We ended up going to McAllister’s for supper. The kids and I went there a couple of weeks/months ago and I’d decided we weren’t going back there again. But then I decided to give them another chance. We arrived about 15 minutes early so walked over to Home Goods to look around in the store. I couldn’t believe all the stuff.

We didn’t buy anything. Josh’s mom was there when we got back and the group of us walked up to the counter and ordered. They have warm food that doesn’t take forever to get but is still something different than a hamburger and fries. On the way into town I’d asked the kids what they thought about just having the one Christmas tree this year.

We’d just turn the harvest tree into a Christmas one. That way we wouldn’t have to worry about lights or carrying it in or finding a place to put it. The thought of bringing in a big messy thing just wasn’t appealing. The kids said absolutely not. So I nixed the Christmas tree idea until another day when I’d hopefully be feeling more inspired.

My nap was not enough to revive it, and neither was the afternoon of resting. In the car I had a flashback to April or May a couple of years ago when something like a nail popped out of my heart. I’d been crying so hard when it suddenly felt like some kind of impaled object came out of my heart. I thought for sure I was going to die right then.

I didn’t know how I didn’t, or what exactly it was that left. I thought it had to be some kind of grief thing, some kind of deep hurt that had lodged itself so deep inside me there was no removing it except by blunt force, or apparently crying. I’d been listening to these audio sessions on attachment theory and “love styles”. I was the “vacillator”.

They were coming on up on this key thing that had to do with their healing and coming into a more “secure connection”. I thought while I was listening, “Oh God, here it comes. They’re going to say you need to deal with your anger…” I was ready to hear it and own my problems. But instead they said, “You need to get comfortable with being alone.”

I don’t know if the nail came out before that or after that but all of that was happening around the same time period. We had a nice time at McAllister’s and we didn’t have to wait super long. We somehow got on the topic of the letters Josh and I had written to each other in the years before getting married. I was wondering where they were.

Josh was looking at me then said, “You don’t remember?” I feel like I’ve seen them in the past fifteen years or so, in a box that I that went though and wanted to keep. I always thought it be cool to arrange them in a book, like to organize them by dates and replies so they could be read in succession. Some of them are romantic and others just normal.

“Didn’t you bury them at Golgotha?”, my daughter replied. Apparently we did. Golgotha is the place on camp property where there is a giant (average) sized cross where we did a camp devotion one time for junior high kids where we acted out the crucifixion of Jesus. Many years later we buried these letters there. I was floored to hear any of this.

Because I couldn’t remember it. He said after we’d broken up he buried my letters in a box in his parents’ yard. But when we got back together he’d dug them back up. I have no idea why I would’ve wanted to bury them but the more I thought about it the more I remembered having this discussion and planning it, wanting to waterproof the box.

So now I’m wondering if we need to go dig them up at some point, or if we’d ever even be able to find the spot where we buried them, if we in fact actually did this. I know they aren’t in our room because I have deep cleaned in there and organized those sorts of things. The only place they could be is in the back office which I’ve never organized.