Thank you all for the birthday wishes.  It has been a while.  I haven’t put anything out there for a while now.  Mainly because my thoughts have not been finished.  I would usually write when I had come to some kind of peace with my world.  An Idea, a quote, or something that I could believe that would help explain the world that I have been living in.  For almost two years I have been searching for those answers.  They seems to be coming in pretty slow, but mostly they keep changing.  I keep digging deeper, questioning harder, not only the world around me, but mostly my thoughts about it.

Grief is a nasty beast and I have been doing it for a long time.  Some people don’t really understand that my grief started almost 9 years ago.  I started the grieving process Oct 11, 2011.  That was the day she was diagnosed.  No matter the outcome my life was changed forever.  That day our family lost its innocents.  We were thrust into a world that was filled with fear, pain, and ultimately loss.  For me is was a slow process of losing everything that mattered.  What does that even mean really?  For me it was the loss of my family, what a home really is, my community, and ultimately my identity.  Somewhere in the mix of all of that I lost who I was.  Most of what is written in these pages of thedailyemotional is that journey.  My words are my thoughts on that journey.  who am I?  I’m not really sure yet.  That journey is not finished.  The last year and a half has been the hardest of my life.  For a thousand and some days I wake up every morning and have to make the decision to fight for my life.  The one I want to live.  I have to fight to be the person I want to be.  I would like to say that I came out of all of this unscathed, stronger, and a better person.  I didn’t though.  I came out lost, hurting, grasping for answers to questions that simply cannot be answered, living in a world that cannot understand my thoughts and feelings.  Its not the worlds fault though.  We all have our own life experiences and we tend to see other peoples lives through our lens, not theirs.  Somedays it gets pretty lonely.

There is really only a small handful of people that know the truth of my story for the last year and half, and only one that knows the whole story.  It is not a pretty story, like I said above, grief is a nasty beast.  It’s interesting though that the one person who knows my whole story, who has seen my at my worst, is also the one who believes in me the most.  Her belief and her grace has given me the opportunity to find the help I have needed.  She has been by my side through this valley of hell.  Pushing me, dragging me, and sometimes carrying me when I didn’t think I could go on.  She truly is my gift.  Not because I have lived life perfect, but because I am broken.  She was sent to help me heal.

I want to leave you with a few things that I have learned through all of this.  The first is that there is no courage in destruction.  We try to destroy things, people, and ideas out of  fear, anger and guilt.  It easy easy to destroy.  Courage is found in love.  It takes courage to say I will not destroy you,  It takes courage to say I love you.  We give medals for it.  Being courageous is not what we do for ourselves.  It is about what we give up for those that we are helping.   We find courage in our love and ultimately show it in our service of that love.  We jump on a grenade, run into a burning building, or for most of us it is in much smaller ways.  But in doing those things, we are courageous, not out of fear, anger, or guilt, but because we love.  Be courageous in your love for everyone you meet.

The two most important words in language are love and believe.  They are life changing.  For most of us they are also the two hardest words to say.  Saying them is one thing, believing 100% in what we are saying is altogether different.  It requires being vulnerable.  Believing in someone tells our brain that our neck is exposed and there is a chance that it will get cut.  We ask ourselves a thousand questions and find a million answers about how we could be hurt by our love, or our believing in someone.  Do it anyway.  All it takes is that one reason to believe. Find your courage and tell someone you love them, tell them that you believe in them.  Being courageous is hard, being courageous is about knowing the consequences but jumping anyway.  That is where the magic happens though.  That is where you help someone change their life.  I believe in you even though I know that I can get hurt.  I believe in you for no other reason than I love you.

I have been hurt a thousand times and will be hurt a thousand more, but someone out there needs to hear this.  I believe in all of you.  I believe in who you are and what you are capable of.  I have no other motive and no other expectation.  I am here to serve you.  Not because I have to or will get something in return, I WILL believe in you because I love you.