Coming Back Up for Air
“…the reason is because I didn’t know how to. All I knew how to do was feel—all the raw emotions, hoping that at one point it would stop or I would have someone (new) to help me forget the hurt and pain the last person caused me. I think it’s only now, in the absence of chaos and distractions, that I’ve been forced to face it: the grieving of a relationship. And processing all of it—the good, the bad, what you need to take away from it, and what you need to truly, finally, let that person go, for good.”
Diary: Heavy
"I don’t know what it is about this particular month, but I feel, and have felt, it’s been a particularly heavy, and just…hard month...
I feel that weight like a collective burden as I hold their words and feel what it is they must be going through right now. I don’t know why life has been so hard, for it is for so many right now, and I wanted to speak to it."
Dear you,
"I want to write to you, before I meet you, as I feel there’s so much I want you to know. About the girl before, the girl that was, before the woman you will one day meet. Tonight finally feels like a good time to at least start. Because tonight I just learned my last living grandparent, my grandma Mae, passed away today."
Diary: Paris
"One year ago today I was on a plane headed to Paris. I had just come back from another trip. One day separating such vastly different men and different experiences. To succinctly put it, one man I was hoping to fall in love with, and another who was falling in love with me."
Diary: 2019
"So much to look back on...While it is so easy to focus on how hard this past year has been, I have intentionally been trying to focus on the good, because there truly was so much good in 2019.
Diary: 3 Months
“Hard to believe it’s only been three months, and yet so much has happened in that time. …
May 1st I had something amazing happen, and I even allowed myself to have hope. …I have hoped for something like this for so long...and it really felt like a dream, while it lasted.”
Ready to try again
"As much as I hated to admit it, there it was: when he spoke, I heard his voice. The man I fell in love with."
Learning how to say Goodbye
“I am learning how to say goodbye. Not necessarily because I want to, but because I know I have to. I know that I have to put me first now, and that it means letting go of these people—from my life, from my thoughts. …It may not be overnight, but a day at a time, I am giving myself back to me…”
G is for Great Expectations
"Up until now, all of these expectations I have been describing are completely normal and a part of everyday life. What I have been struggling with lately is when does having expectations become a bad thing? When does having expectations ultimately hurt you?"
E is for Erasers
"I think it’s important to recognize that erasers aren’t perfect. Even the fancy kind I had in the fifth grade. There were always remnants left behind—faint, but the marks were still there if you looked closely. No amount of erasing could remove it all completely (believe me, I tried). I believe it’s the same exact concept with erasing people and relationships. I don’t care if you’re writing in pencil or in pen, there are going to be marks left behind."
H is for Hurt
“Hurt. Heartbreak. Heal. I wish it were that easy. As easy as taking a misstep and falling down; granted, it hurts (sometimes like hell), but you can get back up, brush yourself off, and move on. Sometimes, when it comes to matters of the heart, however, it’s just not that easy. It may be that simple, but it is never seemingly that simple or ever easy. At least not for me…”