the dark week..

I'm sitting in bed writing this.. because the fear of closing my eyes is strong. When I finally do I know what will come, and i'm avoiding it with all I have. So here I am hoping that if I say it out loud that maybe just maybe it will be easier to sleep tonight. That the nightmares won't come, and the tears won't fall. So please bear with me...

I've always hated this week. Each new day brings memories, nightmares, and some of the darkest days of my life. I look back to just a few years ago. I had just graduated from high school and the world seemed to be in front of me. I was headed on my first big solo adventure and I felt so ready for the life in front of me. I was ready to see what had been waiting outside of that old brick building. I was ready to find myself. I had just spent a night out with my family before I left on my trip laughing, and eating at our favorite place. We were celebrating that night. We were celebrating Tay's birthday knowing that I would be gone one his actually birthday. I remember sitting in our booth laughing and joking about how Tay was going to boycott my next birthday because I was not going to be here for his. We laughed and laughed. A few days after that I left early in the morning to catch my flight. As I was leaving the house I leaned down to my sleeping brother on the sofa and I told him that I loved him, and that I would see him soon. He didn't say anything back, he simply sighed and rolled over. I laughed because I knew he was thinking, "ya ya love you too sis. have fun. but please stop talking it is 5:00 in the morning." I remember texting him later that morning as I was sitting in the Atlanta airport for an eternal lay over. I sent him a picture of one of the television screens because it had the answer to a question on a game he was playing that we had talked about the night before. We laughed together. The next three days seemed to come and go in a rush, I saw him in passing as I facetimed my family one night as he was on his way out. We joked and I told him I would see him on Sunday when I was going to facetime them again. The next thing we did late one night.. I couldn't sleep. So I stayed up and watch a little Boy Meets World. I remember laughing thinking of the hundreds of times I had watched this with my brother, so I sent him a video clip we laughed and talked about the moments that followed that clip. Then I fell asleep. No other words were said between us that night.

Then the next day.. In one single moment my entire life was altered. There was no longer a wide open field in front of me anymore.. When I looked at the life ahead all I could see was darkness. It was gone in the instant I heard the four words that would change my life for the remainder of my life. "He didn't wake up". That's all it took. I remember sitting in a room in a church in Tennessee listening to my cousin tell me these words. I remember looking up at the ceiling and feeling the world around me start spinning faster and faster. It couldn't actually be happening.. Could it? Could someone really be here 12 hours before and then gone? I walked through it all...the last conversation we had, falling asleep knowing I would see him the next day when I was going to facetime my family... It all seemed so normal.. But then there I was sitting in what seemed like a nightmare. I was praying someone would come around and wake me up but no one did. I just sat there thinking of how this could be possible, how could he really be gone, and what was I supposed to do now. He was literally all I had. He was the only person who had talked me off the ledge I always seemed to find myself on, the person who seemed to find the clarity in the haze that was my life, and he was always there to tell me how important I was.. and honestly he was the only one I believed.
 It all seemed so surreal after that, I ended up in a restroom down the hall after aimless walking. I'm sure the people I passed in the hall thought I had lost my mind because I had tear stained cheeks, and a dazed look in my eyes that I noticed when I saw my face in the mirror. I began pinching myself begging myself to wake up, but just like before in the classroom, it wasn't a terrible dream. I didn't know who to talk to.. Where to turn.. What to do.. So I walked out of the bathroom and I followed my family outside and I got in the van as they took me home. When we got there I just started pacing. I swear I wore holes in the floor I walked in circles for so long. Every time I tried to stop and I'd sit down I would just start crying uncontrollably.. So I'd get up and walk in circles again.. And again.. And again. I didn't know who to talk to.. I didn't want to talk to anyone.. but I did.. I told the last person I thought I would. I told the last person I loved. I remember how supportive he was, how he wanted to step in and help right then. I never thanked him for that.. I wanted to a hundred times, but words never seemed to be enough.

