One Day At A Time.

Time.  It's a funny and complex thing, and one in which I've attempted to understand on multiple occasions throughout my life.  I can't even comprehend that a month has passed since I last wrote, which is so perplexing I want to laugh.  Instead, I write the following with time on my mind (obviously).

• Yesterday marked seven years since my one of a kind, outrageously funny,  impossibly sweet, loving, cousin died.  He was only 23.  I hate that I remember it as if it just happened.  As if I just received the phone call that would change life as I knew it, forever.  I wasn't even aware of this until I saw it on Facebook--until I saw his face, and his huge, beautiful smile gracing my screen.  All I could do in that moment was think, "Man, I miss that kid."  Because yeah, I fucking miss that kid so damn much.  That's what he was anyway--just a kid, trying to live an epic life that was cut short by life being what it often is--unfair.  Time has come and gone, much like the sound of his voice or the way he smelled of sugar and love.  But no matter how much time passes, his memory still remains inside my heart.  Always there.  Always beautiful.  Always alive.  And I think, no, I know, that that is what will always matter most.

• It will be closer to a year than any other amount of time, that the greatest heartbreak of my life occurred.  I say this knowing that losing my cousin, and my grandparents, and a best friend, and countless of others along the way, were also earth-shattering heartbreaks.  But they were different types of heartbreaks and ones that were not by choice.  When I fell in love, I fell completely.  The clouds parted and the sun shined, and all the fucking birds sang around my head.  Then time passed on, and before I knew it, I was standing in the doorway of a life I had known for a decade, with my heart ripped from my chest being handed right back to me. The stark reality of such pain is that it breaks you in ways you never knew you could be broken.  It also forces you to wake the fuck up and get your shit together, because there really is no other option.  I'm still healing.  I'm still taking it all one day at a time.  I still find myself in moments of utter sadness.  And I still look back and think about all the things I could have done differently.  But the beauty about time is that the more it goes by, the less pain you feel. 

• I'll be 32 soon.  I'm oddly thrilled about it.  Also, for those reading this who know me (mainly YOU, mom) they know that I always start my birthday countdown at the beginning of December (which I know, is still two days away).  There is something about getting older that makes my heart flush and my soul dance.  And although I know I am still "so young," the truth is that I look at aging as a rite of passage.  If I'm not getting older then I'm obviously not living-and I kinda, hardcore, really prefer living.  Plus, something happened to my brain when I turned 30.  It's as though it hibernated the night before in the shortest time possible, and awoke the next morning, brand new.  Fresh.  Cleared.  At peace.  

• There are 21 more sleeps left until I get to wake up in my mom's casa.  I CANNOT WAIT!  Can't you tell?  My mom.  I could write a book not only about her, but how much I love her.  Perhaps someday I will and then I'll take her with me on my book tour, sharing her awesomeness with the rest of the world (hehe).  But seriously, my mom is a badass and I aspire to be a tiny badass just like her, every single day.  I'm looking forward to our laughs, breakfast tacos, movie watching, wine-talking, dancing, adventures.  And of course--driving her crazy with my made up Spanish words and absurd sense of humor. 

• Time has shown me many things, but the most important has been this--I'm totally, 100 percent, authentically and genuinely happy, with all of me.  Finally. 

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