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[0408088]

I realize now that my father was not really a father to me

He didn’t have the patience to teach me things as a child, yanking things out of my fingers when little hands were unable to do it properly

Grandpa would show me,

And then he would show me again

[0408088]

My friend at work isn’t doing very well

She’s okay for now, but I can’t tell her memory isn’t as good as it once and was and she mishears me a lot

Other than that she’s very healthy for her age

She’ll be 98 in October,

I try to be very thankful, for she makes my days all the more pleasant and sometimes I cry because of her kindness

I’m so happy just to know her, it’s hard to imagine my days without her

We say I love you in the phone everytime we say goodbye

[0408088]

Things are really hard again, but theres a lot i want to say

You wake up every morning early and you go to work, working for the knife but atleast there’s people there who care about you and people who try their best to be kind

It’s hard some days too though

School is hard too, and there’s never enough time l, never enough time. I can’t say this enough, and I’m sorry. It’s very hard right now.

Things are hard again, I keep saying, but it’s hard to remember when anything was easy.

You don’t go home as much as you used to, somwtimes this is okay. Sometimes you’re too busy to think about it, sometimes this makes your heart feel raw

When you go home, you lay in the bed your mother made you and you feel like your heart has been rubbed raw.

I’m sorry

You think about grandpa a lot

It’s much quieter now, there’s a silence that you don’t know how to fill. I’m not sure if that’s okay or not

I know you feel really helpless like you’re buying time right now, I know everything feels like it’s for nothing and I’m sorry.

Lately you’ve been trying to keep your room clean, lately you’re worried

Everything is heavy, and you wish someone would save you . I think you’ve realized no matter how fast you run and how far you run , it’ll never be far enough. No matter how hard you work, you’ll never make it. You’ll never be whwre you want to be

It’s hard really, there’s something missing from you now. Life taught you what it’s really like and you’ve made your dreams smaller and smaller

And still , I think, they won’t come true.

All I can say is sorry.

I’d like to go away, really

There’s no amount of sleep I can get that will leave me feel rested

I wish I could

Open my eyes and my problems would be fine

But it’s not like that

I wish I could lay in bed and feel loved

But it’s not like that. I wish everyone could know how you hurt and how hard you’re trying. It’s not like that.

I

[0408088]

He said there is an old church this side of houston

there might be a ghost or two, can you believe that?

I wonder if he asks because I would know

How it feels to be looking for heaven even after death

I can believe it,

I believe

[0408088]

Here I am again

Touching the cold ground and having it crumple in my hands

Driving through the cemetery at night, like I’m peeping into the room again to see if you’re awake from your hospital bed

I know you will not be.

I know ir will be as quiet and still and cold as it was the last time I saw you

It’s not scary anymore, not like when I was a baby for now I know what lies in the graves, the childhood fears have been realized

When you were sick at first, losing you was my nightmare, I was burdened for a long time, I don’t think you’ll ever know how much I cried for you, how much it hurt me

I feel bad sometimes, for how slow and long you had to suffer, for how I couldn’t let you go,

I can’t seem to let anything go without leaving claw marks in it

When those things come to be realized, you’re not afraid anymore

What is there left to be afraid of

Are you resting now, I want to ask

I want to ask if it hurts, if you’re happy, if you’re smiling. I want to know. I want to know that you’re somewhere and you can hear music, that you can play music

I want to know that atleast there was someone waiting there for you with an open hand,

I hope so

[0408088]

to the girl I was in october, someday you will let go of the hand you’re holding. you will look at their face and walk backwards. you will see with your own eyes if they reach for you. this time you will not be surprised and I’m sorry.

