Before I get to Sunday, I have to take a small break from bleak shit to tell you this.

The weekend after we came home, my husband went to our bedroom to take an afternoon nap. This was just like two weeks ago. Summer was wrapping up and our house fell into this lull, a calm threaded with nervous excitement about school starting. The kids hidey-holed in their rooms, prepping their backpacks, or choosing first day clothes, or quietly enjoying those last hours of freedom.

After a while, I, too,  went back to the bedroom and lay down for a moment. You know how you do when you’ve got to get your ass up in twenty minutes to run an errand: on top of the covers so you don’t fall asleep, in your own little groove on the bed, eyes closed, floating for a moment. No internet, no information coming in, no thoughts.

My husband reached over, somewhere between half and fully asleep, and took my hand in his. Not Hey sexy lady! or a squeeze-drop Hello there acknowledgement, or even I know you’re fragile right now, hope this helps style squeeze. In fact, there seemed to be no purpose of communication in the gesture, other than he wanted to do it.

Such a nothing gesture, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it, wondering at it’s meaning. I mean, my husband and I touch each other all the time. We get along. We see so much of each other it sometimes seems as if he almost becomes invisible to me.

In fact, recently, my kids saw an old picture of us at my MIL’s cabin and giggled, “Dad used to have so much hair!” and I puzzled over the picture for a few minutes after they’d left.

Because although I know there’s a difference between a 22 year old kid in the photo and the 46 year old man who shares my bed, I honestly thought he looked like he had the same amount of hair in both versions, more or less. Which I guess is the good kind of invisibility to have, that someone who loves you still sees you as if you’ve just met.

So here I was in bed a few weeks later, my husband holding my hand, overwhelmed with wonder that someone who has touched me for almost 25 years, touched me in every conceivable place, touched me in ways no other person has or probably ever will, emotionally as well as physically – that someone like that would still feel compelled to cross the distance of a king sized bed to hold hands. All the love that went before is not enough to get your fill of holding hands.

It is way easier for me to talk about shitty things that happen, and this type of confession embarrasses me something horrible. But uncomfortable confessions are the primary purpose of this blog. That, and taking myself wayyyy too seriously. So here goes.

Love doesn’t always last. I might go so far as to say it usually doesn’t. But holy shit, even the slightest bit of it is amazing. And right now things are stressful, and there are so many things to be angry and sad about. But please remember you can change someone’s whole everything by reaching out to hold their hand.