Channeling lessons on your 30th!

I saw someone post "is getting up at 6AM a sign of old age?" and it made me think of you. I responded by saying, channeling you, that getting up is a sign that you want to live life to its fullest.

So, on this day, your 30th Birthday, I think the biggest gift that you would like to get is for all of your family and friends to wake up, stretch, take a deep breath and be grateful to have another day. To take each day, embrace it, fill it with good things, good food, belly aching laughs, silliness, tight hugs and vibrant clothes.

It's not easy to do this but you made it appear that way.

So, as we celebrate your 30th on earth and you high in the skies a midst the clear blue sky and bright bright summer sun, know that we, well, I guess I should speak for myself, are celebrating you and your lessons and gifts you have given to all of us down here.

Keep throwing your lessons at us and we will, as a gift to you, live them out always.

Strongly connected for always,
LeeC

Israel 2010

i'm turning/ i guess i just turned 28. this whole year, being 27, i've subconsciously lived for alexis. did more. added more. toasted more. gave more. smiled more. was honest more. I was entering my 28th year. approaching this 28 number. a number alexis never met and a number i now hold. i think the lesson here is that every year, every day i will hold her closer but even more so, a lesson for so many is that we need to give, do more, specifically, do more good. good for yourself. good for others. good for those we live in memory of. just good. it's much easier than feeling bad (even though you need to feel bad to understand/ appreciate good). so even though i burst into tears at the strike of midnight (i've never cried on a birthday before), i am happy that it was lex's gorgeous face that popped into my head as I rung in my bday. happy bday to me. i'm going to live the shit out of 28. 

dig for lessons

Lex passed a year ago around this time on Israel's clock (so really the 29th of December, 2010).

And man, has time passed--looking back, it feels like forever ago that she died but somehow, the year has flown by so quickly and the craziest part is so much has happened...I've managed to catch a few lessons along the way: laugh and cry at the same time, a lot. Eat more things I'm not suppose to (knowing that Lex would indulge if she were here). And while I already maintain a positive persona, when I think of her, she inspires me to give a little bit more light to others (in other words, she helps brighten other people's days as well).

I've also learned what it means to be sad (in a very real yet unfamiliar way and now of course, a comfortable way). A friend a while back told me that being sad meant that you really had something special with the person who passed away and to feel sadness meant something special and real and honest. I believe that.

I wrote about translating sad emotions into empowering ones/ brave ones and I still hold that sentiment. But man, a year, a whole year, a year this earth, this world, our world, my world, your world has wrestled with sadness.

In all of it I realize, it's okay to be sad and cry--we wouldn't be human. We need those emotions to persevere and to survive. We need to know what sadness feels like so that when we enter into happiness, our level of happiness will be heightened and our smiles will be bigger and brighter and more honest. You will be higher (without the drugs). Go and be sad, but just, while you are in that sadness, that hole (you have to embrace that hole by the way--it's important) know that you can build your way out of it and dig for those lessons. That is how you grow to be stronger and of course, happier.

for this year, don't be so complacent with your emotions or yourself...you, yourself, at the end of the day are the one you need to count on so explore and discover and learn and share as much as possible.

inspired by lex,

new year wishes to you and yours...

coping mechanisms

I've delayed writing. Perhaps pushed away thinking. Sealing any possible thought to avoid inevitable sadness. Man we miss this girl.

What are you suppose to do with the feelings of loss? Push them aside? Ignore them? Meet them eye to eye? Let them break you down a little and then build yourself back up again so that strength may prevail?

I've grappled with the use of my feelings of loss and the other day, it struck me...

Feelings of loss don't necessarily need to elicit negative reaction. For me, I think anyway, it's been somewhat opposite and I'm trying to see the positive and hold onto it as tightly as I can. Not to mention, if I didn't take the positive route I wouldn't be able to live with myself and I know my compadre Alexis would be pissed. If she knew we were just commiserating and sad and helpless, she would be mad and we would not do justice to her or her legacy. So instead, empowerment is the word that comes to mind. Realizing and actualizing that this is absolutely a loss, but also a gain where some form of expression of empowerment is present in our day (man that's taken a year to say--it's true what they say, these things take a while to swallow)...is this a selfish construct or simply, a coping mechanism?

I'm going to say empowerment is a good coping mechanism.

From grief to empowerment, one spectrum to the next. It's what we need to do. At least for me.

Light the Night Walk 2011--Almost reached my goal

Light the Night Walk 2011

I've experienced a new feeling and I am expressing it too well lately. It's called anger. I don't think that the experience of grieving has a particular order although the process in books seem to be prescribed such that you move from sadness to denial, to anger and eventually to moving on (i think guilt is somewhere in the mix). Anger has reared its ugly head on me. it's happening to me now.

It's been 9 months since and while time has certainly lapsed, Lex is still not here and it is making me really really angry. I'm angry because she should be here and I'm angry because she died. It's kind of like the experience of being claustrophobic--caught in a tight space, no room to move around and your fighting frantically to get out like a baby in a womb. Just angry. I don't think it will last long--but while I'm angry I will embrace it with a pink bow in my hair.

Light the Night Walk 2011

Light the Night Walk 2011

Walking for Lex to kick Leukemia in the ass