Can I be real with you?

This is painful.

It's hard.

Each day, it hurts.

We continue to walk around, handle our commitments, enjoy our friends and family, laugh....but, in the quiet, there is pain.   A pain very real and still very present.  I don't even like to be alone anymore.  Too much down time leaves me reeling.

It hurts me when people allude to me being negative.  I KNOW I'm negative.  I KNOW I fight demons every darn day.  I feel pretty happy with the fact that I can function as a human being some days.  MY grief manifests in weird ways.  My mood can turn very dark, very quickly.  I'm cynical.  I overeat.  I'm lonely, when people are everywhere.  I worry....ALL THE TIME.  I am forever waiting for the other shoe to drop.  People don't get that.  I've SEEN the horrors that  this world can have.

I held my baby boy in my arms as his heart stopped.

I saw that same heart beating from INSIDE his opened chest numerous times.

We stood outside his room while nurses and doctors tried their hardest to save his life.

I was told my sweet boy had no more brain function.

I had to choose that enough was enough and it was time to let go.

I don't know how to live normally anymore.  I can't even remember what it felt like to be joyful and worry free.  I can't remember a time when I woke up and didn't have to fight with myself to make the most of the day.  Through the fog of depression, I scarcely remember who I am.   And, when I do....it seems like a stranger.    I don't recall what it's like not to panic when I hear beeping or have an anxiety attack with the smell of soap.   I don't know what it's like to watch my son grow up and the pain in watching yours is sometimes too much for me to bear.

It is what it is.

This journey ain't for the faint of heart.