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I should be working but I am not. I am sitting at my “desk” looking around at this place I have occupied for almost 11 years and while I am grateful for my tenure and for my time here, I am tired of looking at these four walls. My new boss starts next week and if I am being honest there are many things that have not been a priority that I now have to re-adjust and get on track with and I am not looking forward to it. I have spent the better part of a year and a half barely surviving. Doing enough to get by and that is now about to change and that is not something that I am prepared to do. I am not that far enough removed from my grief to be able to put in the effort that is needed to play nice with others in this setting and I don’t want to have to pretend to like someone when I just don’t. I am committed to my authenticity and reconnecting to my integrity and this goes against both of those. I spent too much time out of both that I will never do that again. So, while I understand that this is my problem to solve, I am going to lament for a moment before I sort it all out.

I woke up this morning and the sun was brighter than usual. The season is already changing, and we are only in the end of July. I say only but it seems like a lifetime since the sun came out, since I felt warm. You can always tell when the season is started to shift, and I suppose that is reflective of me as well. I have been working my way to a new season of my life and while that is taking shape, I can’t help but miss aspects of a life that feels so far away. She feels so far away.

This morning I was looking at the level of communication that I shared with the alchemist. All written communication, all saved, all archived for reference whenever I feel like connecting to her. As I have said before, not sure if that is heaven or hell but I want it and so I will maintain it. This morning, I finally took the document that “we” created but that she mostly contributed too, and hole punched each page and placed it neatly in a binder. It deserved to be kept safe. As I hole punched the pages, I got the glimpse of her words, and I could hear the sound of her voice as I read some of those thoughts. Lots of hurt, some wanton with desire, but mostly a reminder that I had a dead document that serves as another reminder of what was and no longer is. If I took these pages that I am writing and combined it with hers we would have quite the story.

What I have been sitting with is that we were never casual, we didn’t begin or end with small talk. What we shared was a profoundly, deep, connection. I can say with certainty that it was challenging and forced us to look at ourselves in ways we never had. I know, I was able to come to terms with my trauma, my sexuality, my relationship with myself and my deep-rooted unhappiness as a result and I miss that. I miss the beginning. I miss the me that I was becoming. Now don’t get me wrong, I am currently becoming, I am navigating things that I never imagined I would. I am desperately working on healing those dark aspects of myself that I am not proud of. The parts of me that have ruined the opportunities for connection that I had. And what I seek is not easily found, that is how rare it is.

It is not often that you meet people who get you. Who understands you as a professional, a human, a scholar, a woman, and I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge this critical part, who understands the asshole in you. Not many have been up for the task. When I wasn’t in my triggers and behaving all about myself, I learned a lot. I was able to access the parts of me that was open to the feedback, that desired more and more because it was helping me grow. Some people just know how to manage to your opportunities to help you see beyond the insecurities even when they don’t understand where they come from, who can help you connect to yourself. That has been a huge part of my growth. I spent most of my life disconnected from myself and the journey of connecting to myself began with my infertility and then progressed from there. But I truly feel like that was the starting point for me to access the deepest recesses of myself and I realized how fucking broken I was. I was not strong. I was a scared child who felt completely misunderstood and who felt as if she had failed herself and her future child as a result of so many years of maladaptive behaviors. And rather than address those wounds then, I packaged them up with a nice little bow and put them away. I know differently now. I know that I could not control the parts of my body that struggled to conceive and that I did the best with what I had at the time. I wish that this lessened the pain of that time, but it is now more manageable, and the most important part is that I have learned a great deal about myself and that is the most important aspect of any journey of self-reflection.

I shared with my therapist last week that there was so much foreshadowing in my relationship. So much writing on the wall but absolutely an unwillingness to ever admit that it would end really before it would begin. I suppose that is a dishonest statement because it did begin. I stopped moving. I stopped moving towards it and I moved away from it. I moved away from this thing that was asking me to elevate myself, to take a stand for myself. I allowed fear to drive me backwards rather than forward, and as time has gone by, I have realized how much I abandoned us. Maybe that is an excuse in itself and I will continue to sort that out.

I don’t think anyone will ever understand the depths of this loss. And in the end, I don’t think I care if they do. I know what it is like to go through each day with this heavy feeling cloaking my body. It is truly indescribable. And while I am working my way towards functioning more effectively from day to day. Some days, I just want to stay in bed, curl up, and sleep. But it is a new week, a new Monday and the beginning of so much possibility. So, I will continue to confront myself. I think that has been the most healing aspects of this. The constant confrontation. I catch myself daily saying to myself, stop, breath, think of how this is going to affect them, and if it is going to hurt, stop, just stop. I remind myself of who my audience is and whether my lashing out is about them or me and mostly it’s about me. It’s often just been about me. And there is no excuse in the world that makes that ok. So I take a deep breath and adjust. I can't get through life hurting the ones that I love and who love me.

The conscious attention I have been giving to my reactivity has helped me to get through each day. Has helped me to be a kinder, gentler, more patient woman. I am not as angry anymore; I am not as resentful. I am healing. There are days when I wish that I could have that connection back. There are client days that are tough, or days that I doubt myself and my abilities and I know that she would know what to say. She often knew what to say. How to help me get through the roadblock. How to see myself better through the lense of love. There are days that I want to access the feelings, the comfort that only she would understand. And as I sit here staring at the screen for a moment, once again taking in my surroundings, startled by the sound of the oven, signaling someone’s nourishment is ready, I realize that the hardest part of this is the adjustment, the grief, the knowing that in a not-so-distant town, resides a part of me, moving on.