My husband, Richard, and I had a tradition.
Every year, we'd put money aside for a little holiday. Nothing particularly extravagant. Sometimes it was a week somewhere sunny, sometimes a few nights exploring a British seaside town.
Richard was always the one who planned everything.
He'd spend hours comparing hotels, checking restaurant reviews and looking at places to visit. I'd usually leave him to it, occasionally suggesting somewhere I'd seen on television.
He loved having something to look forward to.
When he passed away, I stopped travelling altogether.
For almost three years, I couldn't bring myself to book anything. Going away without him seemed pointless. Every destination reminded me of somewhere we'd visited together or somewhere we'd once talked about visiting.
I convinced myself that holidays were simply something I no longer did. An unexpected invitation One afternoon, my niece mentioned that she'd booked a short break to Edinburgh.
She was telling me about the hotel when she casually asked whether I'd like to come along.
My immediate answer was no.
I hadn't travelled without Richard in over twenty years. I didn't know whether I'd enjoy it, whether I'd feel uncomfortable or whether the experience would leave me missing him even more.
But she didn't pressure me.
She simply said, "It might be nice to have something different to look forward to."
I thought about that sentence for several days.
Eventually, I agreed. Leaving the house felt like the hardest part On the morning we left, I nearly changed my mind.
I'd packed my suitcase, checked everything twice and then spent twenty minutes standing in the hallway wondering what I was doing.
I felt nervous about the journey, the hotel and all the little things Richard would normally have organised.
But once we arrived, something unexpected happened.
I started enjoying myself.
We explored the city, visited little independent shops and spent far too much money in a bookshop. One afternoon, we found a small restaurant tucked away down a side street and stayed there talking long after we'd finished eating.
At one point, my niece took a photograph of me looking out over the city.
I remember looking at it later that evening and noticing something.
I looked happy.
Not because I wasn't missing Richard, but because I was genuinely enjoying where I was. The memory I didn't expect On our final evening, we walked past a little travel shop displaying photographs of different destinations.
One picture caught my attention: a coastal town in Italy.
Richard and I had talked about visiting somewhere like it for years, but we'd never quite managed to organise it.
For a moment, I felt that familiar sadness.
Then I found myself wondering whether it was somewhere I might like to visit one day.
Not instead of him.
Not because I'd forgotten our plans.
Simply because I'd realised I could still have plans of my own. Coming home with something new When I returned home, I unpacked my suitcase and placed a photograph from the trip on the mantelpiece.
It sat alongside the photographs of Richard and me.
I didn't feel that one belonged there any less than the others.
The holiday hadn't changed my grief, and it certainly hadn't made me stop wishing Richard could have been there.
But it had reminded me that there were still experiences waiting for me.
Since then, I've taken two more trips. I've even started looking at destinations Richard and I never visited.
I still sometimes catch myself thinking about what he'd say about a hotel or whether he'd approve of a restaurant.
And I like that.
Those memories come with me wherever I go. Your world can become bigger again If you've stopped doing something you once loved because it reminds you of your late partner, perhaps you don't need to give it up forever.
You don't have to return to it immediately, and you certainly don't have to force yourself.
But one day, you might feel curious enough to try again.
It could be travelling, attending a concert, taking up a hobby or visiting somewhere you've always wanted to see.
You might find that the experience brings sadness, happiness or a mixture of both.
That's okay.
I used to believe that travelling without Richard would make me feel further away from the life we shared.
Instead, I discovered that I could carry those memories into places we'd never been.
I haven't stopped missing the person I travelled the world with. I've simply started discovering that there are still places worth seeing.