•One Thing I'll Never Be Is Sugar Free•

As a child I didn't know how to deal with grief. Honestly until I hit my 20s I believe my feelings were mute to most emotions. However as an adult, it's something I continue to struggle with on a literal daily basis.

The young naive grasshopper me, didn't know how to properly grasp the fact that people's spirits exit their temporary home, leaving their fleshy vessels dormant for the rest of us to mourn over and shove (for the most part) 6 feet down into rocks, worms and dirt, (which I would be happy with, surround me with nature and Ill be more at ease than when I was thriving in the flesh) as we hold a ceremonial self pity party above them, (when we all know they would be furious at us for even shedding a tear)which gives us all opportunity to find closure and comfort in the surrounding humans.

We swap stories, laughs, tears, pictures...and for the time being, everything seems easier, better somehow, just being surrounded by other like minded individuals, knowing you're not alone.

People talk about funerals, but we don't hear much about the lonely nights after, when you're sitting on your bed, cup of tea in hand, watching tv or reading a good book, and all of a sudden..

Your stomach sinks, the hole in your chest that had been quietly healing is once again ripped open. The metaphorical stitches holding your heart together had been completely disected, blood spilling out, over flowing you with unexpected sorrow like someone left your emotional sink running all night.

Trembling hands clenched into fisted balls of fury because the thought of that person not being there anymore is physically hurting you.

The weeping is so hard you cannot speak clearly enough to explain what the fuck is happening to you, as your significant other , close friend or family member does their best to calm and comfort you. Holding you, as you gasp for air in between the sobs.

The worst part of all this, sometimes that reopening of wounds, that mental breakdown, that session of unstable actions, can literally be caused by a single word. A name. A smell. A taste. A dream. Something as little as a name in a book you're reading can send your brain into unintentional emotional overdrive.

Nobody ever warns you of that.

Our journey is a mystery.

Where your road or mine leads, I cannot say.

But this I do know: time wounds all heels, if you don’t understand that now, one day you most certainly will.

In life’s dark seasons, we walk sorrow’s path. Reluctantly reaching to pluck thorn guarded berries, with trembling hands.

Bright blood droplets appear.

A bouquet of tiny rubies blooming from the lacerated skin of illusions.

Unwilling though we may be, bittersweet truths will be tasted, our lips left stained and bruised.

Sometimes life teaches us more than we care to know.

The well traveled soul, bearing wisdom’s scars is often reluctant to speak.

For the weighty truth of things is felt marrow deep.

It does not always fall easily from the tongue.

We shoulder the burden in silence.