01.
Just for today, what if I allowed everything to be ok?

02.
I think I am now beginning to understand how something that brings me immeasurable joy can simultaneously break my heart.

03.
I’m desperate, willing to give anything for more time.

In the same breath: what could be more important than giving all of my attention to this moment — this living, breathing, messy life that is mine to call wonderful or awful or wretched or perfect?

04.
Not one thing is the same as it was before.

05.
On an especially low-mood day, one unsubscribe from my mailing list has tried to convince me that I should scratch all creative pursuits and start over.

Miraculously, I did not listen.

06.
After realizing that I had forgotten how to share the parts of myself I’m most proud of with the people I love most, I told both my grandma and my husband that I was writing again.

(Maybe it’s not about them knowing and more about me deciding to share).

07.
7:02am: I woke to the sound of birdsong and immediately thought of a future I had very little interest of stepping into…

7:06am: what if this feeling I’m having is entirely dependent on the circumstances of right now — of me in this bed feeling all sad and groggy and unmotivated?

7:08am: what if I were to worry about the future later? Or not at all? Or what if I worry about it a little bit but not so much that it consumes me entirely?

7:12am: Maybe I’ll feel differently once I get myself out of bed.

08.
Will our relationship last if you don’t hear from me for months and months?

I’ve decided that the only way to lessen the weight of this fear is to speak it out into the open, "I am afraid of losing this friendship. Of not being there for you when you need me most. Of not feeling up for our usual coffee date or afternoon walk or voice-note catch up — it could be a month, four months, a year? Maybe more? Or less? I’ve never been through anything like this before so I can’t be sure, all I know is that I can’t promise you anything right now and I’m afraid you’ll get tired of waiting for me to ask how you are.

It’s also possible that I am listening too closely to my fears rather than what I already know to be true, and worrying too much about a future I know nothing about, instead of focusing on the relationship we have spent years tending to so that it may weather the unimaginable without us needing to jump ship?

Maybe all I need to say is thank you for loving me the way you do, being your friend is one of the greatest joy’s of my life.”

09.
If I were to rewrite my story as fiction, what are the parts that I would change and what would I choose to leave the same?

10.
There can be good news, too.

11.
Two things.

Grief has the ability to swallow you whole.

Grief helps you decide what is worth carrying and what would you like to finally finally finally finally set down.