausted and wiped out that it’s about all we can do to put a meal together and collapse in front of the TV.  But last night was a good night.

Tonight?  Not so much. I keep reminding myself that it’s only October 4th and I can’t give up on my challenge this early.  That throwing in the towel at the first sign of difficulty is really pretty weak.  And there will always be hardships.  Life is not habitually sunshine and roses.  But today feels heavy, like Sisyphus leaning against his boulder at the bottom of the hill, knowing that all the effort and all the energy will be for naught and yet must be expended.  That tomorrow, I will have to begin again at the beginning. That it will still feel heavy and damn near impossible.  And that won’t change.

Last week one of my closest friends lost her father.  And amongst everything she said in the wake of his death, she echoed the sentiments of Gretchen Jackson following the death of her race horse, Barbaro.  That grief is the price we pay for love.

And love is wonderful and all-encompassing and lifts us up and allows us to believe that anything and everything is possible.  But grief — grief is absolutely awful.  It is the coldness of Harry Potter’s dementors and the bereftness of Frodo’s Ring Wraiths.  It is emptiness and loneliness and hopelessness and unendurable aching pain.  Grief sucks the air out of your lungs and leaves you helpless.  Grief is agony.  Grief is how I feel today.

So, that being said, I know that tomorrow I must get up and be strong again.  I must smile and be positive and focus on all the good.  But yesterday and today I spent some time feeling irrevocably sorry for myself.  And John, as always, saved me.