Grief changes you

As you wake up, for just one split second, your mind jumbles your dreams with reality, leaving you unable to distinguish between what is “real” and what occurred only in dreamland. For just a moment, you’re back in an alternate universe, a universe in which your loved one was still alive. They were eating cereal...

Here’s to the wild girls

Here’s to the girls who are a lot to handle. Who are loud and unapologetic. Who laugh without worrying if someone is taking a picture and they have a double chin and laugh lines. Who speak their minds without giving a second thought about the reaction of whoever hears. Who say what they want and never ask for...

The Beauty of rock bottom

Rock bottom. You’ve been spiraling, spinning, falling, and now you’ve crashed. You’ve sunk. You’ve shattered into what feels like a million pieces and you don’t have the strength to rise again. Parts of your heart are sprinkled all over the ground, getting trampled as people walk through, crumbling to dust and being taken by the...

To those who loved me at my worst , thank you

To the people who hold me up when my knees give out and I start tumbling to the floor, thank you. Thank you for being my extra pair of legs when mine refuse to work. For letting me lean on your strength when I’m convinced the rest of the world wants me face down in...

This is why I stay

I stay because my laugh alone has changed someone’s life. I stay because of a new baby being born soon. I stay because there is someone in the world who needs my presence. I stay because I have words that need to be spoken. I stay because of the way my Dad needs me to...

A lesson on healing

What happened to you was not your fault. It was not something you asked for, it was not something you deserved. What happened to you was not fair. You were merely collateral damage on someone else’s warpath, an innocent bystander who got wrecked out of proximity. We are all traumatized by life, some of us...

An open letter to my codependency

You have controlled me for years. You have forced me to constantly doubt where I stand with the people around me and to always put myself second. Serving people is a pure thing, until it becomes toxic. The problem with putting everyone else first constantly is that people learn you come second. And you begin...

Your broken heart will heal

I know your heart is hurting. I know your whole body is aching. Aching for the loss you feel so deep in your soul. . Aching for the past, for the years when your body felt whole. I know you keep getting burned by matches that scald your skin and mark your bones, and you...

When grief overwhelms your soul

Your knees have caved in and you fall to the floor. You’re wallowing in a pain so deep, so unfathomably strong, you don’t know how you’ll stand again. You didn’t even know a heart could bear this type of physical pain. The death of someone who you hold very close to your heart is one...

I’m slowly learning family means nothing

I am slowly learning the people who I choose to keep in my world are more significant than the people who were forced into my world by circumstance and genetics. I should not be expected to stay loyal to family members I did not pick. Family members who mistreated me. Family members who make my life a living...