I’ve always reached whatever goal I set for myself. I break it down into steps, and I’ve always lived my life that way. It’s worked for me.

My dilemma now is…I have no goal to work towards. I have to trust that if I do what comes next, then the next step will be revealed. I can’t even describe how difficult it is for me to give up that control. I’ve never been very skilled at winging it. But, difficult or not, it’s all I can do. I have to create a new life, a new person, from scratch.

The life I had is gone. The life I planned, with my husband, is not the life I’m left living. Which means lots of changes for me. Lots of things I want to hold on to, that just don’t work for me as a single person, not half of a couple anymore. I have nothing to hold on to, I don’t even have an identity anymore. I was Stephen’s wife, it’s all I wanted and it fulfilled me. I was a wife, I was a pastry chef…I used to be many things that I don’t own anymore.

All of the shit that has happened to me has made me so determined to live my life exactly the way I want to. To do what makes me happy, no matter how crazy or impractical it seems to someone on the outside looking in. I know how short life is. It’s been shown to me over and over again this past year. I will not wait for someday. Stephen and I did that, thinking we had a lifetime to get to those things we planned to do together.

Sometimes, someday never comes. And then what are you left with?

Nothing, that’s what.