Atalist's Dungeon

 I am sitting in my office today on a very difficult day trying to keep my head up. Naturally, I am listening to music to try to lighten the mood but to the left of me is a gift that was given to me by a beautiful friend. It's a book called "Bright Poems for dark days"  I thought it was a lovely gift but didn't look in the book until today. I had a chance, what with it being a not-so-pleasant anniversary and Damnit Christopher, you got me. He carefully put the bookmark on a poem that he knew would speak to me. I know every gift Christopher gives is carefully selected. They are not by chance or just because it looks pretty. He poised the bookmark between two poems that just struck me. The quote in question "Tomorrow will be beautiful, for tomorrow comes out of the lake..." Well, doesn't he know me or what? It hit me hard today because water is always and will always be my calm.  Thank you Christopher for reminding me... 

 "Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months. And then, one not-so-very special day, I went to my typewriter, sat down, and wrote your story. A story about a time, a story about a place, a story about the people. But above all things, a story about love." A year. A lot can happen in a year. I have been sitting here trying to reconcile with the fact that tomorrow marks a year ago that you left. A year. I am trying to find a way to communicate the feelings, the resounding grief that has remained, and the wealth of things I wish I could tell you while you sit in my living room laughing as the boys run around.  I was talking to dad last night, we have been keenly aware of what is happening tomorrow and the anniversary that is coming. I asked him if he wanted to come down and do something with me, anything, just spend time. He honestly wants to let the day pass and carry on, but the focus of our conversation shifted to that of you being gone but no longer struggling. No long...

 My mom was not a hugger.  She wasn't exactly what you would call a warm person but every time I brought someone home she was inviting and gracious. I bring this up today because Google memories are a wonderful and terrible thing after you have lost someone. I was looking through pictures and videos of the kids and was struck by a video from a few years ago. Baby Sterling crawled on the floor and rolled over to look at someone in the background. I wasn't paying attention to the background of the video initially because of course the subject was my cute little baby rolling around. The moment I changed my focus I recognized that it was my mom in the background with her dog Sadie, both of whom we have lost within a calendar year. It struck me because I missed having her just be present. I missed feeling her presence and then it hit like a freight train, that presence and shared experience is something that I didn't know I was missing in my life, the life after mom. She wasn...

 I have been thinking... Today is international women's day. A day to celebrate women but as I stated above, do we? I mean in theory we like to thank our mothers, sisters, aunties, and cousins for just being them but do we do anything meaningful or tangible to make things better for them? do we incite change?  I have been thinking a lot about how I feel recently and the pressures to fit into this box of what is acceptable. Weight, looks, ability, mothering... all of it has a social metric that the societal "we" set to ascribe to. I talk to many of my mom's friends and we all feel the same. Stressed, pressured, discouraged, and in some cases hyper-fixated on changing ourselves to fit this imposed norm. But what if we stop. What if we concentrate not on fitting this mold, but on fitting ourselves. What if we concentrate and change the narrative to teach those that come after us to just be, to love, and to love themselves? What if we focus on celebrating other women rath...