Sunbeam.

My dad has been dead exactly one month. Month one = down, a blurry lifetime to go.

Fell asleep on our (well, my) old ratty couch last night. Woke up in a daze with Mallory Pancakes sprawled out next to me. My dad was in my dream in some vague capacity and it was the saddest point of my week. I have barely cried though.

How do you actively honor someone’s memory without carrying the sadness of their absence around at the same time? I feel like there’s a better way to say that.

I’m “watching” Everybody Loves Raymond and I can barely form the right words. It’s kinda polluting tonight‘s blogging experience but my back hurts. I don’t want to remove myself from the couch to turn it off.

Had a dental appointment this week that I survived. Work passes the time quickly. I am extraordinarily lucky to work in such a positive environment, and that Whole Foods is a 5 minute drive away.

I attended a work Christmas party last Friday and went straight to Barnes and Noble afterwards. It was one of the best days I’ve had in months. I sat with a magazine, did a bit of writing, and bought a few new books and snacks.

I was so free. I felt so much promise in that day. There were these two women next to me at the cafe who didn’t know each other and struck up a conversation. I was the well intentioned creep in the background eavesdropping on their conversation and hearing it just made me so happy. Kind strangers. Benevolent people watching. Women being positive towards other women. All of our stories, our days, and the little ways they matter.

I have eaten restaurant food 8267 times in the last month and have surely gained weight, though not to the point where I couldn’t undo the gain in a month or less. And so I must. I don’t have to, but I MUST.

Discipline = power = freedom.

Now here’s a song:

“Jesus don’t want me for a sunbeam, sunbeams are never made like me. Don’t expect me to cry, for all the reasons you had to die. Don’t ever ask your love of me.”

- Nirvana (well, they covered it.)

That song has been sitting with me today. It’s so beautiful. An odd thing today considering I disagree with its thesis. Jesus absolutely wants me as a sunbeam! I like the last line though - hits me the hardest. “Don‘t ever ask your love of me.“

I don’t ever want to be guilted into loving anything or anyone. There is nothing artificial in my world. I have no room for it. I don’t want to force anyone to love me either.

Grateful for love and all of the ways it passes. All of the ways we feel it. Death cannot stop it. Life can end love, but death can’t. How weird is that?