[0408088]

its been a week and things have been really hectic, im sorry I havent wrote to you.  Things are still very panicked, but at the same time it sees like a lot of people dont care. I still have to work and be around people and it seems like everyone is angry at eachother for no reason. We still can’t find a lot of different groceries and restaurants are closing. stores have shorter hours, even our store is closing earlier. schools are postponed for longer now and there cant be more than 10 people together at once.  I can;t go visit family right now and i am the saddest about not being able to see busha. I tried to be with her as often as i could before but now I’m unable to go see her. I miss my parents and my grandparents very much and this is making me terribly sad.  I learned today that if busha dies in the next few months I probably wont be able to attend her funeral and that makes me very very sad. everything is really odd right now. Spring is here and I try to appreciate the beauty that its bringing, im trying really hard to be okay. things are just difficult and i do not yet feel the same new life blooming in my chest.  I hope youre laying amoungst the flowers and enjoying the warmth inside your heart.  as always, I miss you

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its me again, here on a saturday night with a heavy heart.  Today at work was so hard, more than anything i was scared and more than anything i wanted to come home and cry and i didnt get that privledge until now.  I was busha today, and i thought to myself i should try to write down the things to remember her by  She always says ‘hello my dear’. ‘my dear’ is what she always says to me when she gives me a hug. I think one of my favorite things about busha is her voice. when we would come into her house she would say ‘howdy howdy’ so loudly in her thick accent. I love hearing her speak and hearing her talk polish and i even love hearing her when shes mad and fussing at me or the other grandkids or the dog.  i think one of the most paintful things now is that shes so tired, and she dosnt have anyone left to speak polish with.  busha is pretty when she smiles. and the things that make her happy is raising animals and kids and flowers and anything that will grow. she gets up every morning early and likes to cook breakfast  one night when I spent the night I stayed up late and she made me warm milk. Ive never had anyone else do that for me and I think thats something only a grandma could do for someone.  busha used to put on only red lipstick to go into town and I always wanted to be like that too. Busha used to let me ride in her old truck with her and I remember the feeling of the seat and the steering wheel and the dashboard that she could barely see over. I rembmer the green shirts she used to wear with her slacks around the house and I hope some of these things are things I never forget. I remember busha always telling me i got prettier and prettier and that she was proud of me.  I want to add more but im really afraid that I cant right now because my heart really hurts. but ill try to say more later.  just know that busha is someone really special and you would love her a lot shes someone really loved, just like you are.  as always i miss you. 

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3/11

here i am again, ill write to you about my tuesday on a wesnesday. I should learn to set my clocks early since I know im always late. I’ll do better in time.  I’d like to thank you for the yellow moon last night. it felt lazy and slow like the last two days and somehow it felt healing, like the slow rising was how life is and it granted me a lot of peace. i hope things can be that way for you now, I hope theres not a lot of worries  Busha is in the hospital, I dont know if i mentioned that before.  its been a long story.  It was late january I think, she was on her way to the heart doctor and my mother was driving her and she stopped by my work to say hello. I hadnt seen her since christmas.  some times when I dont see my mom for a while i realize how much older she looks. I think it was like that. I realized how much older and how much paler and how much thinner and colder she was from the woman I know. She held my hand and I felt sorry for how bony she felt and how tired and sounded and I wish i could do something to help breathe life into her. Ive never felt so helpless standing in front of a person. Ive never felt more sorry.  we talked a little bit and she told me she was proud of me to see me at my job. she told me i was strong and she was happy to see what id grown up to me. she asked if i had a boyfriend and i told her no. she laughed and said good, that i didnt need one, but she told me she was sorry that she probably wouldnt live to see me married. I think i realized then that there must be bad news and thats why she was stopping by.   we didnt talk long and we said goodbye. my mom said that my brother was home but he wouldnt answer his phone when she called him so that they couldnt go by and see him. that made me angry  I wanted to cry badly at work but I couldnt. I tried to be happy that I got to see her and saved it for when i got home.  I think my busha is a woman Ive always wanted to be like. shes a very strong person and shes had to work all her life.  for that im very sorry. im sorry this wasnt an easy life.  but i think she was someone who could always enjoy the small things, and i want to be more like that too.  more has happened but its too much to say here now.  grandpa is still in the hospital but hes doing better you know. I called pop and talked to him tonight and he said that he might be able to go home in a couple days.  I still have the voicemail he left me from a few years ago when he was sick in the hospital. he called me and left a voicemail saying he was just calling to check up on me. i think about him often but I always feel sorry because i cant be there enough  life is really awful that way and time is something we can never get back.  I’ll try to live more fully and take better care of my people so that i dont have regrets.  as always, I need you  498

