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WHAT THE HELL, Atlanta Police Department??

I am disappointed, to say the least, in the actions of the Atlanta Police Department in their blatant dismissal of the rape a woman in Atlanta experienced. I have included the link to her Facebook post, where she can tell her painful experience.

This woman is a warrior. She is strong and courageous and self sacrificing to allow her pain and violation to be told and shared and retold simply for the sake of having the man who violated her, who violently raped her, who forced his actions upon her with zero consent from her, brought to justice.

Do better, Atlanta Police Department.

DO BETTER. BELIEVE HER. ARREST HIM. PREVENT THIS FROM HAPPENING AGAIN.

It’s been a while..

God I don’t even know where to start. The past six months have been the hardest but most revealing I think I’ve ever experienced. I quite literally uprooted everything that I had known for 17 years and started over. A clean slate yes but holy fucking terrifying. I took a risk with the unknown in hopes of saving myself from completely losing all. Left the complacently behind. It was a gamble but it paid off.  

Freed myself from the so called drama, torment and anguish that I bared for so many years. And now I will never look back. This time, this abrupt change of course has given me the gift of reaching deep down and going through it all. My grandmother said you always have to bleed before you heal. And by god I have. Every moment, every single damn thing that has lead me here has been revisited, dealt with and will be resolved in some fashion. 

So many mistakes and misdirections. Things that can’t be taken back nor corrected. Those that I care for the most hurt in my perpetual downward spiral. These months have made me look at life quite differently. The person I am. How I subconsciously held onto the past and how it negatively impacted my everyday life. Causing me to be selfish, apprehensive and negative.  

Pushing away anyone that dared to attempt to break down the carefully constructed walls around my heart and soul. To know the real me. See the vulnerable, tormented and complicated person I am. So I instead released hurt and disdain upon them instead even though all that they were trying to do is help. For fear of yet another trampling upon my already battered and tattered self. 

Was I wrong yes. You have to bleed before you heal, and that itself is messy and ugly.  But you also have to ask for forgiveness in that onslaught as that wise woman said. Some will forgive. Some will not. Most important is that you realize your own wrong doings and repent. Fix and make right those transgressions. Learn from the mistakes and mishaps. Become a better person. 

And that is where I am. Knowing I survived the storm, asking for forgiveness and bringing anew; with my sight on the present and future. Never again to look behind to the past. 

~Snarky

It Hurts…

How I wish I knew who wrote the passage below. I found it a few months ago, not sure where exactly but I copied it to my notes to reread later. Going back to research it now, it appears all over the place on the web. Blogs, articles, etc. etc. This woman (I do assume a woman) who penned this I feel must have opened my mind and put in words exactly who I am. And I thank her.

I am at a quandary at this moment. I have fallen hopelessly in love with someone who I have now come to realize can never, in their own words “reach the level that I am at”. And it hurts…God it hurts. I don’t think in all my earthly years of existence has something shaken me, broken me, and devastated me so. The most painful part about it though is not that he doesn’t reciprocate what has welled up so immensely in my heart but the decision that I am putting into motion which will likely lead to the loss of who has become my best friend. Yes I have best friends but he is different, so different.

He has questioned my feelings, pointing out that possibly I feel this way because I have never had someone treat me as he has. Asks me if I have thought about this, had a heart to heart with my soul. It honestly infuriates me as I have had this conversation with myself time and time again over the past year. And no, no that is not why I love him. I love him, plain and simple. I love him for him as I wrote months ago. I know how I feel. I have only told two other men in my life those precious words. I don’t throw them around lightly.

He is my soul mate and I knew it the day that I met him. That one person that completes that missing piece of my soul that I have wandered this earth lost and in search of. I know people say you don’t know these things right away and it takes time but I am telling you something happened in my soul the day he walked in my life. Some strange force within me that I have never, ever felt before. Call me crazy, there really aren’t words to explain it.

I am terrified of losing him but I don’t see another way except to end things. There is no going back, no salvaging what was before as I cannot forget, turn off what I feel. I knew what I was getting into. I knew that he was incapable of loving someone whole heartedly and without hesitation. I knew that nothing would change him and honestly I never would want to change him. And I allowed myself to fall, to be vulnerable, to love, and to feel again after being numb for so long.

