I wrote the words, “Life, please be kind to us” and realized that is my one and only prayer. It’s a desperate plea and all I want. I don’t care about the details or what may come as long as it comes with kindness. I can be grateful for small or large milestones, just let the framework be gentle and loving. It’s probably asking too much and impossible, and maybe down the road I will develop and a new and just as earnest prayer. But for now, please be kind. I can’t take anything else. 

Dear 2015,

And so it is that all things must pass and your departure is a highly anticipated one.  As much as I’m ready to see our partnership end, I have to hand it to you that it’s been a very educational experience.  The lessons you taught will be with me on my deathbed.  It was 365 days of life boot camp.  For the majority of the year I felt like I was on some sort of deployment from real life.  But I know it was just everything changing, including me.  As punishing as you were, I can say that we end on a friendly note.  At minimum, I’m grateful.

The Sweat Shop, I mean, Swap Shop was brutal.  I look back now and wonder how I got through it.  Well, I admit that I barely escaped.  That whole experience sucked anything resembling love or a love of life from my soul.  Just this very week I enjoyed music again for the first time this year.  I really heard it again for the first time and it made my heart open a wee bit.  Not all the way, not the way it was in 2013 or 2014, but it was like seeing a familiar face in a sea of strangers.  Maybe you had to make me hate life to get to the point that every breath that comes without pain is pure bliss.  2015 was quite the reveille.

I can’t let myself loosen up all the way just yet.  You wound me tight in a cocoon for mere survival and I can’t bring myself to come out and fly.  I peak out there and see that everything appears safe, but you struck so hard from behind that I’m leary; I can’t trust it all just yet.  I’m hoping 2016 will (finally) let my wings see some sunshine.  

You brought the first bout of writers block I ever experienced.  The pain, confusion, and chaos I have felt prior to you always generated incredible amounts of creativity, if nothing else.  But this year was different.  My hands weren’t free to write because they were to busy digging into whatever I could grasp to keep from going over the edge.  I’m safely on the ground and I can write again.  Not sure what to say or how to put into words what I feel, because I have no idea how I feel.  I just sit here and look around trying to catch my breath from what we’ve been through.

I think it’s a writers PTSD.  So much change and pain so quickly.  I grant you that it all ended up for the better and that things look very beautiful today, but I’m still processing everything you put me through.  The specifics can be too hard to ponder so I focus on the fact that I just managed to come out of it alive and blessed with the greatest friends and the greatest job I could have ever imagined.  What I wanted from life in January and what I want in December are so totally different that I can’t even identify with that girl you started with.  2014 was all about breaking my heart, 2015 showed me that after your heart breaks into pieces those pieces can then be stepped on and moshed into dust.  2015 has shown me that I can rise from the ashes.  

I don’t take deep breaths often enough.  I’m still short on faith that the air will actually be there.  I know you’re trying to show me that I can sing and dance and there is plenty out there for me if I would just trust the process, but I need to take baby steps now.  Let’s face it, I can’t handle another year like this one.  I have no desire to go back and relive it.  But I thank you.  

I thank you for showing me what and how I can survive.  It was the most primal year since my first year on the planet when I learned to walk.  Thank you for showing me that I age well, what I look like when I don’t know when my next meal is, that in my time of greatest darkness I will never stop helping others and rescuing dogs (but seriously, who saved who?), thank you for the people–and they were many–who reached out and offered a kind word or a hug when I needed it and didn’t even know it was what was missing.   Thank you for pulling the rug, the floor, and the earth from under me so I could crawl out of the darkness.

As usual, my eyes fluttered open this morning and I grabbed my phone. Read text messages that came through since my last glance and tapped the Facebook app. It took all of five minutes for me to lose faith in humanity. More people complaining about a moderate temperature winter. I bet these are people complaining about hot summers and cold Decembers in their Memories… people, think of it as a little bit of Key West spread across all of the country! 

Aside from people not seeing the perfect weather as a Festivus miracle, all I see these days is (mostly) a man with a combover trying to ban people from entering a country founded on religious equality from entering it based on religion, people who want to keep guns around, and a whole lot of fakery. Let me expand on the fakery.  

I halted my videos after I read a post that said, “who makes videos of themselves while they are effin driving #stupidselfie.” While I say things for amusement, I wouldn’t call me stupid. Then I remembered this person now holds the largely esteemed position of retail manager but has wrecked a company car, fled the scene of an accident and gotten DUIs. Who the f*** does THAT!? Judge not lest thee be judged. And that was just a straw. A tiny piece of a much, much larger pie of self-righteousness spreading like wildfire. Arguments over whose God is better (absolute shame on y’all) surfacing. 

I could keep going and going and going on various examples of the fakery, but it does zero good in this world to try to pull a head out of an ass. Everyone is suddenly a close-minded, judgmental expert on all matters. I have lost all hope in the human race. Perhaps the friends list could use a culling.

I just can’t handle people. Maybe it’s the holidays–that’s always a good excuse–or maybe I am old and weary. Maybe I am the one with the problem. I text my friend Jerry and I could feel him pat my Elaine head as he replied, “Yes, authenticity is elusive.” Indeed. So with that haunting fact over my head, I’m pondering deleting the app. I’d deactivate my account but it holds dear memories and I don’t want to lose them. Although, if it means that much to me, I should remember without any prompting, right? 

Anywho, I think better use of my precious time is blogging. So, if you want to know what I am up to, I will make more of an endeavor to update the blog regularly and include pictures of the escapades known as Apryl (Santa, I swear I can explain!). Feel free to comment and message as desired. My Twitter account will remain focused more on my career. And, no need to point out that my self-absorbed plan of action and declaring to the entire crowd of 600 my intentions isn’t a tad ironic. I get that.

Peace y’all. 

How do you unbreak a heart? Is it even possible? Or, at some point, do the disappointments and losses just finally make it so that no one can ever get into that sacred spot? I don’t know that’s why I’m asking. However, as of late, my experience has been that there is a point of no return. Damage is done and nothing can heal it. I speak from experience.