Then I came home and it didn't seem real once more. I thought for sure I was going to walk in the front door and he'd be there. My brother would be sitting on the couch right where he was when I left and where I whispered I love you as he slept, but I walked in the door to find that punch in the gut reality that had persistently been hitting me the past 24 hours. The house felt different. Like a someone had changed something, but at the same time it felt so full. I always thought it was all the people that seemed to be coming and going. The people who would sit and hold me as I cried, or the ones who silently sat as I stared in a lost daze not knowing what to say or do.
I remember the whispers.. The looks on everyone's face.. I remember all the tear stains on the cheeks.. The people everywhere I turned.. And the food that seemed to always be showing up even though I never felt like eating it.. The next week seemed much more of a blur. Planning flowers, creating programs, finding pictures.. Slideshows.. And writing talks. It all came and went so soon that suddenly I was there. I was sitting in a room grasping onto the last strand of my brother. I remember standing in that room the whole time. Never leaving his side. My hand on his.. I felt like if I never let go then he wasn't really gone. I prayed and prayed and prayed for courage that night. To hold onto any form of grace that I had left inside of me to be there. I remember my brothers friends checking on me. Making sure that I was okay. Being my brother for him. I relied on them to get me through..I had two other constants. My two rocks. The two I knew that no matter what, that they were going to be there. Jenn and Gav never left my side.. I swear if I didn't convince her I was going to sleep some nights  jenn would have been at my house around the clock, and I don't think she will ever know how much knowing that saved me. Gav has always known me better than anyone. He can look at me and know when I'm putting on a face for people or if I'm truly how I say I am, and he always knew just what to say or do. Bringing me stashes of Mountain Dew or bringing movies to try and make me smile if even for a moment. I know that without those two I would have been a lost ship at sea.

Then it was time. We sat in a room and said goodbye. I remember following him into that chapel. Looking at all the people there and it didn't seem real. This couldn't really be happening? I couldn't be facing this moment now. He was my brother and now there I was saying goodbye, and it didn't seem right. Nothing seemed real and nothing seemed fair. So I cried. Because I didn't know what else to do. Then it was time. I had to dry those tears and stand in front of a room full of people who loved him and tell them why I loved my brother and what made him so amazing. I did. I told them how much I admired him.. How much his courage inspired me.. How much his determination to follow his dreams made me want to follow mine.. And how I would be counting down the days to see him again. It all came and went so quickly.

Then we were alone.

Left to figure out how we could possibly live on...







Now here we are three years later and we are still learning. Every day I wake up with the reminder he is gone, and every day I cry a little less than the day before. I cry every single day longing for my brother. I'm not perfect. I'm not healed. But I'm getting better. Some days I still sit on the living room floor and bawl my eyes out because that hole in my heart is still there. It always will be. But some how I manage to get up wipe the tears and face the world outside because I know my brother wouldn't want me to cry because he's gone. He'd want me to live my life the best I can because he always believed in me.

One day maybe I will wake up when this week comes and I won't be terrified. I won't fear the nightmares that bring sleepless nights and I won't remember all the dark and twisty parts that this week brought me. One day I am going to wake up and only remember the things that came to my life this week. Because despite these being some of the worst days of my life, some of the greatest things I know and have came from this awful week. I use them as a reminder that despite this darkness.. I now can face the world in front of me and that I will find my way. That one day these moments will shine a light on what my life has always had in store. It may be a hard road ahead to get to that light switch but I know that it is out there and when I find it I will look back and know that it all mattered for some reason. Every memory. Every laugh. Every fight we had. Every inside joke. Every hug mattered. Because it brought me to where I was supposed to be. And that is the greatest gift my brother has given me.

I pray the one day I won't be haunted by the words I left unspoken. That one day I will be able to live through this week without fearing I will breakdown in the middle of the store because my heart is so broken. I pray that one day I will heal. I try every single day to find the broken piece and put it back together with the others, and some days I am successful, and I can fill them up one by one, but I am human. I have bad days where I leave the pieces untouched and I let my heart consume itself in grief and pain, but every time I do the pieces I have managed to fix make it easier to get up and face the world around me. I honestly don't believe that I will ever be able to be fixed. I know I am broken, and I have learned that being broken doesn't mean you're anything less. I have had some of the hardest times of my life, but I have learned so much more about myself than I ever thought possible three years ago, and I know that it is because of my brother. He is guiding me, helping me, saving me, protecting me every single day. That is how I know that I will be okay. He always has been the best big brother. So I will wait until that day when I can finally see him again, and tell him that I love him more than I could ever find the words to say, and thank him for being my one and only big brother. Loving you always missing you still brother of mine.

