Wednesday Ramblings

It's unfortunate that this is most needy I've ever been in my life, and yet I hit a wall with friends. The availability just really isn't there.

It has forced me to be even more independent. And to seek out those that can see me on a whim. Mostly those people are my Nevada friends.
Which are certainly mine by now, but I use that descriptor as a way to explain who they are.

I needed those people that suffered as much as me, and I also need people who are not grieving, for breaks when needed. But I have had to adjust and because of that, I have to make some rules for myself for self preservation.I've stopped asking people to hang out. No matter if the reason is as valid as anything in the world, I can't keep getting rejected. It just adds sting to an already open wound. It's not intended as punishment, but rather a coping mechanism. I simply can't wait around for people to throw the little scraps of time my way. I'd be happy to hang out with people, but I have to let them ask me, after I've attempted it more than a dozen times. At some point, you're just begging, and who needs that?

Between Nevada's death and my dad's, the hole is huge in my life, and I can't really look to other people to fill that void. As lonely as I am, I still need to find my own way in the world.
It's certainly more difficult with the loss of one of my best friends, and the only father I'll ever have. And the lack of a significant other. The burden feels like it is mine to carry.
And even if there were someone significant in my life, I still would have a lot to figure out on my own. I realize no one can make me happy but myself.

That being said, I find I suffer from feeling left out of a lot of things that friends have. Husbands, kids etc. And yet, I don't know if I myself will go that path.
I hope to meet a love that is ever lasting, but who is to say, when and if that will be. And when I picture kids, I picture myself adopting for some reason.
If I even have kids. I still don't know and I guess since I'm not pregnant or even having sex, that's one worry I can cross off the list.

The fact of the matter is, that our lives are so very different.

Thus, so are my relationships.

But, they're are not going anywhere. True, some friends haven't been as involved in my daily life, they still care about the major things... birthdays, funerals, etc.
I don't have to wonder if they will show up.

They just do. Or their flowers, cards, gifts, scarves, and coffee do. :)
And that's what friendship is.

The truth is, we all do the best we can. I know they love me.

All I can hope for from anyone is that no matter how busy their lives get, they'll still find time for me in it.

Sailing Around the Room

Lyrics by Emmylou Harris

One last gaze upon the sun
It bid farewell to everyone
Kick that bucket out the door
Where I'm going I won't need it anymore

Gonna lay my burden down
Take a bird's eye look around
From the tall pines of Carolina
All the way to the wall of China

So I'll go sailing round the room
Through my window, across the silver moon
No flesh and bone to hold me
I'll finally set my soul free
When I go sailing round the room

Life may be just but a dream
Rowed my boat on down the stream
To wake up on a different shore
Wind up as something I ain't never been before

I could be a drop of summer rain
Falling down on an Oklahoma plain
I won't leave the world behind me
Look around and you will find me

So I'll go sailing round the room
Through my window, across the silver moon
No flesh and bone to hold me
I'll finally set my soul free
When I go sailing round the room

I will be in the smoke from Mauna Loa
Morning mist from the Shenandoah
I will be a grain of sand in the Kalahari
Magnolia by the Mississippi

I will be birdsong when day is breaking
Words of love when your heart is aching
I will be a blue bonnet by the highway
I'll be everywhere and always

When I go sailing round the room
Through my window, across the silver moon
No flesh and bone to hold me
I'll finally set my soul free

When I go sailing round the room
Through my window, across the silver moon
No flesh and bone to hold me
I'll finally set my soul free
When I go sailing round the room

Waiting for My Sunrise

A year ago, Nevada died. I will never forget that morning. I'd slept poorly the night before and was up super early, anxiously waiting to hear her condition. Knowing in my head that things were looking pretty bad, but my heart was in no way ready to accept the unthinkable. That she'd actually die.

But in a cruel twist of fate, she'd essentially died, while having a surgery that was to save her life, and truly her only treatment option worth the risk. My highly intelligent friend, was a glimmer of her former self with her MoyaMoya.

Although her brain was under constant duress, she was Nevada till the end. Shaving her head into a mohawk before surgery, joking how funny it would be to die in a plane crash on her way to Califorina. We laughed about the absurdity of that situation, and I hugged her goodbye never knowing it would be our last conversation.

In the weeks after her death, I numbly wandered through the shell of my life. The hole she left felt like a crater. I saw her nearly daily. We talked every day on our long walks and after the walks, I'd make her dinner and we'd have a few beers. How could somebody so present in life be suddenly gone?

I struggled for months. Wasn't sleeping, I drank to much, and some days when I came to work, I'd look down, surprised at my outfit because I didn't remember getting dressed.

When New Year's Eve rolled around, I was having a truly dark night and although I felt sucicidal, I made one resolution. "Do not kill self."

Beyond that, happiness was reserved for other people. It was a foreign concept. How was I supposed to laugh again? When one of the greatest people I'd ever met in my life was gone forever?

The one thing Nevada and I talked about a lot, was my lonliness. My lack of a boyfriend. She took on my love life with two hands and a bull whip. She'd made it her personal mission to find me a man of my own. She'd been in a relationship for a few years, and wanted nothing more than for me to find that too.

I admire many things about Nevada. Her loyalty, her deep love for her boyfriend, for her friends and for her family. The way she embraced life with two hands, and was able to live in the present moment as it came and didn't waste a lot of time, dwelling on the past.

Another passion that we shared in our friendship was our love of writing. And although I used to really love it, that part of me, has been shut down for a long time. After she died, I couldn't read (which I love) or write, or do much more than breathe.

Nevada was much more dilligent in her efforts and I always found that inspiring, but I was full of excuses as to why I hadn't started writing my own novel, while she was in the middle of her second.

As the next chapter of my life begins, I know Nevada and I aren't over. She'd written to me in her first book:

"Kelly, Each New Sunrise is a chance to finish your book." (her book, was Waiting for the Sunrise.")

Nevada may not be here, but she is everywhere. And I can't think of a better way to honor her, than by making myself happy by finally writing my memoir.

I wish her story had a different ending. But somebody needs to write OUR story, and I'm finally ready. And maybe in the meantime, I'll wake to watch the sunrise.