Year One.

Babes, It's almost been one year. One year, I can't believe it. I have lived through every holiday without you, every single day.

In one year I have learnt much, but have paid dearly for those lessons. So much so that I wonder if in the process I have been swallowed up.

I have come to know fear and freedom in very different ways. I have become even more gentle, caring, and painfully sensitive. I have also become, sharp, cold, and have a definite edge.

I have connected deeply to those I love, yet pulled way back and live much of my life in complete seclusion. My pain like a literal barrier to normal life.

I have heard so many ridiculous things come from people's mouths as they try to make themselves feel better around me, disguising it as trying to make me feel better.

I have faked it more than ever. Smiling or saying what people need to hear to make them feel alright about my situation. However, I have also become more transparent.

I have cried every single day for 360 days, and that is fucking crazy.

I have known shock. It coursed through me as a high that junkies would kill for. Unfortunately it faded into exhaustion and despair, settling into a nearly unbearable tension in my body and months with a headache.

I have been awe struck by people's kindness and how some people really just do the right thing because it's the right thing. Actually I have gotten schooled on doing the right thing. I have had people show up in ways I am not sure I would have, and seen amazing sides of people. I have lost friends, your family, and most of myself, but I have also gained new friends, and insights about life. 

I have sadly sat back and witnessed myself as this new person. She is alright on the surface, but just under that; broken.  

So in 6 days it will be a year to the day that everything changed. People that have not lived this hell say it like after the one year mark I will somehow feel better, but I know they are full of shit. I usually fake it for them, pulling out my award winning actress skills and acting out the same level of hope they have, only in my gut I know. I know that in 7 days from now it is unlikely I will wake up feeling 'better'. But I am trying babes, I really am.

I am going to have a purpose on that day. I am going to do what I do best, and the only thing that has kept me going, the one thing giving me purpose.  And instead of letting myself cry on the floor of the living room,  I am going to get my shit together and share these lessons. I am going to offer the wake up call to those ready to hear it. To those brave enough. Like organ donation, it will never bring you back, but you are still here living on, we are living on, through all we share we continue to shape the world. 

Babes, we did good. We did really good, especially considering we had no idea about the fragility of life or really an understanding of time. Sometime I wish this happened to someone else, someone we knew closely, so we could live life from this place. From a place where things got so fucking clear.  If only we were the bystanders.

Instead, you died and I was left behind.

But, like you would say, ‘you have to play the cards you're dealt, you can win with a 2 and 7!’  So Rene, I will play my hand. I will get in the game, and I will teach. Something you stood behind from day one even when I was ready to quite for a ‘real’ job. You saw something in me when I taught that you loved, and you supported it in ways I didn't even notice till this year. Thank you.

I have thought of you everyday.

Maybe it is your first birthday somewhere else? Let me be the first to wish you a happy birthday babe. ~with  love.