Plans.

We had a lot of plans for our life.

Most of them involved traveling to Key West and other places to continue our adventures. Which is funny because Sean and I weren't really long term planners - more like take it as it comes kind of people.

But retirement was a plan we talked about a lot.

I am able to retire in 6 years.  I'll be 55 and have over 25 years in the pension system as well as the district where I teach.  Retirement was something we both looked forward to.  He had a plan for when I turned in my classroom key for the final time.  He wanted to take me to Europe and visit England, Ireland, Scotland and Italy for an extended amount of time and end in Switzerland for the Montreux Jazz Festival.  We had a lot of time to plan this and decide where and when to go, what sights to see and, of course, places to eat.

It's the things we won't ever get to do together that upset me more than the sweet memories of the things we did.  Someone told me they felt bad for me because of how I was robbed of a future with Sean.

I feel bad about that, too.

When you get married, you are so excited about the future that is ahead of you.  Sean and I definitely were. Kids weren't a part of that future and we were happy with it just being us two.  That's the thing about marrying someone you love and like.  You are perfectly happy just being with them.  We loved doing everything and nothing together.  We loved sitting at home on a Sunday listening to music discussing each song as it came through the speakers.  We would talk about vacations we wanted to take, adventures to go on together.

But retirement - that was a big one. 

It involved moving away.  

Sean had been talking about going back to Canada for some time.  He wanted to be closer to his family - especially after his mum passed away.  We spoke about it a lot.  He wanted to build a place for us there and keep a small rental or buy a little condo here in the US so I could go back and forth when I wanted to visit, and so i could keep my citizenship.  We never did a lot of research into our plan, but the conversations became more in depth as my retirement age loomed closer.  We would sit in the living room with our coffee and he would look at houses and show pictures of what he wanted our forever home to look like.  I would remind him that I needed a big bathtub, a place for my books and a fireplace.  He wanted a big window so he could sit in his Key West chair and look out at the land and sky. 

Today, I'm sitting here, with my coffee, a snoring dog, and listening to my Lazy Sunday playlist, smiling at the songs that come through the speakers, thinking of the plans we made that will never come to be.

That's part of the problem of losing the person you love and like most in the world.  You haven't just lost your spouse, you've lost your best friend - the person you make plans with to do all the things.

All the things that now have been snatched away.