I know you're here guiding me to that light switch.. Just promise not to laugh when I trip over my own feet.. We both know how good I am at that.

Forever

... one thousand ...

It's been one thousand days of trying to find a way to live on, in days filled without my brother in them. In these past thousand days I've learned a lot about myself, and I've learned a lot about the ways I notice the little things he does for me.

Never in my life would I have thought to add these trying days into the life I had always dreamt up. Losing my brother was never part of my plan. We were going to be those siblings that pushed each other's wheel chairs over just to get a good laugh in for the day. The siblings who cheered each other on in the big moments, and even in the small ones. But today and for the past thousand other days I have had to learn to think of this life as my new reality that we were no longer going to have that future together. Every day since my brother passed away there has always been this surreal feeling about everything. I always would think, I'm going to walk in the door today and he is going to be there, and every thing's going to be alright again. But day after day my heart would face the reality that there was now going to be a void. I have to admit.. For a long time I didn't think that void I felt every day was going to get better. My brother was all I had. On the days when I felt like I had no one else to turn to he was always there. There was no way that I could possibly recover from this. All I knew was that in some way or another that I was going to have to.

So here we are.. one thousand days into this, and I'm still as scared of life without my brother in it as I was the moment I heard the news that would change my world entirely. There is however a difference between that girl and the girl I am today .. And that is the thousand ways I know that my brother is still here guiding me, protecting me, and loving me.. Now I'm not going to write down all of these ways, because frankly I know you don't want to read them all but I'll share a few.

The way he touches my heart through music, and the influences it plays in my heart. The music that cheers me up when I'm sad, or makes be believe that it's all going to be okay.

The way he protects me. When he watches over me every day during my commute.. Almost like now he's the one yelling for cops just like I'd use to do for him.

The way I feel so close to him every time a snowflake touches my face. Like each one is a hug telling me that he loves me.

Those moments when I am breaking down because I miss him so much I can't breathe anymore, and I swear I could almost reach out and hold him.

When I can see him in the joy we have as a family doing things together. Almost like he's right there with us laughing at my stupid corny jokes that for some reason no one see thinks is amusing. (How rude).

The way I can remember every single inside joke when I watch our favorite shows, and remember what we were talking about when we first watched them together.
Those moments when I really start to like someone, and ever so gently (sometimes not so gently) helps me to see them for who they truly are. He's the ultimate wing man.

When I'm sad, and feeling all alone in the world, and I read the words he wrote to me. It's like a warm hug saying that he'll never let go.

Here we are. One thousand days in. One thousand days closer to being reunited again. I may not ever be okay that he's gone. There are weeks where he's the only person on my mind. Now more than ever as graduation is approaching I wish he could be here in person to be with me. I'm going to miss taking goofy graduation pictures with my best friend.. But I know without a shadow of a doubt that my best friend is going to be there. Right by my side. Cheering me on as I take on all my new adventures. I think that is the most important lesson I've learned. That there are certain bonds that cannot be broken.. And the love between us is one of them.

So today I'm standing. One thousand days stronger than I was. Each day I'm growing and adapting to my new reality. But one thing will never change..

My brother will always be my world.

Together. Forever. Always

tell me the story again

Tell me the story again.

The one where I'm strong, and brave. The one where you told me all the wonderful things you saw in me. Tell the one about how much you love me, and how much I make you proud. Tell me how I'm better than what I give myself credit for, and how you always knew I could do it. Tell me I'll make it through, and that it is all going to be okay. Tell me that you wish for me all the things you couldn't be, and make me see myself through your eyes.