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monday came too early didnt it.  ms mari fed us buttermilk coconut pie and it made me  miss my mother just a little bit. it made me think of busha and grandpa and i wished they could taste it too.  I was still feeling bad that i didnt get to say goodbye to pawpaw before i left. We finally left and decided we needed breakfast. I found a railcar diner for us to have breakfast. union station. I wanted somewhere they would give me endless cups of coffee. the man there was the nicest and friendliest ive ever met. He looked at the waitinglist and called for a bob. he said that was his fathers name and that hed passed recently  that he was a kind man and that it still stung. that he taught him so much, how to bait a hook and do carpentry and that his dad loved dolphins. after he left someone said it was odd for him to tell strangers that but it made my heart ache. i realized that these small things like this he recited to people, just to keep the memory alive. to keep these small things in someones memory so that they wouldnt be forgotten. i wish i couldve given this man a hug. I told him thank you so many times but i wish i couldve said more to him. thank you for being friendly. thank you for the good breakfast. I got my endless cups of coffee and pancakes and the man’s conversation made me miss my dad so i texted him.  grandpa is in the hospital again. it makes me feel worse for not going to see him before we left. later that day we bought some things for them in the small general store and i hope i will see him and nana soon.  the three of us were supposed to go to an escape room. only two of us ended up going. i cursed at my brother and i feel bad about it but then again i dont. we had sour attitudes going into it, but we played the game with two younger girls and they made it a good time. its hard to have a bad time with kids around. we stopped in san marcos one more time before we left. it was nice to say goodbye and i hope i get to go there again someday. was we drove the hills faded into flat land and when i woke up we were clsoe to home.  daisy missed us alot. i think monday was sobering, as they are, but seeing her was good enough to make me smile at the end of the day. i want to say thank you to daisy for always being there at the end of the day.  I fell aseep with a lot on my mind again, but ill try not to think too much until i ahve to go back to work. still i worry for busha and for pawpaw and for my mother and father always. i worry for my job and being able to live and i worry for being able to finish school . i worry for what kind of life this will be.  as always, i love you as always, i miss you

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sunday was slow and lazy. breakfast was too bland and i grew tired of the hotel room coffee. we went to a local shop and i enjoyed a smoothie too early in the day. we decided that we should barbeque then, and went to a local grocery store. its really funny how when youre in a new place something as simple as buying groceries becomes so much more fun.  someone has land next to the lake and they raise cattle on it. I said that one day i wanted to retire here and raise cattle. they asked me why youd want to do something like raise cattle when you retire. I couldnt answer.  we tried to drive to a picnic area to cook but it seemed they were all closed, however i had a good time watching the rolling hills and canyons near by. i wish we couldve gotten better pictures of those. i wish i could remember how small they made a person feel, but i dont think pictures do that justice. We cooked food and watched the sunset and enjoyed ourselves. we ate icecream from a vending machine that was too expensive and even though it was too windy and too cold, after i did the dishes, we went swimming in the pool.  we discovered quickly it was too cold for this and proceeded to turn on the hot tub. it was fun to relax and watch the steam roll off the water. we joked that the people across from the pool who watched us from their windows would call the front desk and get us kicked out after 10. we left at 10:30 and they never called.  I washed the salt from my hair that night and wished i was washing off my old self. wished i was the new town around the lake or wished i was born in the mountains. i wish i was always the girl sitting in the window in a cafe in austin. but i woke up the next morning and found out i still had the same problems.  the one thing i thought of a lot that night was the full moon.  as always, i love you. 

