July 2011 will go down in my history book as one of the worst months I have had to experience.
I have two people I work with every day – Joy Norman was one of them. Joy passed away this weekend. I have spent more time with her over the past year than I have anyone else. I called Joy “ladybug” to her face and I called her “my favorite” behind her back. She took her most recent Facebook profile picture in my office. I told her that day that she looked like a nerd. She had fake glasses and these ridiculous suspenders. She laughed and said, “good” as it was the look she was going for.
It took me all day to cry. I guess I felt like I had to keep myself together so that someone was the strong one for my staff. The calls I had to make were worse than the call I received, giving me the news. I had to break 11 hearts today as I told each of my employees that Joy was gone. This evening I exhaled and it all came out with no one there to hold my hand.
I lost the man I love this month as well. Thank God it wasn’t from death, although some days it feels like it was. I'm not sure I have truly trusted anyone since a relationship in 2003. It took me 2 years to get over that one and another 6 to learn to love again. This recent relationship taught me how to trust again, how to love again. It taught me how to be completely honest with someone else and to show sides of myself that I was too scared to share in relationships before. I believed the relationship wasn’t going anywhere. And as soon as I did, it was gone.
Tonight I went and saw Sarah McLaughlin at the Hollywood Bowl. I was far from being in the mood to go. I sat there in the dark, listening to the lyrics with great sadness. Songs that I had heard 100 times before took on such a different meaning as I thought about my two losses. He broke my heart. She broke my soul. But somehow, both made me feel more alive tonight. I thought about so much while I was sitting there. The moon was perfect. The weather was perfect. The music created a greater than perfect soundtrack to my evening. The lyrics were an incredible combo of love, the loss of love, having hope in something, letting go, forgiving yourself, forgiving others, Heaven, life, the loss of life. I sat there with tears streaming down my face, thinking about the man that was supposed to be sitting next to me and the girl that I would never see again.
I have lost a man that I love. I have lost my ladybug. I love you both and am so thankful for you being a part of my life.
“Hold on. Hold on to yourself. This is going to hurt like hell”. – Sarah McLachlan
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