I wish you were still here to tell me all these things. The things that made me strong inside, the things that made me believe. I wish I could hold you tight and feel your heartbeat strong. I wish I could still hear your laugh every time that I come home. I wish that you were still here to make me believe in myself again. You saw me in ways I never could, and you always made me strong.

I used to wish for a lot of things; like wealth and love and fame. But now if I only had one more wish for my entire life I know what that wish would be. I'd wish that I could hear your voice, and laugh with you one more day. To hear you say you love me more than words could ever say. Because life is just not what I want when you aren't here with me. You were my one constant in a world that seemed so big. You were always by my side when people always left. It feels like it's been forever since I last saw you. Since I watched your eyes light up, and watched you dance around.

I keep reading the words you wrote to me. Words of love, regret, and hope. I wish that I could hear you say them just one more time. I'm trying so hard to be the person you saw in your eyes. I want so badly to be that person fearless, strong, and faithful. I just don't want to disappoint you as you're watching over me. I miss you so much it hurts on days that life just won't simply stop. I think it would be nice to just have one more talk with you. I love you with every atom inside me that misses you just as much. I've been thinking about you daily lately in how life is up there.. sometimes I think I'd like it better. A life with you, and others. But I know that I am here for both of us now. To live, and love, and try. Most of all I am here to be the person you always told me I could always be. Stick with me as I try and fail, because we both know I like to fall.. but be right there to help me up and remind me of who I am. 

to whom it may concern

to whom it may concern,

Do you ever think of me? Do you wonder what has been running through my mind? Do you ever think about how much this is killing me inside?

I have spent the better part of these past two week having all these things I want to say to you rushing through my head and it never stops. Not words of wanting or needing you, or words of professing love, but words of honesty, and sincerity. I have a lot of regrets, and unresolved issues when it comes to you and all I want is to let you know that I don't blame you. I don't blame you for a second for the pain that has happened over the last few years. We were young, neither of us knowing which way to go. We jumped. It was messy, it was reckless, and more than anything to me it was real. You told me once that you didn't know what love was back then. That you didn't think at that point you knew what I knew. I knew I loved you. From the moment we were in the car driving home and I looked at you as you smiled I knew that I would always love you.

Times have changed. We have changed. I'm not the hopeless romantic I used to be.. unfortunately the world has changed me. I don't see the world in black and white when it comes down to what happened with us. I know that you didn't mean to hurt me like you did.. that we were on two completely different paths and at the time you were the glue that picked up my already shattered heart off the ground and pressed the pieces back together even if for a moment to make me happy.. to make me feel joy like I used to. Then without a warning.. and without a reason I was left here laying on my floor for hours feeling the pieces fall apart once again. I felt every shattered piece that was once broken fall one by one. I have only felt this pain twice in my life, and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. At first I blamed you. I wanted someone to blame, and I pushed that blame on you and it wasn't fair. I made you out to be this demon who had destroyed me.. Honestly I wish it was that simple. You were never that person. You are good, and I was lost. I had lost every sense of who I was, and you had a part of me with you that helped me remember. You reminded me how to laugh, to smile at love, and to let others in. You were the first person I told when my life completely fell apart, and you were so strong for me. I remember in that moment that was when I knew I truly loved you, because despite everything we have been through you were by my side.

When I finally found the words to say to you I was still as lost as I was the moment I found out what would eventually remove the glue that was holding me together. I said things that in the moment I thought I needed to say to you, but I didn't need to. I should have said so many different things.. but at the time it all seemed so black and white.. I was in love and I thought you loved me too, but the truth is we weren't.. I may have loved you, but you weren't there yet, and I didn't want to accept that. I wanted that fairytale with you.

As years have passed and I have thought about you every day the words to mend what had been broken just never seemed strong enough. I tried to take down the fence that I know I had built too high. You were just being diligent and strong, and doing what I said I wanted. But it hurt me knowing that I couldn't repair what I broke even more.

