Sometimes

the world seems too bright, too loud, too cold.

I feel like I should apologize for surviving.

there are moments that I forget who I am, what I'm doing, simple words for simple things.

I cry for no reason.

the days drag on and I just want to stop for a while.

I worry that I am on the edge of losing everything.

And then Fahnz tells me he loves me, or a kitty climbs up on the couch and sits on my lap, and it all makes sense again.

But sometimes, I am reminded that I walked through the Valley and came out the other side.

I pray for the people like me, who made it, and for the people who did not, who are remembered and loved.

I've taken to wearing a burgundy ribbon in my hair. It is the color of my new life, my new awareness. And it fits me now, at 37, to finally indulge in feminine things, to paint my nails and color my hair and to be beautiful, to wear my eyelashes like the badge they are, to dress in bright colors, to slouch about the house in a mud mask and to sleep with my hair in a braid so it doesn't tangle.

I like the new me. I just wish sometimes I hadn't had to die to meet her.

And sometimes I sit quietly with the awareness that I wouldn't have met her without dying.

Sometimes.