April 16th 2024

May 5th 2024

It felt odd posting this because as I wrote about it here, I already seem to be a different person.

The day I wrote this, which was now almost three weeks ago, I forgot to hit the final “post” button. Two hours later I got a phone call that one of my best friends, someone I had considered to be part of my family, had decided to end their own life. Saying my heart shattered is an understatement and I’m still working on navigating that. I rushed to a friend’s house so I wasn’t alone, I am working on consistently reminding the people I love that I love them, because I never want someone to forget it. I haven’t written anything since that day because it’s feeling impossible to gather the correct words to describe all of the feelings that come with a loss like this.

When I was little my mom told me that when people die they turned into stars, so if I ever missed someone I could go outside and be with them any night I wanted. That night I moved my pillows outside and laid on top of my picnic table, crying for Matt, angry at him and loving him all at once, crying for the other people I’ve lost, crying for all of the people I still had whose hearts were also breaking, and there was nothing I or any of us could do to ease that wound at the moment. The heaviness of this that would never completely go away. How unfair and cruel the world can be when hours before I had been seeing things through a new light. I cried until the sky became so cloudy I couldn’t see the stars anymore.

It only takes a second for life to shift in unexplainable ways. I’m working on finding the words to write about him, about this, about everything. Nothing seems to do it the justice it deserves. I’m simply taking it a moment at a time, reminding myself to “marinate” to savor the parts that don’t hurt so much. To love people hard.

Love your people and check in on them often

April 16th 2024

I just finished up my therapy session and wanted a drink to celebrate. I found this bar nearby that doesn’t have any cell service, so it’s where I’ll be heading whenever I need a second to clear my head and avoid disassociating by doom scrolling. (I won’t just casually tell anyone about it in fear that they might find me here in my post therapy safe space.) Did you ever have a rock tumbler as a kid? I actually didn’t but I always wanted one. I remember being a kid and a friend of mine showing me how ugly the rocks started going into the machine and how beautiful they would be when they came out. They were in that tiny little machine rocking around continuously for weeks! I feel like one of those rocks, I feel like at one point in my life I was this ugly little rock, I had rolled around and chipped and collected all kinds of dirt and germs for so many years. But! There is something good in there, if I just learn to polish it up. It isn’t until the last few months that I’ve felt like I entered my tumbler stage. Life has continually turned me upside down and tossed me around with little to none of my own control. I think I’m in my final sanding phase. 

I recently was out with a large group of people at a hockey game, hockey holds this special place in my heart. My dad loved hockey, he made up songs and chants we’d sing as kids. I remember watching them win the stanley cup in 2001 on my parent’s old tv in their bedroom. A tv so old that the power button had broken off and you had to use a wooden spoon to reach the little button inside of it to turn it on. I was only 8 years old, but as soon as they made that final shot my dad and I both were jumping on the bed celebrating. I didn’t know what any of it meant, but I loved seeing my dad so happy. There’s always been this part of me that tears up to see people feeling genuine feelings of happiness, this happens at weddings, at concerts, any public display of someone being in their element of joy. Those small victories play such a vital role in our lives that I wish we all celebrated more. I wish we jumped on the bed more. In 2021 my brother and I took him to his first hockey game ever. We got hot dogs and beers and a jersey for him in the gift shop. In a time that life was so cruel and hard for him and I, this was a small memory I could hold on to when I had seen my dad happy for the first time in the years since my mom died. He held onto that day for weeks afterwards, talking about it like a kid. We never did much as a family, but I was determined to change that after we lost my mom. I thought maybe this would be big enough to prove to him life could still be worth living. I remember then watching them win again in 2022, the year my dad had died. I was working and cranking out drinks feeding off the energy of everyone in the room. My dad’s best friend texted me saying he knew my dad was celebrating in heaven. I pictured him jumping on the bed wherever he might be.