I know that I am difficult. I know that I am emotionally detached. I know that I have a hard time communicating how I feel but damnit I have tried. I have learned and slowly I am getting better at it. This whole time I have fought the instinct to run. Run to avoid the  hurt that I always know lurks ahead. To protect my heart that I kept so tightly bound. And here I sit now in that dark, heartbroken place that I have spent a lifetime trying to circumvent.

–SnarkyCoppertop

The Woman Who Has Been To Hell And Back Is Not Easy To Love.

Many have tried. Most have failed.

The weak need not attempt, for it will take more strength than you even know you possess; more patience, more resilience, more tenacity, more resolve. It requires a relentless love, one that is determined and not easily defeated.

For the woman who has been to hell and back will push you away. She will test you in her desire to know what you are made of, whether you have what it takes to weather her storm. Because she is unpredictable—at times a hurricane, a force of nature that rides on the fury of her suffering; other times a gentle rain, calm, still and quiet.

When she is the gentle rain that falls in time to her silent tears, love her.

When she is the thunder and lightning and ferocious winds that wreak havoc, love her harder.

She is a contradiction, a pendulum that will forever swing between fear of suffocation and fear of abandonment, and even she will not know how to find the balance between the two. Because today, although she will never tell you, she will feel insecure. She will want you to stay close, to tuck her hair behind her ear and kiss her on her forehead and hold her in the strength of your arms. But tomorrow she will crave her independence, her space, her solitude.

For while you have slept, she has been awake, unable to slow her thoughts, watching clocks and chasing time, trying to make the broken pieces fit, to make sense of it all—of where and how she fits. She fights her demons and slays her dragons, afraid if she goes to sleep they will gain the upper hand, afraid if she goes to sleep she will no longer be in control. Tomorrow she will be tired, and your presence will smother her. She will need only herself.

When she reaches out to you, love her.

When she pushes you away, love her harder.

New situations and places and people and experiences will make her anxious. She will be fiercely independent and long to overcome her fears, all the while as terrified as a small child alone in the big world. Sometimes she will need to be courageous, to prove to herself she has what it takes. Other times she will need you to take her hand and hold it firmly in yours. Sometimes she may not know what she needs, and you will need to read her like a book with worn pages and a tattered spine and be what she needs when she does not know herself.

When she is brave and steps into the world on her own, love her.

When she is scared, but refuses to take your hand, love her harder.

She will live in fear of not being enough and always being too much—an endless battle to find the middle ground. Ashamed if the scale falls one way or the other, ashamed to be herself for no one has ever loved her both when she is small and also when she is tremendous.

When she feels too much, love her.

When she feels not enough, love her harder.

Sometimes she won’t hurt and the light will shine from her eyes and her laughter will be a rare and precious melody. But sometimes she will hurt so much from the trauma still in her body; she will ache, she will feel pain and anguish. The light will grow dim and the music will fade.

When she is the light, love her.

When she is the darkness, love her harder.

She will always love you with caution, with one foot out the door. For she does not understand a love with no conditions, one that is powerful enough to withstand hard times. She cannot allow herself to fully trust in your love, and she will keep parts of her heart hidden—the parts that have been hurt the most, the parts she can’t risk being hurt again when she has worked so hard to stitch them together.

She will always watch, wait and expect you to leave first. And when you don’t, she has a truth written upon her heart that says you will—it’s only a matter of time, for everyone who loves her leaves her. And so she will seek to sabotage the relationship; she will seek to destroy it, she will seek to leave first, she will seek to hurt you before you can hurt her. This is how she stays in control, this is how she survives, how she will ensure she will not get hurt again.

When she wants to love you, love her.

When she wants to hurt you, love her harder.

Being out of control terrifies her. Don’t ever make her feel powerless, trapped or without her freedom. She needs to dance barefoot under enormous blue skies, to feel sand between her toes, to run with wolves as the wind weaves magic through her hair, for here is where her healing is found. Never clip her wings, for if she has the freedom to fly, she will always come back to you.

Love her when it’s easy, and love her harder when it’s not.

Love her in a way that will defy all she has ever known love to be.

