Drama Free in 2023

At the start of my year, my college friends all began texting me. Back story: when I was in college wayyyyy back in 2003, we threw a large new years party and the slogan was "Drama Free in 2003!" When 2013 rolled around,the rhyming didn't work but as for 2023.....you get the jist. Lots and lots of "Drama Free in 2023!" messages came along as we transitioned into this new year. What a farce. This year has felt really...heavy. I don't know how better to describe it. Harper was really struggling with the transition to middle school and in desperate need of a change after spending almost seven years at the same spot. Our beloved friends divorced. Fertility issues have stuck our inner circle repeatedly. After three years of caution and avoidance, COVID-19 finally caught me and (at least for me) was no where near a common cold...I am still struggling to get a full inhale months later. My husband's long time entertainment manager died unexpectedly only for him to find out his first love and long time partner died unexpectedly a few weeks later. The company I poured my heart and soul into for many years has shuttered and is closing its doors forever. It feels weird to grieve, but if you knew me at all during all those years, you know how much of myself went to that job and that company and it's really sad to see them wash away completely. Ten years marked without my best friend and big sister, Crystal. Her forty second birthday was this past week. Really struggling to avoid politics when I feel like my LGBTQ siblings are enduring one of the most viscious attacks I've ever witnessed by many people who would like to see us all erased. And perhaps why after more than a year and half of not writing anything, I am here on Mother's Day.....the gaping hole in the center of who I am just wont close. It gets smaller sometimes, and that feels better. But I am forever changed and struggling to understand this new self and get reacquainted to him. Missing my mom is just the very tip of it. Yes, I miss her. But what really hurts is that I need her. I need her to listen and tell me that everything will be okay, without judgement and with endless support of me, flaws and strengths and all. And the fact that I need something that I cannot have hurts more than the grief. When you know you're hungry and that you'll never eat again, you just...somehow forget you're hungry? There are plenty of bright spots too. I have a thriving practice doing a job I never imagined loving so much. And a part time job added to that where I get to work alongside many other talented therapists and finding the beauty of clinical connection again. A new solo office that I got to hand pick, decorate, and curate, with my credentials on the wall. Officially trained in a trauma treatment called EMDR that has transformed my personal life and given me tools to help my most vulnerable clients. Inching super close to the final dissertation part of my doctorate. Lots of quality time with friends new and old and a big trip to celebrate my 40th birthday in Maui is just twelve weeks away! Good health and still lots of laughter for me and my family. But, the math aint mathing so far. Instead of drama free in 20-23, it's feeling like drama o'plenty in 20-23. And today I just want to be sad. I want to let those hunger pains know that I see them, and feel them constantly and that I don't think we're finding any food to eat. It's been kind of desolate and bleak out here inner AJ. Maybe that is it? Just feel it fully and try not to push it down or away?

August Gloom

My heart has been so heavy the past few weeks. Typically I can "talk my self out of feeling this way" but this time, not so much. I should preface that August is always the toughest month of the year for me. It holds the anniversary of both my Dad and sister's passing which brings up so many triggers. I normally just like to pretend like the first three weeks of August don't happen; disassociate and come back to myself after August 22nd just in time to celebrate my birthday. This year I am FEELING everything. It almost seems like my defensive armor is lost or something. There are some bright spots---I got to see two souls I adore wed one another and dance at their wedding under the stars while the waves crashed into the shore behind us. My body aches still for moving in ways it hasn't in 18 months and to be amongst friends in this type of gathering sharing community, support, and love was fuel to keep me going. My bright, brilliant girl got to return to school full time and I get to witness a completely reawakened child whose zest for learning and peer connection returned within a matter of days. I got to meet my dear cousins new baby and hold her and rock her and sing to and giggle with her. It is a reminder that life goes on and what's at stake is for that next generation. My work is fulfilling in ways I had never known or experienced before and I have a roof over but my head, food in the fridge, and lots of love and support. But I also witnessed a country overthrown by terrorism and humans--- peoples brothers, sons, fathers, and friends---cling to an airplane as it departed only to fall to their death live on camera because the fear of remaining there was too bleak and scary. And those were only the men, which indicates to me that the women and girls are in an even worse position. I don't know about y'all, but much like the memory permanently tattooed in my brain of those people jumping from the twin towers twenty years ago, I am almost certain I'll never be able to unsee it. We are so deeply divided and a global pandemic rages on with mutant variants determined to take us all down, but our own philosophical or personal beliefs interject to banish the very things that could save us all and cause further divisiveness. Another domestic white terrorist stood in front of our nations capitol for hours yesterday threatening to blow it up with bombs he had strapped to himself. It barely made a blip on the news and we've all seemed to forget that home-grown terrorists stormed our capitol THIS year, causing anarchy while some people stood at home and cheered them on. Everyone is tired. Everyone is beat down. And each day seems to bring something new and more damning than the day before it. Due to all of this, so much of the grief process feels stolen and taken from me. My Mom has been gone over eight months. She died amidst the second (or was it third? Maybe fourth?) wave of COVID-19. Her hospice was on lockdown and we had to rotate in and out following changing rules by the hour based on positive case rates and other factors. We were the LUCKY ones too; so many people have had to say goodbye to their people over video or worse yet, no chance to say goodbye. Virtual funerals are better than no funerals I suppose, but it's just not the same. The next moment, people had to return to their chaotic lives and keep "figuring it all out" while those who loved her the most are just left reeling. It's all so...unfinished. A friend and colleague said to me, "life just is different when the person who brought you into the world is no longer in it anymore." I'm an orphan whose seen the dead body of both parents and a sister as they leave this earth before my fourtieth birthday. It sucks and it feels unfair. It is unfair. I know I'll be able to pull myself up from my bootstraps and keep it moving. In a few hours, I'll login and give my all to my work and then submit some stuff for my doctoral program and probably giggle with my husband at a funny line Kathy Hilton says on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills or text my daughter about who the new Head of Household might be on Big Brother. But right now, I just want to throw a bit of a fit. Kick and scream, shout and cry. The end.

