love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears

I have been wondering lately about how I managed to pull myself out of the darkness that surrounded me in the days/weeks/months after Alex's death. The truth is, I'm not sure that it's ever something that you come out of; it just eventually becomes something that you're a part of. You learn to carry your pain and heartache and you learn to live through the constant sadness until one day you realize that this is now your life. I realize that maybe that comes off as a bit dramatic or depressing but I truly mean it in the sincerest way.

At first I was a shell of my former self, literally and figuratively, until I started to understand what my world now was. I somehow found a way to get up each morning and take care of myself even though the pain didn't lessen. You always hear "this will get better ... this will pass"- I think what really happens is that YOU get better and YOU find a way to continue living, but the pain and the confusion doesn't pass, it doesn't get better, it doesn't all of a sudden start making sense. You change, you adapt, and you learn a new way of viewing things.

If there is one thing I've learned over the past nine months, it's that life goes on. The world doesn't stop because you need it to, people don't slow down, and people move on. It's hard to comprehend that your world has now shifted completely while others have stayed the exact same, but you need to come to terms with that eventually if you value your sanity. 

As hard as it is, I have started to accept what has happened. When I say "accept" I do not mean that I understand why, or that I'm okay with what happened to Alex, his family or to myself, but I am accepting my new life. It takes too much energy dwelling on the "what if's", I did that for months and months, and now that I've stopped asking myself that question I feel so much lighter.