Love her because you understand with every fiber of your soul the gift of her love, what it has cost her to offer you her fragile heart.

She does not need you. She has chosen you.

Because you have what it takes to survive the storm.

Because even when she doesn’t know how to love, you know how to love harder.

–Anonymous

 

“In Order to Succeed in Our Future, We Must Learn to Forgive Our Past” – Coelho

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The death of a person is an emotional and thought provoking experience. My father passed a few months ago. Not the wonderful man whom I wholeheartedly and lovingly call dad now but the man who brought me into this worldly existence. We had not spoken in eighteen years for reasons to be left unsaid. I have rode one heck of an emotional rollercoaster these past few months.

But I also have spent a lot of time thinking. About myself. I realized that I have been carrying around in my heart an awful, enormous amount of hate, anger and hurt. Things that a person should not have to bare on their heart, in their mind…for such a length of time. I recognize now how deeply it affected me emotionally and mentally.

All those past relationships whether friendship or romantic that were lost due to the turmoil in my heart and soul. The emotional disengagement that I suffer through. My lack of trust, the fear of being hurt, and how tightly I closed off my heart had caused these people to walk out of my life.

That late February day in Texas, standing in the cold hospital room where the sense of impending death loomed, I learned a very valuable lesson. One that I will never forget. Forgiveness. It is one mighty powerful thing that all struggle with. Something that until then I myself did not think I was capable of, if ever, regarding this particular situation. I forgave.

Not for him but for me. It was the most liberating and profound experience. As I stood by his bedside with the quiet hum of the machines keeping him alive; I was able to let go of that anger, hate and hurt with uttering three simple words….. I forgive you. Followed shortly, through the tears streaming down my face, by… even though you never said you were sorry.

Nothing more nothing less. All that I had to speak out loud, come to peace, and truly mean it with every fiber of my being. It has freed my heart, my soul. I have let go of it all and surprisingly I feel better than I have in many years. That chapter in my life is closed for good. I am sad for his passing as anyone’s death is tragic.

But he left me with the parting gift of the unbinding my heart; giving me the ability to trust, love, and be whole once again.

~Snarky Coppertop

Dreams & Anxiety

I had one of those dreams. The kind that sneak up on you and you don’t even realize whats going on until your husband is waking you up because you are making weird noises and it concerned him. Yeah, I had one of those dreams.

It shook me. I can’t recall the exact details of the dream, but I woke up crying. I know it had to do with death. Everywhere I turned, there was death. And my heart ached for the death around me. But don’t ask me who died, why, how…I don’t know. The details went away with waking up. I just know there was death. And it made me SO sad. So when my husband woke me up because I was ‘making weird noises” I was really sobbing in my dream and upon waking, the dream wall fell, the real dam broke and the tears fell in earnest. It freaked my husband out. and almost made him cry, it bothered him so (at least that is what he expressed).

I hate those dreams. It’s been years since I had one. I used to have them all the time. They were all variations along the same theme: Death of my family, parents, and my children. Death of my friends. Death of my beloved pets. Death, Death, Death…I know it is my anxiety coming out in really screwed up ways (thanks, brain) but at least there is that kind of outlet for it, right? Yeah. Right.

I think I need to practice a bit more meditation before bed. Maybe give myself some more time to relax my body and mind and help relieve whatever tensions and anxieties prior to sleep, so this doesn’t happen again.

So, give me YOUR best relaxation before bed secrets. Any specific things that help you? Tip or tricks that can help anyone get to a place of peace and relaxation prior to sleep?

~The Grey

I have a sensitive child…and I’m an asshole

When I was younger I always said I didn’t want children. For a multitude of reasons. I was THAT person. The one when you shoved your bundles of joy into my arms I had the “deer in headlights” look plastered on my face. The “what the hell do you want me to do with this squirming, crying thing” girl who hates bodily fluids, shrill noises, and such. Um no thank you.

I avoided baby showers and first birthdays like the plague. Something always came up right before and I would “regrettably” have to cancel. My childhood friends always said I would never have kids. I married my ex husband shortly after turning 23. He, fully aware of this, respected it and married me anyways.