Heavenly Covens

How does one feel in the world when the nucleus is gone? Or in my case the multiple, being nuclei? Where are they, my beloveds? Are they together? If not, do they convene when visiting or thinking of me? I like to think of it like a circle, a heavenly coven almost, or not quite, I am not really sure exactly. But doesn't that sound nice? My sister, the one who knew the real me fixing herself a nice cup of tea, just a tad sweet but strong nodes of chai or camomile. Once to the perfect temperature (is there temperature there or is it always a perfect 78 degrees outside) heads out of her floating cabin, hovers ever so gently over to Dad's hut as to not disrupt or spill or tea. Dad's place is much more masculine but equally as beautiful as sisters with strange and colorful artwork that inspires him because he couldn't see all color here on earth. They lock hands, sisters other still grasping the mug as they float over to Moms place. She's new in town and still getting her place just right, yet she insists on hosting for the coven visits to me. "I brought him into this world" she says and Dad and sister giggle at her to remind her there is no more THIS WORLD. I picture her place almost like a birds nest, but instead of chirping its Motown hits (only the REALLY good ones) playing ever so gently in the background. She can't decide on decor, sometimes when she starts to think about it she remembers that I am still here and instead of going to heaven's version of West Elm or Restoration Hardware, she instead does what all moms do and checks in to make sure I am OK instead. The decor can wait when baby bird is still so completely broken. Cross legged on the floor and hands clasped they tune into me. My three. In so many ways I want to be there with them. It's so completely messed up that I don't get to participate. I'm not saying I want to die, but I have always had FOMO, and a heavenly yoga-esque circle meetings with my favorites makes me yearn to hear the laughter, pay attention to the soft sips of tea, catch those only-with-these-people side glances and ways that we could make fun of one another, but strike and kill anyone else who even said boo about one of us individually. I am not yet forty and my three are gone. For now. Is it strange that I always do this math? If I live til ninety, I would've only had Dad for 15% of my life, sister for 33%, and mother for 40% of my earthly time. Total bummer. Totally and completely unfair. Grief is such a strange and intense ride. And I've never been a real thrill seeker to be honest. Where else other than on a risky endeavor (think Ninja ride at Six Flags or something similar) do you cry, laugh, scream, fly, fall, shake, be still and slow your breathing, feel your breathing rise and fall in miliseconds, and end with wiping tears away while yelling to the attendant, "again, again?" To me, that's how I feel most days and times. When people lovingly check in with me to see how I am doing (which I am so grateful for) I sometimes just shrug my shoulders because explaining THAT feeling to them as it swirls inside of me is almost impossible. You can't really put words into it while you're on the ride, and some parts of you feel like your insides will literally fall out if you open your mouth or try to speak. Look, I know loss. Very well. It's excruciating and there is absolutely zero way around that. As much as I want someone to take it away, make is subside (even if just for a day or two), when it came down to it, I wouldn't let them. What these three have given and taken from me is only for me and I hold it so tightly that I'd claw and fight anyone who ever attempted to remove or release any of it. It's mine. They were mine.

