Celebrations.

My birthday is tomorrow. March 1st. I'll be 26 years old. Boy oh boy, how time flies.

I'm not going to lie the days leading up to my birthday have been rough. It is the first birthday in 13 years that I've spent without Marie. And knowing this has made me weary of any and all celebrations.

Her death has altered me. You can never prepare for something like this and i am surprised by how I have dealt with my grief these last few months. I am stronger and more resilient than i thought, I am just as fragile and delicate as I've tried to downplay.

But i haven't been able to suppress how weird and sad it is and will be to celebrate my big day without her. I miss her every day. I think about her every day. And I wish that she knew how much she meant to me. And I wish that people could understand how extraordinary she was and why her death and my loss will not be things I can easily overcome.

I've been filled with guilt this week for having to continue on without her but I simply don't have a choice, no matter how difficult it is for me to do so. And this week has been sort of overwhelming because all eyes are on me. Instead of ushering in another year with only my mom, Maire and a few friends remembering my special day everyone seems to know about my birthday and have plans to celebrate it with me.

Yesterday my aunt and baby cousin took me on a girls day adventure around town. I spent today at my friends house celebrating my special day with pizza, cupcakes and an awesome Buffy present. Tomorrow, the big day, I'm getting my first tattoo and then off to the city with Kat. Friday another gathering of small friends to receive presents and drink lightly.

And i am overwhelmed/joyed by all the love. Just three/four years ago I was a very depressed college senior with little to no social life. I felt alone and misunderstood and unsure what a future for a girl like me would look like. I'm still not sure. Especially now that Marie is gone. But figuring it out each day has been the challenge I need I guess to realize what is best for my life now.

And I can't get over how different life is these days for me. I am so different. My wants are so new. And the change is beautiful and painful. And as I sit here, hours away from my special day I am grateful, sad, weary and elated for another year with great friends and family. I don't think I would have made it this far without them and without this space (and your support) to share my thoughts and life with.

I hope everyone has a great March 1st. All of you will be in my thoughts as I celebrate another year.

~Beckett

Horseplay Fail 101.

Guess who twisted her wrist at work?

This chick.

To make a long story short I may have been playing around with a cart load of books and twisted it as I was running down the aisle. My wrist went flying around the corner with the cart, while my body remained in place and now I am nursing a pretty annoying twisted wrist but a wicked awesome wrist wrap.

Unfortunately I injured the right wrist (my writing hand) and it's been a pain to utilize my left hand more while my other one gets better. Everyone says I should go to the doctor, just to get it checked out, but hospitals make me nervous these days and I'm sure he/she will just put me on an advil like medicine, re-wrap my wrist, and tell me to take it easy. And, I'll be charged a crap-load of money.

Yesterday Sean attempted to soothe said wrist with his hot/cold treatment. He said he use to do this treatment when his wrist gave him trouble. He'd submerge it in ice water for 60 seconds, remove his hand and then run it under warm water for 30 seconds. He'd repeat this four or five times until his wrist felt better or until he couldn't bear the cold anymore. I wasn't really buying this technique and he most have seen how nervous I was to try this because he offered to do it with me so that i didn't feel alone.

We escaped to the cafe, way in the back where the sinks and dishes are (away from customers) and he filled the sink halfway with water, pouring two scoops of ice in to chill it. He asked me if I was ready to put my hand in and I told him not really (shit looked cold) so he told me to concentrate on my breathing, put my hand in only when I was ready because he would put his hand in a second later and he would count me down from 60 to 0 the whole way.

Before this, i asked him how the wrist healing method felt so i could prepare myself mentally for the pain. And he said ' it's like stepping in snow with no shoes on'. And he was right. The water was freezing and my wrist felt like it was going to fall off when it settled in to the ice. The water sort of brought the short, sharp, pains to the surface and I regretted agreeing to his method the moment i started. But we did the cold/hot water thing for 10 minutes. Dunking, icing, rinsing, repeat, only taking a small break when i told him i needed one. And he even counted down (every time), very slowly, and softly until we hit zero saying 'you've got this' when i grimaced.

By the end of the whole thing, I'm not sure my wrist felt any better but it was nice, that for 10 minutes he placed his hand in the water with me. That even though his wrist isn't all junked up like mine he didn't want me to endure it alone. And sure my wrist only feels a little bit better but those ten minutes were totally worth it.

