365/365

Through this project, I learned to persevere. I may have one reason to stop but ten to keep going. (Fall down seven times, get up eight.) I learned to be thankful and I learned that things are not permanent.

It taught me that there are moments and people I won’t want to forget and I need to keep them close to me no matter what. There will also be things I will want to forget but will be unable like the way it feels to be loved unconditionally one day and cast aside the next. I have learned to embrace these things and how important it is to remember the painful bits because later on they won’t feel so bad.

I learned to fight for what I need - and especially to fight for happiness. And almost as important, I learned that sometimes you need to stop fighting and let things be. there are limits and times to back down. Most importantly, I learned that it’s okay to back down. Because that’s when you grow- when you can fight until you realize there is nothing more you can do. When you can understand that there are some things you can’t fight or change. 

It’s hard looking back on this year. In a lot of ways I think this project was a bad idea for a year full of so much change and inevitable pain. All the breaking down and giving up and staying still. I also feel that it is a good thing to capture myself at all the highs and lows. To save the good and grow from the bad.

Today I am one year older and stronger and happier than I was three hundred and sixty five days ago. Sometimes I am still scared and small but I am always growing even when I stop moving. There’s something in me that is always dreaming and for that I am happy.

Today doesn’t mark the end of anything except for this project. I have realized that life is incessant and years are simply dog eared pages in the book I’m continuing to pour so much love into writing. 

I am more than thankful for the people that have loved and continue to love me this year. For the additional people who have stopped loving me but understand that I still love them. For hardships and losing battles. For lakeside thunderstorms and dancing barefoot through forests. For my mama for teaching me how to drive. For my teachers and instructors who know my limits more than I do and push me to expand and share my talents continuously. For my employers, Julius and Kelly who have given me the best opportunity in the world and for silently supporting me and valuing my opinions. For all the wonderful kids I teach and taught that I have had so much patience for and who have had so much patience and respect for me, knowing that I am still learning as well. For my wonderful piano teacher from six years ago who passed away last month (rest easy Mark - I’ll always think of you when I play the Phantom score or Love Me Tender). I am thankful for the drive in me that forces me to create beauty every day. For every time I have stepped on stage with a smile (or a squawk). For the day I realized not to take things for granted. For our health care system and family being near. For big new things that become comfortable. For the people who have followed this project since day one (all two of you!) and for those who caught up with me along the way and pushed me to finish it. And most importantly, for every one of my friends - you kids make things feel effortless. It feels like home. I am thankful for all the ways that I have grown and everyone who has guided me through.

I am stable and comfortable and standing solid on two feet with a fire in my heart and love all around me. I am growing (and never stopping) and learning and existing. I am digging graves for memories in lines in my skin and not letting them run away. I am wild and rainbow high and going everywhere. I am weak and sometimes tumbling but consistently recovering. I am wondering how I can be so much in one body. How I can have so much love and joy and comfort in me at once. I am not who I was. I am.

(Andy, Kira, Janel, Staci, Brit, Matt, Curtis, Brett, TyKehl, Joel, Amanda, Alex, Me) 

364/365

friday december 30

bon hiver, mon cheri

at the end of december i am waiting and watching and chasing deer tracks. strong and solid and remembering how fragile i once was. can you remind me what it is to be something less than fearless?

i am in love with everything and learning how it is to be solid.

363/365

thursday december 29

feeling rather introspective. i am comparing who i am to who i was and struggling to find common themes. i am looking back on who i was and i’m surprised by how fragile i used to be. now i am strong. i wake up and fight. i don’t remember what it is to be vulnerable. 

i am so thankful for the ways that i have grown and the ways that i am continuing to grow.

362/365

wednesday december 28

I had a dream that I was sleeping under the oak tree in my elementary school yard then we took a bus to a little town. A boy that I used to love confessed his love for me before we spent an hour or two driving in the back of a car and I bleached my hair in a room lined with mirrors so it would feel like summer. The farmer wanted me to learn his trade.

Today was laughing and winter driving and baking treats with Brett and my first time ever baking bread. We played hide and seek in our twenty-six acres of dark and froze our toes and our noses and didn’t find anybody because the snow made us slow and our flashlights gave away our position.

thankful for good friends and family. this year is ending so beautifully.

361/365

tuesday december 27

today, we felt like a family. we built a snowman and a snowfort together and played games and it felt like we were back at the old Meadowvale house. it felt familiar and comfortable. i’m not used to that.

360/365

monday december 26

these days are hospital hallways and busy people and aching bones. can’t stop moving because we’ll burn out. remembering back to last year when things were as slow and smooth as honey. this year is crooked teeth.

i am feeling so fortunate to have some things stay the same like my relationship with my beautiful sister. she is getting so old and mature and gorgeous and i am thankful to know that even when we bicker incessantly, we love each other always and we can remember back to when we watched the police across the street at dad’s house with the blue garage. we were young. her hair was long and mine was short.

i am looking for some sort of closure to this year. i began three hundred and sixty days ago as someone quiet and small and delicate. now i am wild and independent and i don’t know how to let things end. 

i am still afraid of losing memories. i was thinking about the things that came back to me while we were speeding down the highway. counting street lights on the way home from my grandparents when i was small. tobogganing down the hill when i was eight. the way christmas used to smell. i want to bottle these comfortable and beautiful things up and peruse them when i get lonely as if to bring little parts of me back to life.

357/365

friday december 23

growing up in a world that is harsh, i am small and full of monsters.

we went to the hospital to visit grandma. she is tiny and helpless in a tangle of tubes. her voice is faint and her eyes are swollen and her stomach was torn open by a man full of hope who cannot fix anything. she is a dying lady but she is ready to fight. i’m scared of the things i can’t control. my mum was saying to me in the car on the way back that “we brought her here and she was sick, and she’s still sick. but she’s here.”

she says we are beginning the grief process. people start grieving early so that when the inevitable happens, we are at peace. all of us.

right now we are focusing on comfort. not letting ourselves get too far ahead. staying still and silent and together. we are loving and never stopping. trying to keep it together with a brave face on.