Yahrtzeit: Six years passed.

There are days that feel so heavy to be a human. I felt those all weighing down on me when I woke up today. Each passing year feels so different.

Some years (pauses), God, I just wrote years, as in plural. As I shake my head at the realization of the length of time, I visualized something. The distance of days, turned months, turned years feels like more and more time built between the two of us. Maybe I need to talk that one out… Regardless, unpacking my thoughts and feelings is a daily task these days.

Back to my thought: the heaviness. Sometimes humanity weighs heavy in the heart. Maybe it’s the turning of the season today, the official beginning of the hibernation period, the winter solstice begins. Maybe it’s the remembrance of what we all lost when you left this Earth? Maybe it’s the fact that so much humanity is ever changing? The world still feels frozen, but why? Maybe it’s the fact that I’m feeling all of the things I allowed to become numb?

Maybe it’s all of it.

It is all of it.

All at once.

The crashing waves. The water washed over me, and I just let it all flow. In ways, like these words. I always turn to here. Let it all out in writing. Maybe that’s why I hadn’t blogged in so long. What do we say when we have too much to say? Or if we find ourselves without the words to fully express our feelings, where do we begin?

I turned a lot to podcasts this year. Unpacking, and repacking what I’m experiencing, listening to, mulling over, and chewing on in my head.

Often I take the feelings, and I weave them into an armor of something in my mind. The fabric of this life. The frayed edges worn with time. Here I stand alas, holding onto that scarf and hoping it still warms me, even after the years have unraveled it’s thread.

Golly, I’m at a loss. I hate that. I don’t like not understanding, or not knowing. That is definitely the type A coming through…

My patience runs very thin these days, it reminds me of ice. Cracking and refreezing, and the water still moving beneath the surface. What is it like to full submerge, and feel that sting? I remember all too well that frigid cold feeling in 2015, of knowing the inevitable was coming, and I was incapable of stopping it. That’s it. Right there. That knowingness of watching the inevitable unfurl. That was the submerge, the slow spiral, and the waking up knowing.

Sometimes I turn, and I think that I see your reflection in the mirror. I hear the same sound in my voice, that I once heard in yours, and the ice cracks. Perhaps it’s knowing that all things have changed, and so many remain the same.

Humanity keeps spinning in it’s web. The universe is still shifting, and yet in the quiet hours of the morning, in the repeated numbers on the clock I have seen the: 222, the 444, and the 555’s, I think of you. The buzzing of a picture frame on my birthday. The song titles you loved, as recent discoveries of unknown artists sing. These are universal signs. The dragonflies that passed us by in Fall. The shooting star that Andy saw last week. The birds that stop, and meet my eye. All of these are natures way of saying, keep going dear heart, I see you there. These reminders repair the frays. I turn my head and the breeze gently sways. New winds begin to blow.

I cried more today, than I can remember in the last 365 days. Maybe it’s because I feel you more, and I feel you less, all at once in the caverns of my heart. Maybe it’s because the fleeting feeling of time ticking becomes ever present with the growth of these two babes. There’s nothing quite like being needed to remind you of what’s important. I heard a new song by Ashley Monroe titled, Gold, and I thought about you. Her voice reminds me of Alison Krauss. These little things help reweave the threads hanging loose.

I don’t know if I believe the phrase, time heals all wounds, is accurate any longer. Maybe it’s more like this: time cloaks the wounds, and your heart grows less heavy. Regardless, here I am. I broke a few stress cycles with the tears today. You would probably say, “Look at you, healing, and stuff, haha, and be healthy you. I’m proud of you.” I’ll go hug the babes, and take a walk now.

I’ll leave you with this Big sis:

Your son’s doing well.

He’s nearing six feet.

He’s driving now too.

Imagine that.

We all love and miss you.

The books you should see coming out in 2021, ahh, I hope you do see.

I saw a hedgehog on google today.

I chuckled aloud, and thought you’re so funny.

Leo said you wink at us when the stars twinkle bright.

I hope that he’s right.

xo,

Your little sister

RAB 2021.

Blow out the candles

They say age is like wine, it gets better with time.

I’m not sure who they are, but I couldn’t agree more. Life’s bit bittersweet with a flaky exterior. If I were to define age it would be the conscious knowledge of a number, and yet the fleeting feeling of freedom. When I was a child, I would wonder who I would be one day. What does it even mean to be? In the Spanish language it conforms to: ser, to be….

To be or not to be, that’s always the question, isn’t it? I have been an official adult for twenty years now. I am not sure of everything I have learned and how I could possibly put it into words. I think the description would need to be written as multiple stories instead.

All I truly feel is: gratitude. This gratitude for just being, going back in time to my writing of the Hebrew phrase: hineni: here I am.

Being here.

Being still.

Being in motion.

Being.

How lucky am I? I think I am similar, and also very much changed. I don’t make room for as many things anymore. I shed them like a cloak each year that I realize the lack of importance they held. Take for instance, doubt.

If I had given into doubt, I wouldn’t be here, writing, this, sharing it on the ethers of the internet.

If I had given into doubt, I wouldn’t have the memory of us holding hands in a foreign land and comforting her in the largest trial of time.

If I had doubted my gut instinct and not held his hand that one day, I wouldn’t be here with my family today.

If I had doubted my abilities, I wouldn’t have sung in that room with a panel of music faculty members judging my every move, and been awarded a scholarship.

If I had doubted my kindness, I would not have made my lifelong friend again and passed her paper in study hall.

If I had doubted my hope I would not have believed in rainbows after the storm and held both of my babies close to my heart.

If I had doubted my self-worth I wouldn’t face my fears and discuss them monthly with a trained professional therapist.

If I had given into my doubt I wouldn’t submit and submit, and revise, and edit, and resubmit my stories again and again.

If I had given into my doubt, I wouldn’t have crossed the 13.1 finish line and completed a half marathon three years after taking my first steps as a runner.

If I had given into doubt, I wouldn’t have made countless friends and spent hours at a dance studio I called my second home.

If I had given into fear I wouldn’t have a fifteen minute birth story and a beautiful human to care for.

Doubt is like your shadow. It tags along for the ride, trying to pull you back, or pull you down. But at some point, you must know how to embrace it. Remember that first time you discovered her? The shadow friend waved back, didn’t she? Sometimes doubt, and fear can high five you, just to see how far you have come, and give you a nudge to keep going.

Life is like that too. All the shadow friends fall behind, as you turn and face the light. It’s better if you look up most days. Take a power stance, and find the light of the sun, or the moon, and allow its shine to lift you up towards the sky.

Cheers to 38, the strong years, and all the ones that came before. They made me into this human form that helps me charge forth with passion and integrity.

Rain drops on roses.