Mom

Bleh....this is the post I've been dreading writing for weeks although I know it's important to work through, and my process always includes the written word. I lost my Mom on December 5th, 2020 after her battle with cancer. Although I was there in the room with her on the moment she transitioned out of this life, it's still shocking to my system in so many ways to even see these words in some sort of formal declaration. I suppose part of me is just waiting for her to call or walk through the front door after going on a vacation or being away for a few months. Those that knew us know that we were the best of friends, and I believe the word Mama's boy doesn't even touch our bond or the way I felt about her. It wasn't unusual for us to talk on the phone for hours, sometimes twice a day. People would often wonder, what do you two even talk about for so long all of the time? We talked about EVERYTHING. My mother wanted to know me deeply, she was inquisitive about every aspect of my life. Perhaps what I miss most at this very moment is having THAT, a person who cared about how I felt about my work performance, how and what my life and friends and spouse and child were REALLY like from my perspective, what my fears about life entailed, made sure that I said "I love you" when hanging up the phone with my spouse (instead of 'love ya'), and most of all made sure to remind me that I needed to 'stop and smell the roses.' I remember one trip to Los Angeles where Mom and I were driving down a palm-tree-lined street and there was this beautiful overhang on one home's fence of pink and purple flowers enraptured by beautiful ivy and greenery. Mom made me drive around the block and park in front of the house. It was a drive I took often and she said, "How can you drive by this and not stop to absorb it all?" We stayed only for a few minutes, she wanted a photo of the beautiful flowers and moreso I think wanted to remind me to slow down and appreciate the beauty all around me. She wasn't pushy, but she wouldn't accept defeat either. In the way that only a Mom can do, she would push me without being pushy. Mom loved life. She had many "careers" in her short 59 years, many of them centered around art and beauty. She was a hard worker. She'd also want me to write that down here. She was also flawed, and often stubborn. She was deeply emotional. She was all of those things, and somehow found a way to find the silver lining in life. Many might be surprised by this but Mom and I also engaged in frequent heated debates. I think she found surprise in some of my opinions on life, especially those that seemed so far opposite of those she held about important topics. I remember her once saying, "I just don't understand how someone raised by me can have these opinions on what I see as fundamentally opposed to my own." A few weeks later, after what I would call one of our hardest talks about a very sensitive topic, she called to say she had thought a lot about it and knew deep down her role was to support me no matter what, and she also wasn't going to change her mind but that she also knew she wasn't going to change mine either. It was in these moments that I find so much peace right now. Isn't that what parenting and unconditional love really look like? I wish I had the words to tell her that back then because now I am only starting to realize all of the gifts she gave to me regularly and how impactful that was to me. While she could freely debate or push me on just about anything and everything, God help anyone else who ever even slightly tried to come for me. At '5 feet nothing' as she would say often, the lioness was ever protective of her children. Plus I was the perfect son, so what was there for anyone else to complain about? When I came out at 28, Mom went into overdrive. She read, she blogged, and she made sure to always tell me that absolutely nothing was wrong with me and she was so happy I was brave enough to live in my truth. When I met and married my husband, my Mom fell deeply in love with him as well. She couldn't begin to understand how his own parents couldn't fully embrace their son for the beauty that made him, well him. And she made her life's mission to