A Year

So it's been a year. I don't know if I have the words to explain what it is that I'm feeling. The normalcy that has set in day by day is unsettling. It feels wrong to let her be gone. To move on. But what else? I've stopped crying daily, obsessing, wondering who everyone else's "Kristin" would be. A sick game I play with myself to feel ok in this anger. That other people would ache this bad if their soul sister left. And I am angry. I let myself really feel it yesterday for the first time in ages and it scared me to pieces. I was literally drowning in it. I escaped to the woods to gasp for air and plopped down imagining myself chopping down the entire forest. The rage was so foreign and terrifying. I was so lost that when I came back in I couldn't look anyone in the eyes. I curled up in bed, closed curtains, my children calling for me from downstairs, Jason making dinner, trying to keep them from being scared of the look of me, sheltering them from my despair.

Today was different. We all spent the day together. Walking quietly through the woods, running errands, driving backroads, making dinner. I tried not to sink in while allowing myself to feel her presence. She wants me to be happy. To be a good mother. To live the life we imagined we'd be living as mothers when we dreamed of it years ago. Even in our wildest days we dreamt of this life. A simple one that included woods and babies. Some animals! Chickens perhaps... So here I am... living it. And there she is in the wind....