I think a lot of it had to do with the fact I basically raised my younger brothers. My mom suffered a traumatic brain injury when I was 13 and my bio father was a raging, emotionally detached alcoholic. My mother didn’t know who I was for a year and a half, not to mention what the hell was going on day to day. Thankfully she did go through rehab and made a somewhat full recovery. But I spent those formative years being mom and not a typical teenager.

Fast forward to age 27. Financially secure and had recently purchased the first home. I don’t know what happened. The fact that everyone I knew was starting families, biological clock pounding, or maybe the next logical thing on the life checklist. Who knows. But I woke up one December morning, looked at my then husband, and said those words…I think we should have a baby.

Now my ex who had resided to the fact we were never going to have kids was elated. I stopped taking birth control and we stopped using protection. Those two months I didn’t think much about it. One late February night I was on the phone with one of my best friends, drinking my glass of wine as I do most nights, all the sudden I threw my guts up in the bushes. I still remember thinking to myself, oh fuck. What have I done because I knew, I knew at that moment I was pregnant.

And six pregnancy tests later, all positive mind you, I was. What struck me odd is I was excited. Really excited. Then the dread set in. Oh my god what am I going to do? I’m an asshole. No really an asshole. I was terrified that I was going to be an absolutely awful mother. What the hell was I thinking?!?! But okay, seriously I can handle this I told myself.

I had a wonderfully easy pregnancy, worked up to the day before I had my precious son though I was in labor on and off for two weeks but never mind that. When they placed him in my arms everything changed. Those thoughts of self doubt melted away and maternal instincts took over. He was the best baby. He spit up twice, no joke, on my mother both times thank god. Never really drooled, put things in his mouth, and enjoyed being clean.

My son has grown into one of the sweetest, well mannered, and intelligent child a parent could want. Kind to no end, shy, and sensitive. So sensitive. Me being a very tough, rough around the edges, snarky, and sarcastic person I can be one of the least sensitive people I know. I sometimes hurt the feelings of friends unknowingly, absolutely not on purpose but it’s just the way I am. Things come tumbling out before I think of the outcome, mouth diarrhea.

The past eleven years have been a struggle. I am not that kind, sweet, doting mother that comes to mind for most. I remember when he was about four he fell off his bike, skinned his knee, and crying his poor little eyes out. I calmly walked over, crouched down, checked out the damage and determined it didn’t need stitches, just some alcohol and a bandaid. I calmly and reasonably talked to him and told him to tough it out. No biggie.

My friend looked at me in horror when I walked back over to sit down and said “you aren’t going to kiss his boo-boo?” I looked at her and said “what the hell is that going to do?” Maybe my actions weren’t the right response but hey I’m human and well I am who I am. Nobody’s perfect. And no I have never read any of those “what to do” books. I winged it.

But that incident did make me look at things differently. Perhaps I did have something to learn about sensitivity. Over the years my son has taught me that I too can be sensitive and I like to think that maybe I have taught him how to stand on his own two feet. He has been bullied for years. Not beat up but more of the name calling, mostly nerd, dork, geek. He would come home crying and it would take moving mountains for him to tell me why. One day he finally did, not too long ago.

My first response was “throat punch them”. Oops. He looked at me wide eyed and say “mom I can’t do that it’s not nice”. Well it’s what I did. I was that kid that chose to fight instead of flight. So I refocused and came up with this. I said “you know those kids who say those things to you and make fun of you because you’re smart? Well one they’re jealous and two most likely one day you are going to be their boss. And you know what that scares the hell out of them.”

The satisfying grin on his face told me I had finally reached an understanding with my precious, sensitive little man. His confidence seems to be soaring now which might have brought a tear to my eye when he walked across the stage this morning, beaming a smile ear to ear with his head up, for 5th grade ceremony to accept the excellence in math award. So maybe this asshole has finally gained some sensitivity. Maybe. I guess time will tell.

Snarky Coppertop

Hard Choices and Parental Guilt

They make you second guess everything. They make you sit back and mull over all of the events leading up to the need for said choice. They make you rethink everything you have ever done when it comes to making that hard choice and they leave you wondering if the choice made was the right one once you actually make it!

My hard choice is still a hard choice. I’m over the second guessing myself, because I know in my heart that I made the right one…but it is still hard emotionally. Emotionally, I am torn. I am torn between what I know is right and what I want. But what I want is not based upon anything other than soothing my own emotional discomfort.

