03/04/2023
It has been 8 years since you left us earthside. Each year has brought up new, a-linear emotions from Grief’s broad palette. Some years are more painful, others get distracted with life’s current stressors. It’s all a part of it, I now know.
This year brought up a new feeling- was it at all real? Losing someone to the disease of addiction is extremely confusing and complex. The truth is we all moved through two waves of your passing; one more obvious on this day 8 years ago, and the other a more slow death of your beautiful spirit as the addiction crept in each year.
I can’t tell you how incredibly painful it was to keep distance all those years, knowing that under that dampening blanket of dis-ease was who I felt in my bones to be my soulmate.
“You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to help themselves,” I would say to ease the pain. I rethink that cliché line because maybe you did want to help yourself and didn’t have the tools. Maybe I still feel a bit guilty or selfish for not putting my life on hold more to help you heal. But I realize now I didn’t have the tools either. And I know you pushed me away over the years to keep me safer and let me live life for the both of us.
Maybe that’s what drives me so much now to live this life on purpose. Because aside from all the pain in your passing, there was also peace. Relief. Permission to say f**k it and leave a life of ‘ok’ to pursue a life of ‘amazing.’ your death was my opportunity for a new life.
I continue to follow all your signs in the warm breezes and the hummingbirds that fly directly in my face. I know you are still with me, still annoying me when I get too serious, still pushing me to be better.
Instead of trying to fill the hole in my heart that your passing has left me with, I decided long ago to grow an even bigger heart to make room for someone new to love. And while I haven’t found that yet, I choose to stay hopeful and celebrate each day I can with the lessons I’ve learned and the unique perspectives your passing has given me. you showed me how special I am and I refuse to settle for anything less than random serenades and the out of the blue “your’e so damn beautiful.”
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