Getting Back Up

Days in bed. The iPod loaded with the saddest songs I own, the fridge offering up increasingly strange combinations, the world doing its thing without me. I know some people will say it’s too soon—that I should still be sitting in a dark corner somewhere, deep in appropriate mourning. Maybe they’re right. But staying horizontal eventually starts to feel like its own kind of disrespect.

This journal is back. Her voice is still somewhere at the back of my head, which is actually fine. Good company, in its way. I want to thank the people who reached out—some of those messages were more personal than I deserved from people who barely knew me, and I couldn’t reply to all of them, but every single one helped. They widened something in me.

Third semester starts soon. Second year of training. There’s a lot to work on—discipline, drive, whatever it is that keeps the fire going when nobody’s watching. School, the agency, everything sitting just outside both. Life keeps offering things when you look at it from the right angle.

So this place comes back in a slightly new shape, though maybe not entirely different. Not everything is right yet. I’ll keep fixing as I go. I just couldn’t wait any longer. I’m sorry you won’t be here to see it. But I’ll do my best to make you proud.