​In life we can get hit pretty hard. We can think that we will stand right back up and move onward, but we don't. We may think we do, but we don't. I can attest to this. We fool ourselves long enough until we cannot do it for any longer. This is the part where it feels as if the sky is falling; it very well just may be. There's a time that we need to admit that no matter how strong we are, we need more help than we have available.
   I am a person that fights my battles alone. I'll say I'm fine til I'm blue in the face & already 4ft into the grave. But who am I trying to fool? Me or you? I'm not entirely sure if that matters. We talk about trauma and how we are affected differently. We talk about how we all grieve differently. That there is no right or wrong way to deal, to process, to accept. So they say. What people forget is that the weight of these things are a job in itself. The fact that any of us are carrying on and doing anything else at all is a feat. What happens when we are so broken down that even that is just too much?
   My soul is fierce. My soul craves joy, it demands to be filled with hope and passion. I’ve seen the magic in the world where others fail to even look. I breathe fire in my words as I speak them with intent. I see color where most others simply see grey. My soul is unlike any other, and that used to be encouraged and embraced. But my fire was extinguished. My soul has been suffocatingly stifled. Joy was stolen from me. I walk around in direct conflict with myself because my soul craves the opposite of who I currently am. Though now I question who I am, who I was, and who I can ever even be. I walk around exhausted due to this constant battle. I do not see the beauty around me anymore. I don’t feel the magic in the world. I do not know joy. My soul aches a dull, constant ache I, frankly put, feel dead, empty, and colorless inside. I am a human shell walking through wet cement trudging through the day. Hope has been absent.
   This is what happens when we avoid. Eventually we drown in what has communed us. I never dreamed I'd feel this way enough to even put it out there again. The fall from the top of the highest mountain to the deepest valley is one most don't even survive. I was lucky to have even gotten there. I write this still hopeless, but having a piece of me wanting to feel hopeful again. I think that's where we begin. It pains me to write these words, but I have a team full of hope for me until I hopefully begin to feel it again myself.
   Life's journey is vastly different from one person to the next, and I encourage you to stop for a moment before you go to rip apart the person next to you. You just may be their breaking point. Say a kind word instead of a hurtful one. Share a laugh instead of isolating them from the joke. Be inclusive, be considerate, and be kind. We are all healing. We are all fighting our way through. I'll be taking a step back as I try to find the fight left within me to continue on, I love you all & look forward to coming back stronger and happier than ever. All my love.