No Steel For Me

I will be receiving no Steel today.

No cards will come in the mail.

No romantic dinner or party with friends.

No trip away to the beach

or anywhere else.

Just the memories of the anniversaries before.

The good ones and the bad ones.
The fun ones and the sad ones.
The first one and the last one;
they were the best.

I remember the day that we married.
I remember the day that we divorced.

Both days were filled with apprehension and uncertainty.
Both days are behind me now. Behind us.

It's weird to measure a time in your life with a beginning and an end. Usually people aren't able to do that; it's more fluid and constant, always changing and evolving and flowing through time.

I always knew that there would be a beginning, a middle, and an end to our life together.

That day in Lake Tahoe, when I said those words, I knew.
I knew that was the beginning.

Six years ago; it was the middle.
We celebrated five years of marriage, and we were at a crossroads. I wanted to embrace it, to grow to make it better; but he wanted to ignore it.
He wrote me a poem; it said it all; I knew we were at the middle.

Last year, in my living room, when I said those words, I knew.
I knew we were at the end.
It was a sense, a knowing, another crossroad; but this time it couldn't be ignored.
It was time.

Forever this day will be marked in my mind as a day to remember.
Not be sad, not be glad, just remember.

This year will probably be the hardest.
It's been the hardest year.
Tomorrow is the first day of the next year.
It will be easier.
I believe that.