I've been doing my own lazy form of icing, warming and massaging le sad wrist since then but it still hurts like crazy. And I'm still refusing to go to the doctor. But if it doesn't feel better I'll have to get it checked out. I can't go walking around in a wrist brace for the rest of my life. Even if it is fun telling people that i injured myself in more adventurous ways than the lame truth.

Beckett

~Oh and i bought some boots for my birthday. My wrist may feel like shit but my feet are well enough to wear this beauties.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Slow Days. They are Super.

Sorry to be documenting my life these days via pictures. But some days I find writing about myself more difficult then taking pictures. It's not that I don't have the words to put down on 'paper' but i get weary by the weight of my words. Especially because I am consumed with grief and longing and a desire to return to life post Marie's death. Especially because I am also, slowly, accepting the changes around me that have come with such as great loss.

Surprisingly, out of the pain and depression and sulky days, I'm becoming a young lady. I am finding my voice and desires and am blossoming to some form of potential I never knew i possessed. I'm finally getting use to my own skin and while it is a terrifying transition it feels long over due.

While internally i often feel fragile and a delicate and in between broken pieces and shards of glass, I continue, everyday, despite the apprehension and loneliness and fear and grief, to get up. I continue to find things that I love and I work from there. Some days are harder than others. But I try.


Last Wednesday I had a mini breakdown because I realized my birthday is less than 3 weeks ago. I'll be 26 years old and Marie and I planned our countdown to the year of Awesome to commence on my birthday. I haven't spent one without her since I was 13 years old. I already know that when midnight strikes on March 1st I will miss her more than ever because she always sent a 'i was the first once to wish you a happy birthday' text.

My birthday use to be this thing Marie hyped me up about. She'd playfully talk about it on the phone like a child whose own birthday was just around the corner. She is no longer here to do this and the sulky part of me wishes that this year, anyway, that my birthday could just be another day on the calendar.

But so many of my work friends are aware that my birthday is around the corner. It may have something to do with Kat going around and telling everyone, but regardless, the attention has been a little overwhelming. I am not use to people remembering my birthday. I am not use to them wanting to take me out and wish me into another year. It makes me sad, happy too, but said.

Sean came up to me the other night and said 'so, what do you want me to get you for your birthday?'.

And I sort of stared at him like 'how do you know my birthday is coming up'. I mean yes, we are on good terms these days. I like him more than I should. The other night he drove a friend and I home as he does most nights. In the parking lot he took a minute to gather his book bag and groceries on the trunk of his car. I was sitting in the back, legs snuggled up again his sweatshirt and as I turned around to put my seat belt on I couldn't stop staring at his face through the glass. He was lost in the act of re-shuffling his items, off in his own head of this goes here, this goes there and I loved his face then. In a dumb schoolgirl way. I loved his face.

But we are still just work buddies. He does nice things for me occasionally. I listen to him intently. But he isn't mine. And maybe that's why when he brought up getting me something for my birthday I just starred at him with this incredulous look on my face. So he repeated the question again 'Beckett, seriously what do you want for your birthday?'

"I don't know. Surprise me. Make me something. I'm not use to having more than one person remember my birthday, so even, just saying Happy Birthday will be nice'

And that's sort of the truth when it comes to everyone. Just to have people remember that it's my special day will be nice. I'm not asking for much.

Outside of the birthday sadness, I'm doing okay. I'm working on crafts and listening to music and coloring mandalas in the morning. My mom recently bought me a sewing kit and maybe I'll learn to make something pretty. And as a pre-valentines day present to myself i book this awesome geekcraft book! There is a Buffy inspired craft inside that I am all too excited to begin. The busier I am, the better I feel. And I like creating things. I forgot how excited it is to start a project from scratch and finish it.

My days now revolve around getting up, drinking tea, reading books and dancing. Oh, and an occasional back seat photo shoot of my boots and leggings in my crushes car. I'm comfortable with this. I am making things comfortable out of the pain.

And I must admit that it ain't perfect and I'm sort of being selfish these days but i am terribly okay with that.

~Beckett

Different Version of Me.

My body has finally had enough.









Whatever bug is going around these days has totally found me and i feel ickly. sickly. gross. ickly. sickly.











