Lately, for reasons I can’t define, I’ve been having a hard time dealing with a lot of loss I’ve experienced over the past few years. I try not to think on it a lot, but it’s still there watching from just off stage like a nervous stage mother — So much pressure to act natural and ever make a good impression.

Sometimes, if I slow down long enough, I am immediately dumped right into the middle of all the emotion I don’t share with the world: The sad stuff you feel depressingly stupid simply admitting, the moments where you feel so lost and alone, the unanswered grief, the empty time, the yearning that leads to nothing. All those moment when you realize that all there is, all you can really count on, is right in front of you — That this moment could be the penultimate of where you’ve been, where you’re going… And if that’s the case (which it most surely is) how much potential has been squandered? How much life has been left unlived. How much suffering and pain and loss have you experienced… all for… this?

I admit, I’m a worker bee. I do what I’m told, what is expected. I try not to dwell on things that can’t be changed. I try not to focus on all the things that are so much a part of me that must be denied in order to function. The things that must not be spoken, yet exist just the same. The ghosts of your past. The glimmers of futures that will never be. The shadows of dreams long since dead. Fallen cities lost in the pages of time. Each and every one.

It’s depressing and I try very hard to avoid it… but still, it sits waiting for me to stumble and fall into the hole I’ve dug. Still, I claw out and move on.

Is there any other way?

~Hollie

2013 crept in quietly by the front door early on January 1, 2013. She napped on the sofa for quite some time. (No doubt exhausted by jumping the previous year’s hurdles.) She slept late during that time, growing fat and resting well. We really thought she had settled in for the duration when she surprised us all. Flying off the couch, wailing like a banshee, with no warning nor provocation — Fists pumping and feet stamping. She bustled about, making a mess of everything, spilling glasses, dumping boxes, upsetting chairs… Reining down on everyone with problems and burdens sometimes to heavy to bear.

Overwhelming loss coupled with great joy fell from the ringlets in her hair. Rewarding endeavors, mistakes made innocently, failures, successes, and joyous exultation scuffed my floor as she danced. Eye-opening illness, fear, and disappointment alongside great love and understanding ran through every song she sang… and always love on the tip of her tongue and at her finger tips. (Love is never a problem at our house… It’s all the other day-to-days that seem to get in the way of things.)

Try as we might, she would not be fully consoled until after Christmas. At which time, she settled into a happy stupor and quickly slipped out the back door one night in late December. Her year-long tirade left me decades older, far more pensive, and slightly overwhelmed. (In fact, I think we’ll still be picking up her pieces for months to come!)

There were times I wished this year could have gone any other way, but then I realize the past can’t be changed. So we just keep moving along the road, skipping speed bumps and potholes, stepping on cracks, slipping on chat… taking one plodding step after another. With Destiny’s promises ringing in our ears we keep moving toward some ending. She’ll catch up at the next stop — Just give her a moment to gather what’s left of dreams scattered by Father Time. (That messy, old bastard.)

So, I send my respects to 2013 and wish her well. Let’s hope her sister who graced our doorstep this January 1 is a blessed visitor bringing temperate breezes and easier days than her sister gifted upon us.