It has been one year today since I last touched my Dad. One year today that I heard him take his last breath. One year today that officially my life changed. I stayed up until 4am. I couldn’t sleep, I just laid there and thought of those last days, hours, minutes. I miss my Dad terribly. I think of him daily. My grief has been heavy, something that only time will heal. I cry at the most inopportune times. Tears pop up out of nowhere. This is grief. This is trauma. You cannot control it. It has a course of it’s own. My year has been filled with grief and trauma. Not only from losing my father but from the pain my husband has put me through. It has only compounded it. I have cried a river, that is for sure. But the tears are getting less and less. I am making new friends and building my little village of support people.
I have started a trauma group recently. It is going to be very good for me. It is 10 weeks long and I have already bonded with some of the other women. We are all survivors of one trauma or another. Many of us multiple. I have shared many of my traumas here on my blog. I wear my heart on my sleeve, that is for sure. We are all at different stages of recovery and grief and it is SO nice to have this group of supportive women to be with to not only get support from but to help. There is one in particular that is tugging at my heart a bit, as I see myself in her. She is in that same place I was in about 6 months ago. I am reaching out to her to let her know she will be o.k. and that she just has to remember that she is good and all will be well in the end. That is what got me through and is getting me through still.
I know this post should be about my Dad but it really for me it is more about moving on. Moving forward. Remembering the lessons he taught me and carrying his love in my heart. Making him proud and being the woman that I was born to be. These are my moving forward goals. The divorce is not over yet, it’s very messy. But I am moving forward in my life. I could not wait for it to be over to move forward. I do have days where things knock me to my knees but for the most part i try to live for the good things and just block out the negative and the bad. I find my inner sunshine and try super hard to filter out the icky stuff that comes my way.
I am learning who I am now. It is interesting, finding out who Katie is. I tried to live for everyone else, be who they wanted me to be. Get their approval. I spun in circles for approval. Not anymore. I am taking care of me now. I am learning to set boundaries. I am developing normal relationships. It feels good. I am scared of what the future holds but it is so much better then what my future did hold. Now I have possibility. Now I have choices and the ones I make are different then the ones I would have made before. Now I can be ME. I like me. And guess what? It is o.k. to like yourself. But first you gotta know yourself to like yourself. I have been getting to know myself this last year.
I think my Dad knew who I was and who I was gonna be. (this BLOG post gives me chills still and I am so thankful I have it) I think he knew exactly where i was headed. My Dad told my mom that he wasn’t sure which would last longer, his dog or my marriage. His dog is still living.
I will never forget this year, ever. It has literally been the worst year of my life. The worst. I will remember this year as my year of heartbreak, of loss, of sorrow but I will also remember this year as a year of growth, new beginnings and the beginning of taking myself back. A very complicated year. One I would not relive for anything. This officially ranks as the year I would not repeat for any amount of money. There isn’t even a close second. Nothing like being kicked while you are down.
I have worked hard this year. I have self reflected like crazy. Read a million self help books and googled help on even more subjects. All baby steps that have helped me to get through the darkness of losing Dad and going through a contentious divorce. I know who my true friends are and I appreciate them in a way that I have never appreciated friendship before. I have a boyfriend, who is a kind, sweet man. It is so very refreshing to be exactly me and be accepted for me. It is a very nice change.
I do not make choices out of fear anymore. I make choices that make my life, and my children’s lives better. If I make a wrong choice, so be it. It’s gonna happen. I am human and not perfect. So because I accept this about myself, I am not afraid to live anymore. Everything I have done or not even done has been used against me in court and for a while I was terrified to move. But then I realized that I could not live that way. So I live. I move forward. I am a human. I cannot tell you the calm this helped bring into my life. There are moments and even days…..but for the most part I feel at peace. When I start to stray away from that peace, I slow down and reign myself back into it.
What a difference a year makes. Today has turned out to be less about missing Dad and more about realizing how far I have come and how much I have been through. After all, every day I miss Dad. What difference does it make if it is the 364th day of missing him or a year and a day? I still miss him. So his year anniversary is filled with thoughts of me and my life but he is heavy in spirit with me today. I feel him very strongly and am immersed with memories. I can still feel his hands in mine.
But today makes it official. I have grieved for one year. It is time to take off the black and start living intentionally and fully.
I am ready.
~Katie
p.s. I am in the process of turning my little dinette area into a scrap area. I am having a very hard time fitting my family and art supplies in such a tiny new place. So I am having to be creative with the spacing. 
So some creating has started. This old book is soon to be a binder full of bits. I will post photos of it when it is done.
I picked this part of the vintage measuring tape because the “F8″ says “Fate” to me.
by Katie
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