My hard decision was this: allowing my son to stay with my parents when my little family moved from my parents home into our own home in a different school district and county. Truth be told, it was a positive decision for him. My son is happy. He is doing well in school. He is making good choices and learning to do things that he needs to learn. Why did I allow him to stay? Well, he finally felt settled into a highschool and I didn’t want to move him. He is surrounded by friends that are good influences. He gets to be the only child that he wants to be while still maintaining a relationship with his younger siblings. But most importantly, he is happy.

I, on the otherhand, am pretty torn up. I miss my kid. I miss his goofiness. I miss his jokes and telling me all about some new game he is into or how he is trying something new with his lizards. I miss him being there in the morning and at night. Being physically seperate from him for an extended period of time like this is not okay and I feel guilt. I feel massive guilt.

Honestly, the massive guilt is probably why I feel so crappy. I really am thrilled that my son is happy and healthy and doing well. I am so fortunate to have parents who love my son so much that they would be okay with him living with them on a permanent basis. But that guilt…it’s brutal. And it eats at me at every possible moment.

I feel guilt for not being able to provide for my kid the way he needs. I feel guilt for not having the kind of relationship with my son that I had hoped we would have. I feel guilt for allowing someone other than myself to care for him. He is my first. The one who made me a mother 16 years ago. A young mother. And I think that is where it all comes to a point. I was a young mother. Not all young mothers have the same relationship with their children as I have with my son. Some grow to be inseperable. My son formed that bond with my mother rather than me, I think, because I was so young when I had him. I was barely more than a child-not even a month past my 20th birthday-when I had him. I needed her more than I knew and being a mother was something I had not planned on doing until faced with it realizing I couldn’t NOT be a mother because of what was in my own heart versus what society expected of me. And so I had him and cherished him (I still do) and I made the hard decision to allow him to live away from me.

I couldn’t ask for two better people than my parents to teach him, though. I am beyond blessed that they love him so much and are willing to look out for him and teach him and help him to become a good man. There is no lack of appreciation there, or gratitude, for their selflessness and generosity.

But this is hard. Harder than I ever imagined it would be. And even though I know this is what is best for my child, and as a parent I want to do what is best, it still hurts.

The Insecure Woman Who Could

via Daily Prompt: Capable

It wasn’t as though I always believed myself worthy of success. Growing up, I was always scared of success. Because if I could succeed, then surely, I could fail. The fear of failure is crippling. Things I never relayed to my parents, why I hated the “P” word so much (Potential, in case your mind went other places), why I always performed up to, but not fully, my capabilities all through school. I always held back. Because fear. Fear of failure, fear of disappointing my parents, teachers, and mostly, myself. My fear kept me from being the straight A student I could have been and that harmed me more than failing ever could. I stunted myself because of fear…and I let that trend continue as I got older.

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It took going through hell-fire to learn how to fail without fear. To learn how to live without fear. It took doing things that scared me the most to realize the experience and the journey is so much more satisfying because I *did* them rather than fantasizing about them. I feared failing when I went back to college. I was a young single mom to three children. But I had an amazing support system and that gave me just enough confidence to take that leap and apply. I got in. I feared failing my classes because I did not want to waste the money and the time that I had. College is expensive! And I was paying for this, securing all the grants and loans, on my own. This was my debt, my educational burden to bear. And I won’t lie, I failed some classes. Oh did I ever fail some classes. But, I didn’t let that discourage me enough to quit. Instead, I used that to propel me forward to do better, so I could graduate. So I could get my degree. And I did it. I rocked my senior seminar class, wrote a thesis that led to me acing my senior seminar class, and that was a great accomplishment in my own eyes. And I got my degree.

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Post graduation, I was afraid of moving forward into the big, bad world to get a real “big girl” job, because what if no one wanted me? What if I thought I could do it and was wrong? What if I…FAILED?!?!?! SURPRISE…failure happens. I’ve had a few jobs since graduation. One of them I was actually fired from because I was not performing to the standards of what the owner of the company thought was necessary. It wasn’t that I was not doing my job, it was that my job expectations and duties kept changing and zero effective communication took place. But I also don’t handle micromanaging very well and he was slightly…well, super extreme type A and had a really condescending and slightly explosive attitude. And as humiliating as it was to get that pink slip, I was more relieved than anything because I wasn’t happy there. I wasn’t respected and I never would be. So getting fired was amazing. ALL that stress was simply gone. And guess what? I didn’t die.