ensure he knew that she was his parent too. It's a running joke, one I think that will never fully pass, that in some ways Mom loved him more than she did me ('flips own hair'- absolutely impossible by the way but we'll go with it for a moment) and I am so thankful Mom got to see me with the person she prayed for all of my life- someone who adored and cherished me and made me a better person. On the day she checked into the hospital for the final time, Mom called and spoke to him on the phone. I listened and wept from the bathroom as she...in the way she could always do...laid it all out there in love and made sure nothing was left unsaid. Mom wasn't scared to die, but she was scared to leave me behind. She knew what a devastating loss this would be to me, and up to the very last minute she held on for me because as she always said, "she'd step in front of a train for me, no matter where, when, or what" and even in her dying moments she fought to spare me anymore pain or suffering. I've been a frequent participant in the grief process. I lost my dad just before my fouteenth birthday to suicide. I lost my older sister in the summer of 2013 just before my thirtieth birthday to cancer. I've known crying until it hurts, and then just keep going until somehow it stops. This time just feels...different. It wasn't completely unexpected, but wasn't expected either. It's somewhere in the middle. We thought the cancer was gone, after many excruciating surgeries, only to find out it had come back fast and with a vengeance. Cancer completely sucks and is excruciating to watch it take the people you love the most, sparing no expense for goodness or kindness. It takes no mercy. I've been showered in so much love since Mom passed and I am so appreciative of everything and everyone. I've studied grief for a few years, and yet all of the studying and research, all of the outpouring of support, all of the great memories, and all of the previous grief experiences offer very little compensation for the giant sized hole left inside of me. Some days, I can barely get my body to cooperate and get me out of my bed in the morning. Other days, I am up and ready to take on the world by 8 am. I can be doing something one moment and a memory hits me so hard that I literally have to sit down right where I am at and breathe it out for a moment, kind of like getting the wind knocked out of you. Weekend mornings seem to be some of the toughest, as these were part of our ritual, to eat breakfast and FaceTime with Mom while Harper and her chatted and shared laughs in the background at whatever funny filters they could use that week. I would be cooking breakfast and inserting myself into the conversation to ask questions about what ingredients or foods I might need to buy that week to make one of her recipes or what show she had told me about yesterday that we needed to watch. Sabin would wake, and come in to say hello and they'd have their few minutes of video connection. We got a new sofa yesterday (very much needed) and as I sit on it typing this out I am also so saddened that Mom isn't seeing it right now. She had a strong connection to place and space, and would often want tours around the house or for me to send her photos of the background-like my office space setup or how the yard looked when the bounce house for a birthday party to come in a few weeks. I'd like to imagine that today she'd give motherly advice on where the pillows should be positioned on the new sofa, or how much longer I should cook the waffles to get them to the right crispiness. I would appease her and move the pillows, make the dogs get off because the Scotch Guard hasn't been on for 24 hours (which would drive her nutso), and then as soon as we hung up I'd let them back up and eat my 'soggy waffle' in peace. And then she'd call back a few minutes later because she forgot to tell me one special ingredient, where to find it in the grocery store (because Bay Leaves aren't in the produce section, they are for some-odd-reason with the spices) and see that I was eating the soggy waffle and have moved the pillows back and just roll her eyes. Today, the pups get to stay put as we all reminisce and miss her together.

