i

rarely wear mascara now just in case i cry and a lot just feels sad. especially holidays and birthdays and anniversaries. and it’s not a complaint, it’s just a fact of mine that i’m learning to live with and the fact that this sadness may very well be with me for the rest of my life. a fact that can feel daunting some days, but what i’m learning is that in a way this sadness is my love for my father and it’s nice to know that he will always be with me. i used to get scared that i would forget him. that i would lose him more somehow but now i see that he will stay with me. this sadness doesn’t leave and i tell my husband that i’ve never been this sad for this long because it truly is everywhere and everyday and it’s work to live and do things as i normally would with this sadness and initially it felt absolutely impossible and there are still moments now where i see myself still doing this and it feels like something i should have never been able to do but i am. and i am now just convinced that i’ll just become stronger each day until it’s just him that i’m carrying with me because these moment of sadness are about him in remembering his laugh, his smile, eating his favorite foods, listening to his music, painting, doing the things he loved to do. and i don’t think i have ever experienced such joy and sadness in this way because i love remembering him but it just naturally makes me sad because he’s not physically here the way i always knew him and i see now that these are the things i have been working on in therapy. there aren’t any exercises and there isn’t homework. it’s just me unraveling every piece of my grief and sifting through the natural human feelings that happen when someone you love passes and i talk about it and somehow just speaking it out of my mind is huge for me and i cry a lot and some days are more painful than others but i see now that it was all leading to this and it took time and so much self-love and compassion for myself and i’m aware that there will be much more work to do but for now i’m in this hopeful state where i now know melancholy and melancholy stays with me but it’s this chronically profound nostalgic version of me in a sad smiling state knowing that i have come this far. a small yet big entry with the glimmerings of hope. and if you too are finding yourself in this space, i hope you are experiencing even the smallest glimmers and if you are in a space where life just seems like it couldn’t get any better and your glimmers are actually bursts, well i hope you are in that space for forever. and either way i just hope that we all get carried into the new year safely and peacefully and may it be some kind of version of everything we’ve ever dreamed of.

l, js