I wanted to tell you all this when you told me why you did what you did.. asking me to forgive you.. which I already had. I told you I had moved on, but the truth is I haven't. Trust me I have tried. Every time the opportunity has come I have tried to let go of the thought of you and me, but despite my best efforts you were always there in the back of my mind as a giant what if. What if it works out for us in the end? What if when the time comes for us to see each other again will it all be okay? Could we finally have that picture perfect ending? So I found myself with so many wrong people. People who have taught me a lot about myself, but people who stole pieces of me in the process.

I want to tell you all of this not because I want to be with you, because even though I would love to be in love with you again I understand that this like much of what we've gone through isn't black and white. You are you. and I am me. We have been living completely different lives, and though time has passed with every conversation we have I can feel you tip-toeing around me. Not wanted to say what you want to, and me not wanting to end it. All I want is for you to know that what happened between us may not have been okay, what you did isn't okay.. but I don't blame you for it. I don't hold that pain in my heart anymore. I want nothing more than to have my friend back. It has been too long, and too weird not being able to talk like we used to. I hope one day we can get back to that place. You will always be the guy I fell in love with. The guy who made me feel like a princess, and made my heart whole once again when I didn't think I ever could. You gave me hope those years ago, hope that one day my heart can feel whole once more. So thank you. Thank you for being there for me, for being my friend, for loving me the way only you knew how.

Forever..

frozen

I recently got a photo for my mother for Mother's Day it is a photo taken at my high school graduation.

this is the last full family picture we have. Which is a very very odd thought to think of.

I catch myself staring at that photo as much as it makes me happy it also makes me quite sad. I feel like I have been frozen in this picture. That time has completely stopped from this moment on.

For the past two years.. one hundred and four weeks.. seven hundred and thirty days.. seventeen thousand five hundred and twenty hours.. my life has felt like it has been in a stand still. A part of me feels like this has been much more than that, and other times it feels as if it was yesterday when this picture was taken and those smiles and laughs filled my life.

As we reach the two year mark of being without Taylor, life doesn't feel like it has gotten any different, better, or easier. I honestly don't think it ever will. There is no part of me that believes I will wake up one day and believe that it is easier, or somehow okay. I will never be okay with the fact that my brother left this earth way too early. I may understand and have beliefs on how in some ways it was for a much more divine plan. It never hurts my heart any less, or takes any of the pain away from losing such a big part of my life.

Many days have come and gone since this day two years ago. Many moments shared in laughter.. In sadness.. In stillness. Many moments that have felt so surreal and unlike any I have felt before. When I was little I used to think all my angels lived in the clouds up so high that I knew they were there but I just couldn't quite reach them. I remember jumping higher and higher hoping one day I just might get high enough to see their faces one more time. As time has gone and I have gotten older I have realized that my angels still may be up in those clouds it just isn't quite time to see those faces again. This week as I was flying home I was up above my clouds. Looking down on them as if for a brief moment I had jumped high enough, that if I just looked hard enough I would see my angels. I looked down, and I didn't see my angels faces, but I saw this beautiful world, the wonders, the vastness, and the pure immensity. I lost my words I was reminded of the fact that my clouds do hold my angels. My angels are here in the vastness and the beauty. Yesterday, I saw my angel in the sky as I looked down on the world from the clouds and my brothers song played in my ears. "don't you worry, don't you worry child. See heavens got a plan for you." I know my angel is up in those clouds. Always looking down on me. I'm just not ready to see his face quite yet.

So as we come to two big milestones this year I am making a promise to my brother to live better, to live the life he would have wanted me too. To try to smile more, and let go of all the hurt and pain in my heart. To find someone who will help heal the hole in my heart even just a little. Because even though he knows how much I hurt, and have an ache in my heart everyday, that he is always here, and he cares about my happiness.

"I thought of you with love today, but that is nothing new. I thought about you yesterday and the days before that too. I think of you in silence, as  I often speak your name, all I have are memories and your picture in a frame. Your memory is my keepsake, with which I'll never part, God has you in His keeping, I have you in my heart."