I made the mistake of going to the Bronx today (hair appointment) despite feeling like crap and I am paying the price. Because the weather has been spring like, i wore a very light jacket. No scarf. No gloves. No hat. Of course today it was freezing out. windy and cold. Now i feel worse than I did when i woke up.


I've been a little tense these last few weeks with everything that is going on with my life. I can't say I'm sleeping or eating well these days. Yesterday I may have only had a pop tart and soda. I simply go from feeling hungry all the time to 'did i eat...who forgets if they ate'. And on the sleep end, I'm getting little of it though i am always in bed. Last night was the first night I've actually managed to sleep with the lights off. The silence and darkness still terrify me (and there isn't a cute boy next to me to distract me) so i usually keep my TV on the Disney channel until i pass out.


My body is just exhausted and I think that is why I'm feeling under the weather.


The store has cut hours drastically and I am working two days next week. TWO! Luckily, or surprisingly, I'm doing okay with money (and may have a new job in the works!) so I look forward to my light week and sleeping /watching netflix and trying to get better next week in more ways than one I guess.







I've been feeling really conflicted by everything lately. On the bus/train/walk home I realized that in 4 weeks, I'll be turning 26. It'll be the first birthday without Marie, who made a point of always being the first to call me at midnight. I'll also be the same age that she was when she decided to end her life. This birthday will be weird. There is no way around it.







Since she died, everything i thought i wanted for my life at 25/26 has completely changed. What I want for myself and what I want from the people in my life has new meaning. It's weird. Occasionally I'll check the stat features on this blog and I find it very interesting that one of the most read entries is the one I wrote about turning 20 ('the perks of being 20' i called it). I wrote that post more five years ago and i still get comments on it. I only bring it up because at 20 i remember wanting to have everything figured out. I wanted to be this mature person who had relationships and goals in check.





Now the only thing I want is to be happy even though 'happy' is this new thing. I'm okay not having everything figured out. I'm okay trying to find what I'm passionate about. I'm happy spending my mornings sewing or dancing or singing loudly. The anxiety about 'myself' has lessened. But i worry, that now that the world and experiences I'm ready to be apart of have all but abandoned me. Especially since I've spent so much time shunning it.

Like when Sean made me that stupid vampire stake (am i just being a dumb stupid school girl or was his gesture as sweet as i think it is? Because I'm smitten by the whole gift to be honest), which I have since kept on my desk and stared at from afar in awe and confusion...I thought in my romantic state 'I'd like to date a thoughtful boy like that(who was, um, single). I'd like to be in a relationship where i could be strange and unusual. I'd like to be loved and understood by someone who would make me a vampire stake because he had the resources too'.


But i fear that I'll never feel like I deserve those things. Even now, I feel stupid for liking the gift so much because, often, i feel like a girl like me doesn't deserve it. Marie's death has felt like a rejection of my (our) weirdness ever being anything someone could love and endure. This is what makes me angry at her for killing herself. Sure the pain and grief are unbearable. Sure there are days when I am completely blindsided by the fact that she isn't here. But mainly I'm upset because my better half's death is like a rejection of how proud I thought we were to be different and complicated and unique.

Because I was (am) finally coming around to my strangeness. and introversion. and complications. And I was (am) finally starting to be okay with that. But i don't know how to allow people into my world especially since the one and main person who occupied it is no longer here. She was my champion of weird. We'd talk for hours about how frustrating it was to be outsiders but how we were going to prove to ourselves that our version of life was more interesting.

But with her suicide I suddenly have to learn how to be okay with my strange ways alone and try to find people to relate too while also learning to accept the people who love me just as I am.

My version of happiness, these days, is rooted in my attempt to feel worthy of the good that comes into my life. To know that i can make my vision of my future this tangible and maybe lovely thing. That I can have a career all my own that i enjoy. I can have boy all my own whose hair I can ruffle. I can have friends who enjoy playing scrabble and reading nerdy books. I can have all these things, i tell myself everyday. I can. Because i want them more than anything else. But it doesn't mean that i am not anxious about my sudden desire (and need) to create something out the hole that she's left. Not because I want to fill her space but because I don't have a choice but to.

I'm different. That's a fact. The changes stare back at me from the mirror. It's me you see, same eyes and nose and mouth, but altered in some way that i just can't pinpoint. And if i could make peace with the girl I've was then in order to grasp this girl I'm becoming, I'd feel less torn by everything. And less exhausted.

But alas, that's where the tension and conflict arise.