Forget #noregrets and cue #1millionregrets

There has been a lot of news lately, whether rhetorically or directly about how people can support Biden/Harris when they've held controversial, and yes even sometimes hurtful, positions on particular issues in the past. It got me thinking about the #noregrets culture that has been so popular, and how that has somehow been a funnel into the current cancel culture we are experiencing so visibly today. I am not sure how it started, or why it started, but I do know it is COMPLETE. BULLSHIT. I kind of went crazy in college and did some erroneous stuff. Gram, if you're reading this is where you want to stop, trust me. I lived in large houses packed in with several friends and we had some of the wildest parties I have ever attended, and our yearly Halloween parties were amongst the craziest. My friends and I would come up with wild costumes and fill entire coolers with everclear and any other liquor we could secure with our fake ID's (I don't mean put ice into the cooler and then put in bottled beverages, I mean just pour the liquor straight into a cooler and then ladle it out into a plastic cup). There are photos of me dancing on a pool table, mostly (OK, fully) nude and acting like a lunatic. I am not sharing all of this to relive the "good old days" but to set the scene for something I am about to type and put on the internet that I am so deeply ashamed and certainly have one million regrets over. One year for Halloween, I dressed in black face. Sigh. That sucked to even type out. I just typed and then deleted an explanation of why I did this because honestly it doesn't matter. It was hurtful and it contributed to systemic racism and is a blaring example of my white privilege. If I could go back and change it, I would. I am embarrassed and my views (obviously) have shifted dramatically since that time roughly twenty years ago. It's something I'll have to live with when I lay in bed next to my black husband and perhaps my daughter will see someday and to which I might have to offer an explanation. /// I say all of this to go back to the original point which is people change and evolve and hopefully their evolution is for the better. Thinking of my coming out story my own mother wept for her child, worried about his soul and if he'd secure a place in heaven for being gay. Fast forward a few years and she wept tears of joy at her son's wedding to the man of his dreams and wrote a blog for other struggling parents of LGBTQ youth. And it's not just changes from decades past. I regret deeply my tone yesterday with my husband. I regret not taking the plunge and restarting my career sooner. I regret not finding a way to spend more days with my sister and my dad and my Grandpa while they were here. We are all works in progress. /// A few years back I was really personally struggling in my retail career and somehow convinced my employer to let me be the social media "face" of our brand (sidenote, still can't believe they said yes). I knew I couldn't do the 60-hour-a-week intense job for much longer so I just made up a completely different job that I thought might fulfill me. The company flew me to New York City and I took a video making boot camp and was off to the races making videos for customers about the company, brands we sold, and showcasing my own parenting skills by including my daughter. Things went great for the first few months and I felt really happy with the 100K+ views my videos were getting. I would wake up sometimes in the middle of the night just to check the views. It was like a drug. I even flew across the country and made an "event appearance" at one of our store locations in the midwest. There were other blogger competitors in the field who were pretty unhappy about this and when I did a video on a product that directly impacted child safety (BTW, to which I was and still am totally unqualified to be talking about to thousands of people) the entire web lit me up. I started getting death threats in the comments, people sent letters to the CEO about how I was a baby-murderer, and one of these bloggers actually issued a post to their millions of followers calling for the "cancellation" of my entire company because they "let me post this inaccurate garbage to the internet." It totally sucked. But here is another example of this cancel culture. Should I have known better and done more research and been more prepared? Absolutely. I never did another video and wallowed in that job for another year before finally having the bravery to finally leave and pursue my true passion. It was a learning experience in listening to myself, that inner part of me and to "don't go chasing waterfalls."/// So back to the beginning. I have dozens and dozens of things I am deeply regretful of. I just admitted some of them to you. Sometimes a simple "sorry" just isn't enough, especially if you've hurt people. You have to just keep saying it, and more importantly SHOWING IT, and reconcile it within yourself. I've changed so much in the past ten years, and ten years before that, and tens years before that too. My learning has directly and indirectly hurt some of the people I love the most. So I don't buy into #noregrets and as I sort through this internally think it actually is really harmful to have this mentality. Growth is hard, but necessary./// Back to this election. Before anyone goes in on me, I get it---we can't have it both ways. I can't forgive Joe and Kamala for the sins of their past and not be willing to forgive Trump. But, here in proves my fundamental issue with Trump and his followers. I never hear "I'm sorry" or "forgive me." In fact, I hear that "systemic racism isn't real" and lots of bullying and mean tweets to anyone who demands an apology for the way he treated them or spoke to them. I can understand the defense of saying things you don't mean about war heroes or those with disabilities, but you've got to stand up and say sorry and change your ways. Maybe the "you're fired" and cancel culture are connected? As we all begin voting (PLEASE VOTE) my bets and hopes are on the empathetic person who I've seen overcome tragedy and heard time and time again, "I made a mistake, I was wrong, please forgive me." And even more importantly, I hope others see me this way too. If I have hurt you in the past (which is likely as I type this out) whether directly or indirectly I am so sorry and please forgive me.

