thank you.

it struck me as i was driving up to connecticut for a conference i am attending for work how hard life can be. how far it is from anything you imagined it would be. how you could never have guessed that both your parents would die, or that a carelessly placed wine glass could threaten to take all your blood, or that your first love would grow up to shoot himself in the head. could never guess you'd get engaged twice before you were thirty and married then divorced too. you thought you'd have better judgment or that you would know it when you were in love (you know it now).

i don't know how i got here. i wouldn't go anywhere else. cause this shit is hard but i am trudging my way through and i am on the brink of the whitest light. the softest breaths. peace will come. and life is so hard but it is also so beautiful. breath-taking really.

hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder, all this fighting to live and grow that we all do. mygod. it knocks me right over some days. knowing the things that we all go through. the way that each of you has woven your ways into my very skin. my toes. how i feel you. how you carry me. how it all gets harder and clearer and easier to let go. to accept the journey. to know that you will never know.

and i am doing my best. you are. and the love. this love. is all i've ever wanted to know.