Thanks.

One post in November thus far. I am either very busy, or very lazy.

This blog is the last thing I am going to feel pressure about. I quit my therapist because she was maybe 27, married for three years and didn't have much life experience at all (no kids, no death, no trauma. I asked.). It was kind of like going to unload on a little sister who smiled and nodded and said she understood (which she may have) but mostly it was just unload the grief for an hour and move on.

Not really conducive to healing, especially when every time I sat on her couch (a real couch), I immediately felt glum. Didn't matter what had happened during the week; good or bad, I was depressed and morose every time I walked into her office. So I quit.

Now I write. I write in three different places, in three different degrees of revelation, to three different people (#AudienceAudienceAudience). I write in a journal for me, in a document directly to Dane, and this blog for everyone else, including strangers and anyone who might possibly get something from it. This blog is more therapeutic than therapy for me, and free. #Bonus

I think this blog is hard for people to read. I am trying to be as transparent as possible, honest and real. I am not generally a fake person - what you see is what you get - but I am also a private person, so this unburdening is sometimes painful for me as well. I am trying to be transparent and to document the process of grief for myself, for Sicily (who may or may not read it after a recent blog's brief mention of sex and her mother in the same sentence) and for other people who are suffering. The hardest part of this is that very few people my age and in my circle understand what it is like to lose a spouse and parent a child through that loss. Thankfully. I don't really have someone close who can understand what nights are like, or what mornings are like, or what every moment in between is like.

Maybe this blog does that for someone. Maybe not.

My most popular post has nearly 1,600 views. Someone is reading.

So in the month of thanksgiving, a post of thanks for sticking in there with me, silently or out loud. Thanks for reading and commenting, or reading and thinking about it.

Thanks.