Dear Dee,

It's been six years since we last saw your face.

We're thirtysomethings now. Each of us older than you lived to be. We're happy. We're married and single. We've gone natural, we eat healthier, we excercise. Some of us have moved away. Some of us have moved back home. We have new jobs or more responsibility. We travel. We've settled down. We take calculated risks. We still look like those girls who hung out on the yard but, save for having more time with you, we wouldn't trade places with them. We're still playful, just wiser.

Our years are passing faster than we'd like. Our hair is turning gray. The babies you knew are now big kids, and there are additions that you never got to meet.

We can still party with the best of them. We laugh, we dance, we sing. When Sorors start to stroll, we jump in the line. Staying out all night is still fun, but it now happens once or twice a year instead of once or twice a week. We don't recover like we used to, and we're okay with that.

It feels different this year, Dee. Maybe it's because it falls on a Tuesday for the first time since That Tuesday that changed our lives; or maybe it's because the bond you had with each of us ensures that your presence will never fade.

We miss you.

All our love.

Have a Little Faith in Me, Says She

"One cannot spend forever sitting and solving the mysteries of one's history." ~ Lemony Snicket
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There was a moment that day when the shaking hands were gripping the sink, the heart was pounding and the breathing was labored; that the wide open eyes were forced to meet themselves in the mirror.

For the first time in 66 days. 

me: "Who are you?"
her: "I was wondering the same thing."
me: "A year ago today I landed in my new life. A year later I'm back at the old one?"
her: "With a whole lot of stuff in between."
me: "Epic understatement."
her: "You haven't unpacked, but it doesn't make it any less true."
me: "I can still smell there in those clothes. I can hear it and see it. I can still feel what I felt. I need all of that to leave my memory first."
her: "You wait on that, okay?"
me: "I can't breathe."
her: "You're breathing."
me: "How?"
her: "You just are."
me: "Maybe I'll quit."
her: "Who says you have a choice? A lot of people see your strength."
me: "F*ck them. They see what they want to see."
her: "Or what you can't."
me: "I hate you."
her: "You are me."
me: "I just need to fast forward 5 years so I don't have to live in this."
her: "Welcome to reality where that isn't an option."
me: "It stings."
her: "Like a million bees sometimes... I feel it too."
me: "I can feel it pressing on the top of my head, driving me into the ground. It makes my knees numb."
her: "Change your stance."
me: "Sometimes I don't even know where I am."
her: "Well, right now you're in your bathroom. In your house. Just upstairs from the desk where you work the job that you found 48 hours after you lost the one you kind of loved. And right outside is the car you can still pay for that takes you to the studio where you can dance and to the store where you can afford to buy the food you like."
me: "Blessings."
her: "In the midst of this storm."
me: "Touche."
her: "Checkmate."
me: "I feel like I failed it."
her: "You fought the hell out of it."
me: "I don't know where to begin to find myself again."
her: "You don't have to. Take the gloves off. Be still. Work. Pray. Listen. I'll be here to welcome you back when you're ready. Have a little faith."
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"I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart. I am. I am. I am." ~ Sylvia Plath