Another small step

Our last dinner together, on the night she died, was at Tijuana Flats.

We ate there about once a week for the previous 9-10 years-I'm not kidding.

I hadn't gone back there until tonight.

I ordered at the counter.

I didn't need a menu, even after not having been there for ten months.

I knew exactly what she would have ordered.

I scanned the inside for a table but then saw the table against the window where we had sat.

I decided to sit at an outside table.

I was alone but was surrounded by multiple couples and families doing what we had done for years: talking and laughing while eating and reviewing our day.

I'm sure no one had any idea what I was trying to work through.

To them I was just a dude having a meal.

But I was also a dude who was making a breakthrough.

It was another good step in the right direction.