Day 151 and Counting

It's hard to believe it has been 151 days since we began this shelter-in-place began. In true AJ fashion, I am up early and feeling an intense desire to write. I just re-read my last post from early April where I was navigating feelings about 20+ days into isolation and how "this new normal doesn't feel normal at all." Fast forward 131 more and THAT time feels more normal than I can hardly remember. Back then, we were still cleaning out closets, coming up with home projects, organizing online school work, and still trying to treasure the slower pace and ability to connect as a family. I was still working on adjusting to seeing my clients virtually, taking my final final-exams for my therapy program, and contemplating what it would like when my Mom could begin moving here. I honestly thought that everyone was taking the pandemic seriously and it would last a month, maybe two if some people needed some convincing to stay isolated and stop the spread. Fast forward 131 days, I've received my associate license, began a private practice, traveled to Detroit for a crazy-scary super-invasive surgery for Mom that ultimately got the cancer out, and don't think twice about wiping everything down with a sanitazation wipe, getting tested weekly for COVID-19 (negative again yesterday), grabbing from our Corona-basket full of masks, gloves, face shields, and sanitizer every time I have to go somewhere (which is rarely) and have worn real pants maybe four times. Sometimes, the only time I exit my house gate is to move the car from one side of the street to the other to avoid a street-cleaning ticket. And there is no end in sight, it's like half way through a long-boring movie when you ask yourself, "does this even have an ending?" My baby starts fourth grade in just a few days; she'll learn from home watching her friends and beloved teacher from her device at the kitchen table while I work-from-home in the other room. I began, and stopped, and began again several times on trying to post about George Floyd's murder and the much-needed uprising that came afterward. I could just never find the words. I still can't. I have had to face my own privilege, superiority, and internal biases head on all while watching the man I love most in the world, who is also black, confront and process this trauma that's been with him his entire life. What a total mind-f@*k to try to be compassionate and empathize with someone trying to understand a system-of-pain that in many ways you, your ancestors, and people that look like you inflicted upon them in the first place. I have to do better, and I've made a promise to myself to do just that with a caveat that inaction perpetuates the problem so I can't be silent and allowing others to continue this infliction-of-pain by saying "All Lives Matter" or "I don't see color" or "my best friend is black" or "why does it have to be violent" or "why can't it be peaceful" or "I don't have a racist bone in my body" or "George Floyd was a really bad dude" or "Breonna wasn't really an EMT" or "Blue Lives Matter" or "Trump-Pence 2020" or "black on black crime is worse" or "why am I paying for the sins of my ancestors" or "I'm not really white anyway" and about 10,000 more statements that are actually re-victimizing black and brown people with every word, every post and we have to be better and do better. White people I am talking to you (and internally to myself). Let the black voices do the talking here and we have to work on listening, donating, supporting, and educating of ourselves without relying on the oppressed to teach us, the opressors. Whiteness is the problem and racism is the way it is presented. One of my favorite statements from a black woman and activist named Kimberly Jones (who is nominated for a NAACP Image Award, look her up if you haven't already) is "Y'all are lucky that we only want equality and not revenge." To those that are struggling, it's OK. To those that are thriving, that is good too. Each of us is doing the best we can. We have multiple pandemics occuring all at the same time, some global, some domestic, and some just in the four walls of our homes (if you haven't lost it yet). I keep hearing how people just want to get back to normal, but after this long is there any semblance of normal to even get back to? I know for me I am forever changed by these 151 days, and I'll continue to change. Even once there is a vaccine and we can go back to hugging and visiting and interacting in our older ways, this time will be logged for fundamental and deep rooted adjustments that were a long time in the making for me.

Still Here

This morning I woke at 6 am just as the sun was starting to rise. With everything that is happening in the world we've been staying up late and sleeping in so I laid in bed for awhile thinking I would fall back to sleep, but just couldn't. I've really needed a release as day 20 of shelter-in-place begins. It's hard to explain, but this new normal just isn't normal at all and I've been holding in so much trying to navigate it and be strong. I wasn't quite sure what to do, so I made a cup of coffee, sat down at the computer in the empty, quiet, and dimly lit house and decided that I really needed some sister time. It has been almost seven years since my best friend and older sister Crystal died. And in the years leading up to her passing, she wrote a blog similar to this one. I've looked at it from time to time, and usually could not get more than ten minutes in without completely losing it. But this morning, in this moment, I needed to hear from her. I started reading and kept going, and kept going after that, until I got all the way to the beginning. Her nearly four years of journaling was like hearing directly from her, in her own words. Often a photo would support a post and I closed my eyes to try to place myself there with her. Her love letter to her daughter, my niece Rilynn, on her ninth birthday made me realize that my own baby, the one she posted about coming to see and hold who was born one day before her thirtieth birthday, will be nine in one month! There was a post and a photo from her trip to Chicago with just her and I as we started navigating divorce together in the midst of her terrible cancer journey. I wept. And wept. She loved so hard. She fought so hard. She LIVED so hard. Once she heard that she would likely die, she traveled. To Costa Rica. And Hawaii. And Mexico. And St. Martin. And Miami. And California. She found new love. She cherished moments with her loved ones. As she would probably say, "I rallied." There were surprises too. She went and visited our paternal grandmother and her girls met their Great Grandma. I didn't know that happened; or if I did I must've forgotten again. On two of her trips to visit me in California she mentioned what she was doing while "I worked." Man, oh man. If I could go back in time, I would've quit every single one of those jobs to have a millisecond more with her. She flew to see me and I still went to work while she was there? She said things to describe the smell of the sea, her view from an airplane, the despair she felt as her body fought against her. For a moment, it was like she was still here. And it was magnificent! Life is chaotic right now. We are all doing the absolute best we can. My clinical work with clients is all virtual now, but it is a constant reminder to me that we are in this together. Each experience is unique and valid and important. I would encourage you all to spend even a few seconds this weekend finding some type of self-care, whether that be a trip back in time to "visit" with someone like I did, a Skype visit in the here and now with someone you've been missing, or start planning a trip for the future (while airfare and travel is so inexpensive). As I went to post this, a Facebook memory crawled to the top of my screen. Wouldn't you know, she was here all morning and I didn't even know it!