Shadows

This is hard to admit out loud but today was kind of hard for me.  I didn't start on the very first day of the year last year and walking into school with a sort of normal summer behind me felt weird today.

I realize grief does this weird thing where it lurks in the shadows and only when you least expect it does it rear it's ugly head.  Today it reared it's head.

You may have had no idea that this was happening.  You may have no idea that all day I wished for last summer.  I wished for the sweet time before my life was uprooted and tossed like garbage into a busy street.  Literally it feels like that sometimes.  I don't want you to think I am doing O.K. because I smiled when you talked to me or acted normal when you walked by or put make up on and got dressed this morning.  Actually, if you need to think I am O.K. that is fine with me but I'm not.

I'm still broken.

I still desperately miss Charlie.  I still can't breathe sometimes.  I still wish I could rewind and change the course of that awful day we made our way to the hospital.  I'm still so sick that this happened to Charlie.  I still hate saying the "d" word out loud.  I'm still without words.  I still can't find comfort all the time.

I'm still broken.

I feel like I have shards of glass in my heart that I feel every time I move or breathe or think about what my life used to be.  It's part of this process. Don't make me hurry or rush this process.  I have to feel it and I have to live this new life I have been given with hope and with the help of my family and friends.  Even when it sucks.