Some nights are just harder than others. Not shocking.

But tonight’s taken me back to the beginning all over again. Back to the good when Kamren was home with me and Marques. Back to the horrifying when it was time to call 911. And back to the anger, hurt, frustration, confusion, resentment, etc., that followed.

I’ve told myself this is normal, and so it is. Or so it is for me and my life. The feeling of disconnection is maddening, but so is the feeling of normalcy. Sharing my life so publicly, so intimately, is freeing but so weighted too.

The saying, ‘you don’t know the half of it,’ is what comes to mind. The ‘half of it,’ doesn’t even describe the half of that.

Sitting her looking around my house, impeccably decorated and perfectly organized, I know I have a great space. I hear it from everyone who steps inside of here, followed by their request to have me redecorate their own. But it’s so opposite of how frantic and broken I feel internally. It’s what my life looks like to the outside world, or the people watching it through the Facebook lens. It’s literally ‘the half of it.’

I had to stop myself just now from ripping portraits and paintings from the walls out of frustration for Kamren’s absence. I walked past the tree my favorite mugs hang on in the kitchen and felt every nerve in my body heighten as I pictured throwing the entire thing, including all 6 mugs currently hanging, across the adjacent living room. The idea of them crashing and breaking, shattering mostly, and reflecting the exact moment my heart did the same, was enticing to me. It’s an internal high to match the confusion. An upper for the downer, a fight until the nerve endings die altogether.

Sometimes I have to re-read notes and letters to myself, from myself, to make it to the other side of nights like these. It’s the equivalent to emotional cutting. It’s a release. Maybe a purging, or a push.

It’s a survival.

I’ve copied a piece from a piece I contributed to almost two years ago. It’s odd to me, how much hope I had when writing this 10 months after giving Kam back to the universe. But I suppose that hope was always a very crucial part of my survival back then.

So, Dear Me:

-Reread and remember. You’ve got a lot left to do out there.