2012...The Year I Lost Myself

.....I held her right hand as my grandfather held her left. As family stood over her with broken hearts and fallen tears, my grandfather whispered to her, "It's ok Baby. You can rest now". A few more seconds passed and a few more breaths were taken and finally the moment had come. 5:37pm on September 23, 2012, God gained a new angel and from that moment on I knew my world would never be the same. 

   Sandra Blair-7/29/54-9/23/2012

It was a Sunday and I had to be back at work on the following Tuesday. There wasn't a single point on the train ride where I didn't shed a tear. I replayed the moment I saw her take her last breath in my head over and over again and my heart ached so bad. Once I made it back to Arkansas and got to my bed I went straight to sleep. When I woke up the next morning, I didn't shed any tears. Matter of fact I didn't cry for almost a month except for the day of the funeral. 

I was extremely numb. My boyfriend at the time experienced the bulk of my pain. I grew to be clingy, angry, insensitive, needy, etc. I was a mess. Part of me still couldn't believe she was gone. Until one day....We were on the phone and I fussed at him about something minor and alllll the emotions I had built up inside came pouring out. I threw my phone and became absolutely hysterical in my tiny apartment. I yelled and screamed, punched walls, threw anything that I could find and finally when I was able to calm myself down (after about 10 mins) I fell to my knees, caught my breath, and I began to pray and cry. And cry and pray. 

I can't honestly say how long I stayed down there talking to God and asking him "Why me?" But as I began to talk to him more, I started to feel a sense of peace. I began to think about the good times with my Angel. Began to thank The Lord for bringing her "home" so that she wouldn't have to suffer anymore. For as long as I could remember she was always sick and always hurting and I hated that she would always be in so much pain. But The Lord needed her back with him. And he didn't want her suffering anymore and neither did I. Don't get me wrong, my heart still ached, but my mind was at peace. I found joy in the memories and I was finally able to get up from my knees, stand tall and trust that The Lord would see me through.

 And he did, I was so much happier. I went back to church, I was performing better at work, My relationship with my boyfriend was perfect, and even though I cried every night I felt I had overcome so much and from that moment on I felt so happy and wonderful about my life.....until I got a call from boyfriend 2 months after her passing, wanting to end our relationship of four years. My world that I thought I just fully picked up came crashing down. Once. Again....

...The Moment of Truth

It was about 4:00am in January of 2013. My mind was awake, but my eyes were closed. For hours, I layed in bed with my face flustered with tears running down both cheeks. My heart was racing, breaths were getting harder and harder to take from the intense anxiety I was feeling at that very moment. How did I get to this sad place? Why was this happening to me? Where the hell do I go from here? My heart was broken, my mind was broken, Bridge. She was broken. 

I didn't move a single inch that morning or afternoon. I layed around feeling sorry for myself (seemed to be my daily routine). Lights were off, TV was off, calls and texts were ignored. I cried, and cried, and cried some more until I finally drifted off to sleep.

When I decided to get out of bed, I went to the mirror and looked at myself. But instead of seeing a beautiful young lady like I saw once before, I saw a horrible and pathetic young girl. I absolutely HATED the image that was staring back at me. She was sad, angry, torn, broken down, 30lbs heavier and majorly depressed. She constantly blamed God for putting her through so much. Her conversations would most times go like this: 

..... "Lord, you knew I couldn't handle life without my mother, why would you take her from me? Then 2 months later you took my boyfriend from me. How could you make me endure so much pain all at once?".....

While shamefully staring at this image of myself in the mirror, I had the strangest thing happen to me. Something suddenly clicked in my head from a qoute I read a few days before about "being in control of your own happiness". I went back to my previous questions and began to answer them in my head. The most important one was "Where the hell do I go from here?" Spiritually, Physically, and Mentally.  At that very moment I decided to "Cross the Bridge to a Happier Life".