Five Years

Five years. A lifetime. An instant. I wasn’t going to write this time to mark the occasion. What more can be said? Things are different this year. There has been a lot of change and a good deal of uncertainty. I’m almost happy but also incredibly lonely at times. And as always this had been a challenging time. The anticipation of the approaching days. Reliving those months in the hospital. Prior to May 9 a friend asked when the hardest days end. And I responded that well the anniversary is Thursday and Mother’s Day is Sunday and after that back to normal. And she responded “but it doesn’t work that way.”. And she’s right. It doesn’t. It’s not like a new day dawns and all of a sudden I feel great. But it kind of does work that day. Because on Monday I woke up with a sense of peace, like a weight has been lifted, relief that I once again survived the hardest days. That even though it was quite ugly at times, I made it. Not unscathed but still mostly intact. Because that’s exactly what those days do. They settle over me like a weighted blanket, sometimes threatening to hold me down, trap me in its folds, and smother me. And then the fog lifts and once again I feel okay. More than okay. I feel good in fact. It is a paradox. This year the anniversary of the days from her hospitalization leading up to her death hit me so much harder than in the past for several reasons, which I won’t go into much here. Just to say that even though I have an incredible support system, I mostly went through those days alone, sometimes by choice but often because I had no choice. But on the other side of that, coming out of it I am back to feeling better than I have in a long time. This last year has been like that. The lows have been lower but the highs have been much higher, and more frequent. To all those who checked in and reached out in any way, shape or form, I cannot begin to tell you how much I appreciate you. Those connections were my lifeline, constant reminders that I am never truly alone.