Slow & Steady

    Today was a day. Scratch that. Life has been nothing but a bunch of days lately. But it doesn't make life any less worth living right? Even when you just feel like you're stuck trying to constantly not get caught up in the tide and pummeled by waves? Yes, even then.

    I have been spending my days simply. Slow and steady wins the race, I tell myself. And maybe I am telling myself because slow and steady is all I can handle right now, or maybe that is how you really win at this race we call life. Either way, there is only one way to find out right? There has been a long and consistent downhill roll since my aunt passed, but slow and steady nonetheless--never picking up speed. I find myself always thinking, mind just reeling. I feel like I was up so high for so long--and not high in a good, happy sense, but constantly climbing, constantly struggling. 

    In the time span of six months, I moved out of my parents, worked my ass off between two jobs (and--I should mention--still made deans list as a full time student in college), then left one of my jobs to get a different job for the summer that was more in the direction of my future career, and to continue my college education over the summer; all while spending time with my aunt as she slowly became the two things nobody ever expected her to be. Sick. Frail. I also spent all this time angry. Angry at the world and all the challenges it made me face, and the fact that the only help that was ever offered me was harder than the wind to catch. Family flew in from Ireland. Every free second I got in the last two weeks of my aunts life was spent on her, and on my grieving family. 

    Then she passed.

    And not for one millisecond did the world stop. 

    There was help to be given to planning the services. There was love to be given to my family. There was hosting my family--by the way, don't get any of this wrong, I wouldn't change any of it. It all went perfectly. But it was all just happening, and it was a lot. It wasn't until I hugged my cousin goodbye at the bus station--that is when my world stopped.

    The loneliness seeped in. I was a ship taking on water. I was sinking, and sinking much faster than I thought I would. I thought I mourned her. I thought I didn't need my family. I thought saying goodbye would be the same as it always was--bittersweet. How could I have been so utterly wrong? 

    So to fill the quiet that now consumed my life, I stayed busy job hunting to replace my summer job, planning (and hosting) my mom's birthday dinner and high tea party. I took a trip to my family house in Maine for labor day weekend, and I also went away again for my friends bachelorette trip. Before I knew it, I was back in college once again. 

    Now? My days are back to working two jobs, and studying hard for school. Yet, they seem so much quieter. I go to visit my uncle and cousin every now and then. It's so hard for me to walk into that home, to smell it, and not cry. I also call my aunt in Ireland more than I used to, but even that is hard for me to put on a chipper voice. When she doesn't answer, I know she's busy but I also know she is thinking of my aunt. It was my aunt that used to call--that should be calling. But life isn't fair in that sense. I can't bring myself to look through the things of hers--that I am somehow supposed to call mine now. Even the pictures I put together for the wake haven't caught my gaze since. The posters, and two bags of stuff stay in my spare room where--if I am honest with myself, and you--they will be staying for quite some time.

    My body has started to betray me. It is telling me to slow down. Slow and steady, I can actually hear the words in my head. I keep getting sick, I am lacking the funds and the friends to fill my time. And my family? Well...

    It just feels like everyone is moving on and I am stuck, at a turtle speed--spinning on this damned rock--with nothing but my own thoughts and company.