Occasion To Remember

Less than 24 hours after my post about looking forward, I am faced with the realization that three years ago today, I was part of taping the last set of scenes of the ABC version of One Life to Live. What's interesting is that after that day, when the "it's over" feeling first hit me, and after two years ago that day, when I looked back at a year that had not proved as productive as I'd expected, and after last year this day, when I had the feeling that a long time had gone by, this year, the day might have passed unnoticed for me, had I not read someone else's post about it. Somehow, the things you think will never fade just do. The pain you think will never lessen just does. The memories you think will control your life forever suddenly loosen their grip.
 
When I began this blog, more than two years and over 800 posts ago, it was to make some sense of a world that had been up-ended, an era of sorts that was over, and the landscape that was left afterward. What happened over two years and 800 posts turned out to be not just sense, but life. In those two years, I turned the hope of "not washed up yet" into a reality.
 
Today, I am not sorry that I was reminded of that sad day three years ago. But I'm not sorry that I had to be reminded either. Just as that day didn't define all the years of my soap career that led up to it, that day also doesn't define my life today. It is an anniversary, and a significant one, to be sure. But three years later, I can remember the hugs without feeling the emptiness. I can remember the people without watching them disappear. And I can be so wrapped up in other events that I almost forgot to remember that one.
 
Happy Last Day Anniversary, OLTL. I'll remember you. Maybe just not every day.