At this hockey game a few weeks ago a regular of mine casually mentioned some news about someone I once loved so deeply, the shock in my face showed that I had been left in the dark. He tried to back track, but what he had said already hit me like an anvil. I was once again hurt by the fact that people who I consider my friends were hiding things from me thinking that after all I had been through, that I could be so fragile, that this would break me. I was honestly offended. I had worked so hard to pull myself from such a dark place, and I was feeling good, I was loving myself, I was finally loving my life. To think that one instance could hold so much power over that was insulting. If anything it made me realize how everything I have done to get here has been exactly the right move. I’m learning to trust myself. Instead of being sad or hurt, it made me angry, it made me angry at my dad for all of his deceitfulness in the years leading up to his death. It really had nothing to do with the person I once loved. Now whenever I find any information being withheld from me, despite someone's intentions, it hurts so deeply to my core, reminding me of the betrayal from my own dad. I am exhausted from doing the work to undo all of that damage. To learn to love and trust the world again. I excused myself and made my way to the bathroom at the arena. I was already in tears before I got there. I locked the door of the stall and had a panic attack. It had been years, but in a span of 24 hours I had experienced every possible trigger from high winds and fire risks, detrimental acts of alcoholism, people keeping secrets, to a hockey game that made me miss my dad. That was simply what I was feeling. I missed my dad so much my body seemed to implode. I texted two of my friends, I didn’t know what I needed, I thought I needed to get out, to leave. This was me activating my flight response, the only response I have become familiar with in a time of panic. I really just needed to know the world wasn’t squishing me and there was someone out there to be my lifeline. Both offered to drop what they were doing to come get me, no questions asked. That offer, and that reminder that I was not alone, that someone out there loved me, loosened the tightness in my chest. I didn’t know if I had been gone for five minutes or five hours by the time I calmed myself down enough to head back in to watch the rest of the game. On the way out everyone was heading home, I wasn’t ready to go home, I wasn’t ready to be alone with what had happened yet. My friend asked if I wanted to go out for a drink, as if reading my mind. “Yes please, thank god.” I responded. I didn’t care where we went or how we got there. I just needed to be in the company of someone, almost anyone, I trusted. I eventually confronted them about the news I heard, and the hurt in their face, and a genuine apology in wanting to protect me but realizing that wasn’t the best choice, was a simple explanation and was really all I needed. Sometimes a person just needs to be seen. An hour later I’m blasting Sun on Me by Zach Bryan while zipping around town on a Lime scooter following a friend of mine whom I wholly trust. There’s a line in the song that says, “Find someone who grows flowers in the darkest parts of you” Then it hit me, how few people make that cut in my life. I started laughing, the same night I had a panic attack in a public place which left me mortified, and quickly turned the evening around and remembered how much I love my little life and how lucky I am for the handful of special people I have on a stupid little scooter, I had so much fun and got to go home and curl up in my bed with my sweet little dog, I was alone and I didn’t want it any other way. Life is funny like that.

For so many years I have dated men who filled in the space, due to my fear of being alone. I never valued myself enough to know what I wanted, to know what to ask for, to enjoy the company of only myself. I assumed that I would be lucky for anyone to want to be with me. How for so many years I dated men that continually, unknowingly to both of us, continued to crush that chance of higher self esteem. Always thinking that everything was on me, if I was to just be a little bit better, it would heal our relationship or any problem we faced. How quickly that narrative has shifted in the past few months. For the first time in my whole life I feel as though someone could be lucky to have me. I feel so lucky to have myself. I wasted so many years on people who could never see my value. It’s odd, because I have this group of girl friends. Who have set the bar so incredibly high that maybe I convinced myself no man could ever match up to any of them, so the bar for someone when it came to dating never existed. These friends make me dinner, we fight over who pays the bill, we send each other flowers and cookies and care packages when life is hard, text each other on big days, all they have to do is look at me or each other to know if something is off. The love and understanding runs so deeply that so many actions come without question, in a way that they’re not even special acts anymore, they are just simply who they and I are, people who I can trust to tell me to reel it in, or people who are up to celebrate any occasion, big or small. I have never once hid anything from them in a fear that they would choose to leave me or walk out of my life. I have only had that thought with men I’ve dated. Why is that? My god these women have certainly seen me at my lowest and possibly most unforgivable phases, and the idea of them ever leaving has always been out of the question. It has never even crossed my mind, and now I’m learning that's what I need to be applying to any man I ever allow the privilege of sharing a life with me again. I always believed in a soulmate, I always thought I’d find my person to marry and grow old with. Instead I’ve started realizing that I’ve been lucky enough to find a handful of soulmates. This group of people who complete me in one way or another, even if each is a little different. Someone recently came up to me and said how envious they were of my solid group of friends. Although in the moment I agreed and expressed how fortunate I am, with anything else in this life those relationships have taken work. That work just feels a little more effortless to me. It is easy for me to show up for people I love, in both the good times and the hard times. It’s seeming to be effortless for them as well. I think that’s what love is, I think love in so many forms is simply effortless. It makes me feel good going out of my way for someone I love, I think if it was to feel like a task it wouldn’t be love. I’m determined to listen to that feeling more in my life. I’m out here changing my life, I’m tumbling around like a rock, and I’m learning to go with what feels right, I’m calming myself down, and I’m no longer suffering in silence. I’m reaching out to those people I love, I'm allowing myself to be loved, doing things alone in fear is no longer admirable to me. I go to bed at night struggling to sleep because I’m excited to get up and keep living my life, and what a feeling that is because, holy shit I had never felt it before in my 30 years on this planet, and I’m here to savor every second of it while it lasts. Being proud of myself for shedding all of these painful past lives, recognizing them for what they are, but choosing to reshape that hurt to learn to love people better. I’m learning to “marinate”, to simply exist in these simple times of my life, to slow down, and soak in all of the feelings that come and go in this new chapter, and to just avoid my only comfortable reaction of flying or fighting. Looking at these bigger pictures and evaluating my feelings, getting to know this person that is inside of me that’s waited 30 years to come out. I’m no longer worrying about the future, instead I’ll be busy jumping on my bed celebrating these little victories.