I miss you every day brother. No amount of time will ever change that. You are and will forever be my best friend, and even though two years have passed without your laugh in my everyday routine, or your ever so wise advice. I have gotten to know you more in the past two years than no one ever thought was possible. I love you forever best friend. Keep on protecting me, and guiding me.

a little too much

I have said it once and will say it again. Sometimes music speaks louder than words. And this week music has said it all for me. 

"She would not show that she was afraid, But being and feeling alone was too much to face,
Though everyone said that she was so strong,
What they didn't know is that she could barely carry on,

But she knew that she would be okay,
So she didn't let it get in her way,

Sometimes it all gets a little too much,
But you gotta realize that soon the fog will clear up,
And you don't have to be afraid, because we're all the same,
And we know that sometimes it all gets a little too much,

She would always tell herself she could do this
She would use no help it would be just fine
But when it got hard she would lose her focus
So take my hand and we'll be alright

And she knew that she would be okay,
So she didn't let it get in her way,

Sometimes it all gets a little too much,
But you gotta realize that soon the fog will clear up,
And you don't have to be afraid, because we're all the same,
And we know that sometimes it all gets a little too much, yeah.

A little too much, I said a little too much, oh.

Sometimes it all gets a little too much,
But you gotta realize that soon the fog will clear up,
And you don't have to be afraid, because we're all the same,
And we know that sometimes it all gets a little too much yeah!

Sometimes it all gets a little too much,
But you gotta realize that soon the fog will clear up,
And you don't have to be afraid, because we're all the same,
And we know that sometimes it all gets a little too much."

-A little too much, Shawn Mendes

lost in time

Lately time has been on my mind. The way we spend time doing things we love, doing things we don't love, time spent at a job, or school,  time spent worrying, or time spent wishing we just had more time. Time is relative; you never know how much you have, or how much of your time you have spent. I think it all is hard to comprehend. You spend time worrying about how much time you have, or you spend time thinking about all the time you could have had.

I've worried a lot lately about time. Time I wish I still had, time I thought I was supposed to have. I think the hardest part is realizing that there is time I will never have again. Maybe losing time isn't the hardest thing we have to face in this life. What if the reason we are having a hard time with time is that it is something we cannot control. We can't control when others time is up, or we have something come up that takes a bit of our time. It is human nature to want to control our lives, so why not be frustrated with the thing that no matter how hard we try, how much planning we put into we will never be able to control. We can spend the precious time we have thinking of ways to extend the time we have, or we can take the time we have and spend it making adventures, memories, and spending time with those we love.

I often wonder if I spent the time I have had well. If I spent the time I was given with those I love the best way I could. Some days it is different. I often think that I was given the short end of the stick when it comes to time spent with those I have lost over time. I ask the typical questions, what if, why me, what could I have done differently; and 9 times out of 10 the answer is a lot.. I don't know how to describe to you the amount of time I have lost wishing I just could have had more time.. More time to hug my Grandma Wright, more time to listen, talk, and hug my Brother, and more time to learn, and love my Grandma Taylor. I am holding onto a thread of string that holds all this time I could have had. Time filled with regret wasting time with anger, misguided priorities, and unimportant events. All I can say is at the end of every day I wish I just could have had more time. All I want now more time.

I don't believe that I will ever get that wish; because as we know time cannot be controlled. We only get so much of it, and we will never be able to add to that, or to ask for more of it. When our time with others, or our time is up we only have that much. So don't waste it. I have said this before and I will say it again.. without sounding like the soundtrack off Frozen.. just let it all go. Let go of the hate, the anger, the regrets, and the pain. Just love, and live; spend your time with those worthy of your time. Stop wasting it on people who don't appreciate you, or make you feel worthless. They aren't worth it. Spend it with family, and those friends who are like family. Those are the people who are truly worthy of the time you have. Don't wake up one day and regret that you missed a piece of time. Time may be out of our control, but how we spend each day is something we can control so spend it the way you want, and don't let someone tell you that you are wrong.

I may not have had all the time I wanted with those I love, but I know without a doubt in my mind that the time I did have were times I will never forget. The laughs, the hugs, the memories are all engraved in my heart, and no amount of time will lessen any of that. Don't get lost in the thought of time.. just live and time will work itself out.