One step forward,, 5 steps back...

It's been a while. It's hard to say how I am feeling about a lot of things in general because things are so up then down and back again. I have turned a lot of things around in my life and have come a long way from where I was a year ago; quit smoking 9 months ago, got rid of a lot of bad people in my life, started rebuilding a relationship with my father and sisters, started writing again, rebuilt friendships, got going on going to school...all good things. Making plans and implementing them...good things...then I end up in the ER.

It could have been worse, everyone was worried I was having a stroke. Turns out it is Bell's Palsey. It was scary though, and frustrating. It appears that I am getting better, and I can even already close my eye again, something most cases take months to get to and I am already there in a week, but...I can't help but feel like I am due for good things to happen for more than a month at a damn time or a change. It has been such an awful few years...losing Jay, losing, Mom, both in a flash with no chance to brace myself and prepare for it. The wrecks, there have been so many of those....losing an aunt, it just goes on and on.

The grief and depression are viciously debilitating. I hide it well, but I am not okay. I am however, trying to get to a place where I am okay again. I can't help but wonder though, if when I get there is life gonna just smack me senseless again and toss me right back down? I hope this is all worth it. I know I am a fighter, and I know I have a mark yet to leave on this world but, damn if it wouldn't be nice to get there and not be set right back again....

Another had to fly....

Another sudden and unexpected loss in the family. It is important to say that our family is HUGE, and adding the extended and adopted in family to those numbers just makes us a bigger group. And though our numbers are large we are all still very close. Very close. Each loss is a crushing blow. But because of each other we always manage to stand back up and face the next hurdle together. It goes without saying that we are all still here today because of the love and support and strength we manage to find in each other. We love and will miss you Aunt Lila, Very Very Much.

Regret?

I don't believe in regret. I have made mistakes and yes I am sorry for them, but I do not regret them. Because I have never done anything in my life that didn't feel like the right thing to do at the time. And when those things turned out to be mistakes at least I learned something. And I wouldn't be who I am if it weren't for where I've been and what I have done. Mistakes and all. And I actually like , love and respect who I am. And who I am becoming. Some people cannot say that. I can. And I only hope over time that that never changes.

....ever forward, never back....

Some people will never really realize what it takes to overcome something that is bigger than them. I understand it better than I'd like to. Slow and steady is the only way to win this race. You have to lay a hefty foundation for each step up you take. And I am having to take this one small step at a time. The important thing is those steps continue forward. Backtracking isn't in the cards. That said, every step I have taken has been regret free and has built me into who I am. So I WILL remember Where I have been, Who I have known, What I have seen, and What has made me who I am. Why? Because I am proud of what those things helped to make me, and I'm surviving. Something I doubted was possible at one point.

I listen to mine...

Listen to your heart was a good song. And a song with a very good point. 'There's nothing else you can do.' Why would anyone try to ignore theirs? The concept is so utterly foreign and ludicrous to me that I just can't fathom it. I love someone who has been taken from this world. I have no plan or intention to love someone else. I will not risk having to try and survive it again. I am barely surviving it now. To ask me to set aside the only coping mechanism I have is so far removed from acceptable that I don't even know how to react to the suggestion. Or command really. Other than to say Fuck off! Not going to happen! Frustration is an understatement. I would have never thought the people I would expect to care the most for and about me would turn their back on me in this way. It hurts. Brutally hurts really. It isn't even that they are turning their backs, because that is really what they are doing. It is more that they are refusing to even try to see where I stand and are in essence attacking me for still feeling and not 'moving on.' This in their eyes is dwelling. This in my eyes is grieving the only way I know how. By remembering, avidly and enthusiastically someone I want to ensure never fades in my memory even a little. Partially because I want to remember and mostly because remembering makes me feel a little more like he is still with me. Still making me laugh, still having faith in me, supporting who I am and what I do, and loving me. Because he did love me. We had a complex relationship that escapes definition in a lot of ways. But we did love each other. And that was said and acted out many times and in many ways, by both of us, so taking away the value and depth of what we had together is not only unfair but callous beyond comparison.