Your birthday is Monday. And so another year has passed without you here. It went quickly this time. Most days appear to be happening faster than I think I like.
Some days are better than others. Where I can see a sunrise and not be disappointed one of my best friends isn’t there to see it. Where opening my mouth to inhale doesn’t hurt because you aren’t able to do the same.
If I had loved you more. If I had loved you better. Would that have made a difference? Probably not. I know what it’s like to be chained to the whirlpool of thoughts dragging a person to the bottom. I know there’s very little, if anything, that looks like hope. That looks like something to hold onto with every bit of strength left.
I love so hard. I put everything I have in me into making sure people know that they matter. I give all of myself and usually get very little in return, but I do it because to lose someone else, to break open with every thought of them–good or bad–I don’t have it in me.
My beautiful boy. You will never be 35.
I tell myself to keep plodding through the different paths my life will take me. I do it for the little girl I never got to be. I do it for her.
Myself.
All this time I thought I was doing it for everyone else. Because I had to stay strong, be strong for them. Be the one people could rely on even when I was broken and battered by the hurricanes of my mental illness.
To say I miss you is to be cheap with words and you deserve more. I hope the sun shines on your face now, and that the pain you felt while here is more a memory almost forgotten.
You will never be forgotten, my sweetest friend.
salisbury.fake 