See You Later 2020

        2020 is ending and along with everyone I am ready to put this year behind me, but not for the same reasons as everyone else, I believe 2019 taught me how to live through devastation and 2020 humbled me. If 2019, also known as the year of hell, gave me anything, it gave me the ability to see 2020 differently than most people did. I do not mean this insensitively, because my heart breaks for the job loss, the financial troubles of those I see, but mainly my heart breaks most for those who lost loved ones this past year. While the first of those things are temporary, a life is not, and that is what 2019 gave me. The ability to realize that I can give up my job, my financial stability, if it meant the person I love most in life would be standing here today and because of that loss, I think that’s why I was able to live through 2020 in a different mindset.

              So, let’s start at the beginning, I started 2020 ready to put the worst year of my life behind me. I was sitting in a great place emotionally. Grief therapy helped me tremendously and I was ready to conquer the world. I joined a gym to get my health back in order, was waking up at 5am to work out every morning, work was great, school was great, and I was slowly inching my way to the one year anniversary of Aaron’s passing. We were hearing the whispers of the COVID-19 virus at this point in other parts of the world, just hoping that it doesn’t reach our shores. February came, I survived Aaron’s anniversary, with some hiccups, but I survived it, and Shane threw me a birthday party to help me get through it as well. It would be less than a month later that work would send me home to work because the virus did reach our shores and I would not return for the remainder of the year. I thought I would hate it, I thought I was going to lose my mind working from home. But I found, that even though I am an extrovert, the energy sucking life, that is office drama was easy to let go of. What did suck, is my newly purchased gym membership was worthless as they were closed to help slow the spread. But nevertheless, my awesome sister-n-law got me into Beachbody, and I started to workout at home instead.

              2020 gave me more than I thought it did, looking back, it helped me to find friendship and family, it helped me to realize what is truly important in life. I have stronger relationships with friends because of 2020, and found out that I don’t need to dim my sparkle for anyone, and if you think I am too bright for your taste you can put a pair of sunglasses on or leave the damn room. It helped me to see that memories are more important than material, and to truly be happy in this world all I need is an experience rather than a tangible item. If there is one thing, I miss in 2020 is the ability to hug someone, something I will never take for granted again. I did do a bit of traveling in 2020, spent the 4^th of July in Jersey with my in laws, went to the OBX with my sister-n-law, brother-n-law, their family and friends, and also spent a week in the Smoky Mountains with my friends.

              The biggest thing to come out of 2020, for me, is the fact that I graduated college. So, with 2020 only days away from being behind us, I cannot wait to push forward into the new year. I’m excited to start a new year fresh, to continue to learn about myself, my strengths and to continue to grow.

              So Happy New Year everyone, I hope 2021 brings you joy, brings you happiness, and brings you all your dreams.

A New Year Poem 

By: Joanna Fuchs

Happy, Happy New Year!
We wish you all the best,
Great work to reach your fondest goals,
And when you’re done, sweet rest.

We hope for your fulfillment,
Contentment, peace and more,
A brighter, better new year than
You’ve ever had before.

I made it a year...barely.

Well, I did it, I made it a year without you, barely, but I made it. It’s been one full year since everything changed, one full year since I started to question everything, one full year of learning how to exist as only half of a person, one full year of fighting to stay above water, one full year without your laugh, one full year without your smile, one full year without hearing you say I love you, one full year.

Breathe.

I learned so much in that year. I learned how strong I am, how when faced with something that should have killed me, I pressed on. I silently cried, where no one was, alone, where I picked up my own broken pieces and put them back together.  I learned to stop, to stop giving so much of my peace of mind and happiness to everyone and saving none for me. So, I learned to take it back. I learned what was important in life, the mindless office gossip, or the endless complaints of traffic, or getting upset over something I can’t change, became so small, so pointless to be involved in, because I learned to live through the worst thing that will ever happen to me, and I fucking survived. I mean that truly, losing you is the worst thing that will ever happen to me. The bereavement process for a twinless twin is so much different than anything else. I was reading in a blog about bereaved twins and the author stated, “When we lose a twin it feels for many of us like the literal end of our lives. That is true, in that it is the end of life as we have known it since the moment of our conception.” I had to learn who I was again, who Brandy was, without Aaron. I had to learn that I wasn’t actually WE and I had to learn how to go on with life as just me. (Read More Here: http://www.whengriefcallsforththehealing.com/the-bereavement-process-for-twinless-twins/)

Breathe.

I stopped caring what people expected from me and started to care about what I expected from myself. The only thing I’m in control of in life, is myself, my reactions and how my life turns out. So, I took back control of that. If I didn’t want to do something, I didn’t do it and for brief moments in my life I felt like I was breathing again, without having to think about it. That’s another thing other, nontwins, don’t understand, the fact that you need to learn to breathe on your own again. That every single breath that has been taken since your death I’ve had to carefully calculate, because I never felt like enough air was entering my body, because every breath taken since conception was taken together.

Breathe.

I’m still learning though, and it’ll probably take me another year to learn how to live with the loneliness. A fact that no one seems to understand, that even though you aren’t physically alone, I still feel very much alone, like a missing part of my body is gone. A limb I needed to keep me balanced is missing and that loss is a very real thing for me, like left always needing right. I still feel you, very close to me, and that hurts sometimes too, because I want to physically reach out and touch you, to hug you, but it’s just a feeling of you, it isn’t solid, it’s unreachable.

Breathe.

I’ve changed so much in this past year, I won’t lie, your death hardened me, in places I wished it would have softened. I agitate quickly when I listen to people constantly complain about stupid stuff. I think to myself, I could slap you, because you are here, breathing and complaining and Aaron isn't here, breathing and complaining and I want to scream, WELL AT LEAST YOU ARE ALIVE.

Breathe.

It seems foreign to think that you have been gone for a year. Like as if the months that have passed were only a few days long, because it can’t be a year already. It couldn’t have been a year ago that I was getting the call, which let me tell you, mom’s voice still plays in my head like a broken record telling me you are gone and the scream that escaped my mouth at that very moment seems like it is still lingering in my hallway where I fell to my knees. I still remember the smells of the day, the feel of the tears on my cheeks as if it was happening right now. Every sensory from that day is very vivid, very bright and very present.

Breathe.

I feel like I’m a Phoenix, about to burst into flames and soon, so soon, I’ll emerge from those ashes more beautiful, even stronger, and more determined. That the ashes from my past will forever be marked on my skin like freckles, like a trophy, showing the world, I survived. I read an article the other day about an Australian bush that came back to life. A bush that been burned and presumed dead from the devastating fires, rose strong and bloomed this beautiful pale pink against the black ash that laid around it. I want to be that bush, that phoenix. I want to rise, I want to stand tall and I want to survive the pain of missing you.

…breathe.

Before she became fire, she was water.
Quenching the thirst of every dying creature.
She gave, and she gave
until she turned from sea to desert.
But instead of dying of the heat,
the sadness, the heartache,
she took all of her pain
and from her own ashes became fire.

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