Humpty Dumpty

Dear Lorenzo,

The prospect of putting myself back together again has been a daunting one.

I spent the first year after your death lying in a stupor on the couch. I watched football show after football show until it was time to pick Amira up from school.

I was alive, I was present only for our daughter.

After playing endless board games, watching funny YouTube videos and making all the slime she wanted, Amira would eventually tire of my company and head upstairs to Grandma and Aisha.

And each time she did, I returned to my station on the couch.

Eventually, the passage of time and the power of antidepressants started me on the path back to living again and during that second year I began to heal.

And today, three years after your death...

I'm fully awake again.

But...as I take stock of what's left of my life...I'm not exactly thrilled with what I see, or with who I've become.

I am genuinely trying to get my life back on track, or at the very least, doing my damnedest to create some semblance of a new one but...

Where do I go from here?

Danielle stepped in and got me a job that I ADORE. I work as a customer service rep at her company and even though I'm only there four hours a day, even though I'm definitely the low man on the totem pole...those four hours have brought so much joy back into my life. You see, when I'm at work, I'm not just the grief-stricken woman who's lost her partner, I'm not just a room parent at Peirce and I'm not just Amira's overly-friendly mom.  For four hours a day I get to be a co-worker, a colleague, a fairly capable employee and...that means EVERYTHING to me.

But work will never be all of who I am.

Next week we leave for Boston. We'll be there for all of August and while I can't wait to go home to be with my mom, my family and my friends, I also plan on spending some much needed time alone to focus on what comes next. I don't have all (or frankly, any) of the answers yet. But I'm ready to start figuring my shit out.