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the next morning L cooked for us. I woke up about 9 and I felt much sicker than the day before, but i decided to drink the too hot and too bitter coffee and deal with it. my brother had trouble waking up that morning. we left without him to say hello to L’s grandparents and went and saw some beatiful sights. walked out the door that morning I’d realized what id missed the night before and ive never fallen in love so fast. The hills are beautiful and rolling and the lake is such a sight to see. I’ve never seen bluer water or breathed clearer air.  the creek on the other side of the dam was just as beautiful, the water was rolling but shallowed out enough for locals and those from other placs like us to fish down the stream. ive never seen trees like the ones there, even though this place isnt so far from home, I couldnt help but think i was in a state or different country and part of me wondered what life would be like if i were born in a place like that. what if that was home.  the lake we visited is man made. the engineering corps built a huge dam and it filled up the canyon that once had the original town built at the bottom, slowly this happenedo ver time and the whole town had to be rebuilt. it made me wonder if life could be like that too. if peopl could live that way too.  we met a man while we were walking on top of the dam, he stopped and asked if we wanted him to take our picture and we said yes. neither of us liked the way the picture turned out but we appreciated the gesture more than anything. i wish i could say thank you to him again. he was from wisconsin and when i assured him texas weather wasnt usually like this, he smiled and told us our smiles brightened up the whole day. what a kind, kind man.  later we made it to the town of san marcos, and i felt myself fall in love a little bit. we ate at a bbq place that was too expensive, but the people were friendly and the food was good. we drove until we found ourselves in austin on saturday night and i found myself wishing to be another person again. wishing i could live the life of a person there and be that someone. there was a mural of willy nelson that i remember while i took a sip of my brothers mixed drink and scrunched my face. we ate donuts and expensive food and slept too good on the ride back to the room. 

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for this spring break trip  3/6 friday went by fast. I spent the morning eating waffles with my dad. I went to check on him because i think hes been really lonely at home. I talked to my grandpa the day before and I said I would stop by the house before leaving, but I was running late and didnt get to. I feel bad and I’ll have to talk to them when I get back. I packed early and was ready before we were supposed to leave. I realized that packing is a lot harder than youd really think it would be. It took a little over three hours I think to get there, the beggining of the ride had a lot of energy but by the end it was dark and most of us were asleep. I tried to doze off so that i wouldnt be so anxious but i couldnt seem to make myself doze off. There was a lot on my mind I think. I think about busha and my mother often and I think about the troubles at work and in other parts of my life. I was troubled on the drive in, but maybe it kept my mind off of being anxious.  it was dark by the second part of the drive, so i wasn’t able to witness the change in scenery, but the pull of gravity from the car suggessted we were in hill country, I would find out the next morning just how beautiful it was. we got to the place and checked in and said our hellos. I was able to get my own room in the apartment we’re staying in. its big and unhomey but atleast its private. We were all hungry so we went into town to find something to eat and eneded up getting in and out burgers again. its a nice treat to get while on vacations.  i fell asleep with a lot on my mind that night, but i think i had a lot of hopes for the next day, ill write a note for each day so that i can remember it well. 

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i havent been writing as regularly as i want but i want to make some updates,..  ill post alot all at once today and then i think i should start posting more regularly . .  i want to keep things updated and let you know whats going on with me

[0408088]

It’s almost April again, my dear

I’m always writing letters in my head for you, I hope you understand that I can’t always write them out , I don’t always have the heart

Death comes in with a hand that’s very tempting sometimes I think, death comes in walking, too calmly to be satisfying

There’s so many things I wish I could ask you and wish I could say, but for now I’ll say this.

Please always take care. Please always stay in the moonlight and lay kisses on my skin when the stars come out, please keep blooming every spring, please stay

Let me know youre at least okay

As always, I love you

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It’s been a while since April hasn’t it

It’s been a while since April and everything is coming back around again

17 and everything will revist me and I wonder how I could just hate a number so much

I wonder if something could be so cursed when it’s something that doesn’t really exist , but aren’t there a lot of things that hurt me that I can’t see or feel

Maybe there is something cursed in that

I wonder a lot about you

I was thinking about the pennies again

And I wondered

When death tried to buy you, was what they offered enough

When I dreamed opened my purse and pulled out all my shiny coins, I wish it would’ve been enough

I wish something like that could’ve brought you back

I miss you endlessly

[0408088]

At my cousins funeral they said something, they talked about what they had learned from her as a woman and I think I realized something

Isn’t that the most wonderful way to love someone, to remember them, is to practice what they’ve taught you and teach it to others

Isn’t that the purest way to keep their soul alive somehow

I’ll try this for you too, I think you’ve taught me so much and I want to honor you like this too,