A cigarette and coffee whilst watching the sun come up in Tahiti is so amazing that I wish I’d written it on a bucket list, just for the satisfaction of crossing it off. Even with my life in shambles, there was peace in this moment. I inhaled and thought about the last twenty-four hours…

My wedding. I was halfway down the aisle when I looked at my husband-to-be's face and my life flashed before my eyes. Not the events in my past, but what awaited me in my future. With an abrupt about-face, I turned tail and ran past the shocked expressions of the guests who came for a wedding and stayed for a show.

Was it tacky to make use of the tickets to our honeymoon destination? Probably. But I needed to think, and the incessant ringing and pinging of my phone was starting to make my brain hurt. I turned it off and told the limo driver we’d hired to take us to the reception to head in the direction of the airport instead. And with that decision made, I'd felt calm for the first time in months…though I did have a moment of hysterical giggles when the TSA agent frisked me in my voluminous wedding gown. Thankfully, everything we needed for our trip was already in the car and I was able to change out of the fluffy monstrosity in a bathroom near the gate. I left my dress on a hook on the back of the stall door and felt utterly unencumbered when I walked out to await my flight.

I looked around now at my tropical anti-honeymoon. This wasn’t a bad place to think, really. Palm trees swayed in the breeze and the ocean sparkled under the rising sun. The feeling like I was slowly being choked to death was finally starting to abate. My now-ex wasn’t a horrible guy, but when I thought of him in conjunction with passion and love and a soft place to land - not to mention fidelity and loyalty - my mind went blank. It’s amazing what we can talk ourselves into when we fear loneliness.

I’d never been alone and now I was. It felt amazing. Free.

A shit-storm of epic proportions awaited me back home, but the idea of walking in to an apartment devoid of another human being made it bearable. From the rather graphic texts sent this morning, I'd gleaned that he’d moved out. Apathetically, I considered telling him what he suggested wasn’t anatomically possible, but that would just poke the bear. And that I did not want to do.

He’s the kind of man who gets pleasure out of making others suffer in small ways, without them even realizing it. Death by a thousand cuts. He’d build me up and then slowly withdraw his approval, only to give it back to me in tiny portions. A slow-moving roller coaster of highs and lows that left me in tears more times than I could count. I’d do more and more to get back to a place where he thought I was wonderful...and he’d withhold those words, dangling them over my head and I’d jump and jump and never reach them. Innocuously insidious, that one. Too bad I had this epiphany right as I was walking down the aisle.

The face I saw when I looked back before running out of the church wasn’t hurt. It was furious. I smiled at that and took another drag. He never expected me to find my backbone. Live and learn, right?

"Daddy, my friends won't play with me..."

Damn, the girl breaks my heart. She tries so hard. If there's one thing I never want her to feel, it's lonely. I know the feeling too well.

"Come here, baby." I tug on her hand, and she sits down on my lap. "You want Daddy to help you?"

She nods and gives me the saddest look.

"Okay," I decide. "Tomorrow we'll go to the playground, and I'll help you make new friends. Better friends."

I just need to pick up some duct tape and rent a car.

"You're the best daddy ever!"

I wonder...if you've never known true love, can you miss it?

I think you can.

My mother's mother. We called her Granny and I loved her fiercely. A true southern lady, but man, did she have some big brass balls.

I am often told I am just like her. And I am to some degree. Southern charm and grace on the outside, inappropriate curiosity and often no filter on the inside. Not nearly as open and brave as she was, though.

She and my grandfather were childhood sweethearts. They even had the same birthday. He was seventeen and she was thirteen when he saw her up in a tree and said, "Someday, I'm going to marry that girl." This was the late 1920s. He married her in 1935.

I tried to get married on their birthday, as a tribute to them both. We were a day late in getting the license and had to settle for July 22nd instead. I was almost inconsolable.

They had a kind of love so rare you don't even wish for such a thing, but hope you at least get close. Cupid himself was probably an active voyeur. She was the outgoing life of the party and he was the quiet, refined professional. They complemented each other. Peas and carrots or some such nonsense.

This was a woman who never met a stranger. There is an infamous tale of the time she encountered a woman in a public bathroom. The woman had very long nails that curled due to their length. My grandmother stopped her, and in what I can only imagine as morbid curiosity cloaked in southern pardon-me, she asked her how she managed to wipe. That story gets told to every newcomer to the family.

Her driving was infamous. This little red-haired woman (she kept up the red for a long time after nature took it from her) drove like a maniac. God help you if you got in her way. To this day, I echo her in calling people turkeys when they don't agree with me that ten miles over the speed limit is the right way to interpret the law. I use it a lot to joke with people, too. It was not even something I noticed until my mom pointed it out. This was followed by the now-familiar, "You're just like her!"

She kept gum in a little silver cup on a shelf for me. I've probably gone through hundreds (thousands?) of five-piece packs of Wrigley's Spearmint gum in my lifetime. And when the flavor ran out, I'd go get a cough drop for the crunch and a minty kick. I still like crunchy gum. Try a Starlight mint and Big Red gum. You're welcome.

When she went into the nursing home, she gave me her car. It stank of her Capri cigarettes, and to this day I can't see one of those weird, skinny little cigarettes and not think of her and smile.

When she died, she left me--out of all of her children and grandchildren--her wedding ring. This is my most prized possession. When my grandfather died in 1980, she basically died with him. She impatiently waited sixteen years to join him. And while she still smiled and laughed and loved, her soul was missing its mate. She was ready for the reunion and refused more treatment for the cancer.

Since I cannot have children, that ring will go to my niece. The one I fully expect to be arrested at Mardi Gras when she's eighteen, and as such, I'll have to put down some strict conditions on bequeathing it to her. She's only two, so we have time to iron out the details.

I have a shitty memorial tattoo for her on my wrist. My ex-husband got a tattoo gun and I was young and dumb. I want to get it fixed or lasered off and done properly, but every time I think too much about it, it seems like I'd be removing her from me. I can't do it.

But what she really left me, and what I'd love to be able to hug her neck for now that I know what a gift it was? A sense of knowing who I am. A take-no-prisoners approach to being me. A sense that if you don't like me...well, bless your heart, that's a personal failing on your part. A knowledge that there are men out there who will love you fiercely and look fondly upon you and laugh when you show your ass. This is what gets me through the loss of love, and what allows me to roll with the punches.

And to know what I am missing.

His hands covered my eyes. "No peeking." The grin in his voice made me smile, and I bit my lip. "Are you ready?"

"Yeah." I swallowed my nervous butterflies. The wind was Irish, strong and unpredictable. I'd waited for this. I'd read about this. I'd seen…more photos than I could count.

Then I got to experience it with my own eyes as his hands fell away, and it was breathtaking and scary and exhilarating and, and, and I couldn’t find my words. We're so small. The expansive cliffs shot up from the ocean, the sight sucking the air from my lungs. Grassy hills so green that my senses needed time to adjust. My body did the talking. Tears welled up, and my grin was so wide.

Cliffs of Moher.

Far, far below, the waves were crashing soundlessly against the cliff walls. The wind whooshed back and forth, sending my hair flying in every direction. It was love at first sight. Struck mute and unable to contain my emotions, I let out a happy squeal behind my hands, and I stiffened from sheer excitement.

He was watching me with a knowing smile. "Come here." He hugged me to him, a warm and tight squeeze. "You see now?"

I nodded, remembering his words.

"Living life like this…you live the words you read. Travel to learn, learn so you can understand, experience so you can share the story and do it justice. Don't spend your entire life working on one chapter."