Each one is different and we have survived another year. This time as I reflect on all that's changed since the last Feb 1st and since the first one, I can look back at the healing that has happened. We will never forget. Those cold days eleven years ago will be marked about our souls and minds like constellations imprinted across the sky, seven stars, even in the daylight they are there, just harder to see, but always there.
While we will likely never forgot what happened, how it felt, the bonds that formed over the loss, I see it in the faces of those I survived with, we are all finding ways to heal. What I lost when I was 17 was my willingness to let others in. I gained an unwavering need to always be strong, never be anything else. This marked my relationships, or lack there of, for almost 10 years. My heart lay only with the mountains that both gave and took life at their will. They provided me strength, a source of passion and creativity as well as a deep humility in the face of the realities of life.
In the past few years I have let a little of my toughness go. I have slowly started to let others in, beyond my walls of strength that were as much there to keep me in as to keep others out. It hasn't been the easiest or softest process but it has helped me to fill in some of the space that was torn open by the snow and rocks. I have been lucky enough to find someone who has let me become more more whole. Someone who has given me the space to heal and supported me when it was all too much.
With all the healing that has and will happen we will always remember those who and what we lost and the moments after that will bond us together forever. So as I sit here, across the country, flung far from the mountains that acted as the pillars supporting my young life, I remember the moments of my youth. With fondness, growing up on the prairies and in the Rockies, and with sadness in the corner of my heart for what we lost. For what changed us in our young lives.
While we will likely never forgot what happened, how it felt, the bonds that formed over the loss, I see it in the faces of those I survived with, we are all finding ways to heal. What I lost when I was 17 was my willingness to let others in. I gained an unwavering need to always be strong, never be anything else. This marked my relationships, or lack there of, for almost 10 years. My heart lay only with the mountains that both gave and took life at their will. They provided me strength, a source of passion and creativity as well as a deep humility in the face of the realities of life.
In the past few years I have let a little of my toughness go. I have slowly started to let others in, beyond my walls of strength that were as much there to keep me in as to keep others out. It hasn't been the easiest or softest process but it has helped me to fill in some of the space that was torn open by the snow and rocks. I have been lucky enough to find someone who has let me become more more whole. Someone who has given me the space to heal and supported me when it was all too much.
With all the healing that has and will happen we will always remember those who and what we lost and the moments after that will bond us together forever. So as I sit here, across the country, flung far from the mountains that acted as the pillars supporting my young life, I remember the moments of my youth. With fondness, growing up on the prairies and in the Rockies, and with sadness in the corner of my heart for what we lost. For what changed us in our young lives.
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