Here’s the thing that your friend going through a hard time wants you to know.  

Here’s the thing that I want you to know.

It all circles back.

Everything. It all circles back to the loss for us.

The loss of a child, a parent, a marriage, a job.

At first, I’d burn dinner accidentally.  It would leave me a crumbled mess on the floor.  Can’t I get that right?  Will I fail at everything I attempt? I would need to be pick up, off the floor, dusted off, and reminded that we can just order in, love.  We can just order in.  I would be told that one thing is not indicative of the other. 

Except it is to me.  

It’s a vicious cycle and we need you to know.  

I need for you to know.

The other day I was frustrated, screaming at my MacBook and fighting back the urge to throw it against the wall. Perhaps I am dramatic, perhaps I always have been.  In that moment though, I drudged up the last decade of heartache.  For me, life was unfair because I didn’t have access to a simple text that I wanted to read, and I don’t have access to her.  In that moment, they were one and the same. As hard as I tried to inject logic, I failed.

Please understand that I am not just dramatic.

When you were upset with me, annoyed by traits that were once a positive, it stung deeper than you could have ever imagined.  Here I am, open, honest, and raw, and you couldn’t handle it. You thought you knew better.  So, I cut you out.  Cold turkey. It’s easy, I tell myself.  I’ve lost more.  I wish I didn’t see it that way, but I do.  I am forever sorry that the two things are linked in my brain as a result of trauma.  It’s scarily easy for me to do.  

This, I need for you to know.  

The milestones don’t get easier.  The pain doesn’t lessen.  Last year I was angry beyond belief.  This year, sadness envelopes me whenever I stop moving. So, I haven’t stopped moving. Over the last ten years I have strengthened each year, but small, insignificant moments will throw me backwards, weakening me, crumpling me back into a that newly bereaved mother on the floor holding her burned dinner.  Catapulted back into grief, I find connections. It will forever circle back to my loss. I failed dinner and I failed her. 

These things, and more, you should to know about us.