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I still do things that scare me. Just to try it. I traveled to NOLA all by myself, twice, to vacation in the city. I loved that time to myself and wish to return to NOLA so bad I can taste it. I fell in love with a city when I did something that scared me. I went to a haunted house that had zombies who chased my husband and me. It scared me. I cried. I didn’t die. But I do know that I will  N E V E R visit a haunted house again because I do N O T like any of that shit. I contributed to an anthology that was recently published. THAT was scary! But they didn’t reject the essay I wrote. And it was reviewed well. So I conquered, at least a little bit, that fear of failure.

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There is still so much more that I can and want to do. And now I know, for the most part anyways, that I am capable, I am worthy, I am better than good enough. As long as I do not let fear dictate the steps I don’t take, as long as I continue to maintain confidence and realistic expectations, I can do what I want and need to do to succeed.

Don’t let fear take away your ability to move forward. Don’t let your insecurities steal from you life experiences that are rewarding, gratifying, once-in-a-lifetime events that you will regret skipping over. Let that fear drive you to push past the boundaries you have set because who knows? You may find that pushing past this fear has led you to the most successful time in your life.

 

 

Remembering the Lost

I’ve had some ups and downs here lately. And yesterday, I had a big shock. A dear friend, someone I have known for the past 24 almost 25 years of my life, died.

He was an enigma. Rob was someone who, as cliche as it is, marched to the beat of his very own drum. He was never one to conform, always trying to new, different, and sometime dangerous things in life for the experience and the thrill. Rob was easy to love, easy to hate, easy to forgive. He had a way about him that would draw you in, anger or not, and you would find yourself smiling in amusement at the conversational twists, turns, and topics. Rob was, simply put, himself.

I met him in middle school. He was a wild child, bucking against authority and that appealed to every young girl he knew and met. He was a “bad boy” in his thrift store gear and combat boots, as though he was daring anyone to challenge his sense of self and style. I knew, from the moment I met him, that despite everything, we would remain life long friends. You see, it isn’t often you meet your male counterpart who shares the same birthday-year, month, and day…with only a few hours of difference between time. He was my birthday twin. And there was a friend connection that lasted over two decades and while he is no longer with us, that connection will remain for the rest of my natural life. I am sure that I am not alone in this sentiment.

He was a father, a brother, a son, a friend. And while I won’t lie and say he made only the best choices in his life, I will not stoop to slander him either by saying he was the worst kind of person; I truly believe he was a good man with a good heart and a lost spirit who only wanted to find his true and rightful place in this world. Everyone has a dark side. It’s our choice as to how much of that we share with others. And Rob, while he kept some things to himself, shared these moments with those he trusted. Not many people do that.  He was a musician. A talented guitarist and piano player. He loved his friends and his family with a fierceness. He was someone who loved and needed love in return.

I shall mourn the loss of my friend. I shall mourn the lost time with him here on this earth. But I shall celebrate his life. I shall celebrate his spirit. I shall celebrate him.

Rest In Peace, Robert F Cook IV. I hope to one day see you again on the shores of Valhalla.

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til vi møtes igjen bror

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Soul Band-Aids

I’m tired. I am tired of “the end is nigh” and I am tired of “stop being all butthurt, you liberal crazies” and I’m tired of all of the violence and the hate and the disgusting, vile nature of humans that has been revealed since the election happened last week.

My soul hurts for all of the people.

So, here are some band aids for anyone else’s soul in case they need them.

 

No More Cat Declawing!

Strangers being decent!

Cops doing good things for the community

I’ve included just a few things to read/watch and make you smile. I pulled them from Sunnydays and the Good News Network. There *are* good things going on in the country right now. Even though it seems as though we are being inundated with all of the bad, remember: GOOD THINGS ARE STILL HAPPENING. WE can not forget to smile in the face of adversity, no matter how hard it seems.

I love you all.

XOXO