Missing my heart

So I was talking to my friend Laurnan the other day and we were discussing how much things have changed in the last year. This last year has flown by so fast. It has been a year of transition for me. this time last year i was anxiously awaiting my graduation, and the arrival of my parents in San Francisco. I knew I was on the brink of something different and new, but I had no idea to what this extent this was. This time last year I had no idea that my grandmother was dying. I was ignorant to the fact that cancer had taken over her body. I can hardly believe it all happened, and I can hardly believe that it was over 9 moths ago that this all happened. Time in Hawaii Stands still. Here in paradise there are no seasons, no ends and no beginnings. the waves and the ocean are constant and thus, so is life.

I find that I miss my grandmother a lot, but it is a different kind of miss that I was not familiar with. When my other grandparents passed away it was an aching, sense of constant loss that overcame me and practically crippled me. Sorrow and grief. I went through my loss and these feelings, but it has changed to a different kind of missing her now. The only way I can think of to describe this loss is like My best friend who gets sent away for a while and I am just dying to talk to about my day. I have so much I want to tell her and so many exciting things I want to share with her. I want to tell her the details of my adventure to Australia, and about how I might take a roadtrip home with my good friend. I want to tell her how paranoid I get when I hear noises outside my house at night since that man invaded my house. I just miss the everyday being able to talk to her and tell her these ordinary things.

Maybe I don't feel grief because I am so far away. Maybe it is because I got to know her so much better than I did my other grandparents. I have spent thousands of hours talking to her and laughing with her. She knew me - the real me, and I knew her. I have no regrets. Her spirit lives on. I talk about her with my sister and my cousins and sometimes I catch myself referring to her in the present - saying things like "My grandmother is so funny." We speak of her as if she never left us. Maybe she hasn't. I remember right after she passed away - taking a ride up to Humboldt, and I could feel her all around me. I could feel her presence in the car with me. It felt like she could have been sitting in the back seat. I felt her looking through my eyes. I don't know how to describe it, but I knew she was there. I feel like she is watching me right now as well. Right this second i feel tingles up and down my spine. Maybe she knows I am talking about her. Maybe there is some unknown channel that we dial with our unconscious that lets her know that we are thinking about and need her to listen - to be there... I don't feel these feelings everyday, and I consider this is a good thing. I think my grandmother is happy and safe in her own heaven with my grandfather. She lived a long and full life, and I don't think she spends her whole eternity looking back on us. She loved us the best she could when she was alive, and gave us everything she could, so I am happy she doesn't spend her afterlife dwelling on the ones she left behind. In my mind I picture her returning back to her younger self - walking - for the first time in 20 some years without the aid of a walker or a cane, strolling along some enchanted garden with my grandfather - smiling and happy. That's all any of us could ask for her.

I know life will go on without her, and I know this feeling of missing her will never completely go away, but it will become smaller and smaller in time as I find new people to share my heart with. She is alive in her spirit, and she exists all around me, and every memory we have will keep a part of her alive. I know she will be following me all summer - Yelling at me when I get into trouble, telling me to watch myself when i come up with bad ideas (which I always do), and laughing with me during my happy times. I think she would be happy to see the things that I have accomplished since her death... in fact, I know she would.
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How to let go

I find as I get older, that my relationships with men never work out. I know that I am the problem. I don't allow men to get close to me. I have a thousand male friends who I give my heart away to, but as for the men who want to know me - who want a piece of my soul I can't seem to open my heart up to love. I have become hardened to it. My secret, however, is that i think behind my front, I want to be able to fall in love, It's just easier to not try.

I have a close friend named Laurie. Laurie is a rather talkative drunk, and has a habit of disclosing her secrets every time she gets a little tipsy. These are big secrets too. She once told an entire table of practical strangers and friends that she had an abortion from a man 8 years younger than she. I think she does it on purpose. she wants to release her secrets, so she uses alcohol as an excuse to do it. How free she must feel! She can speak freely about her life experiences in front of any company. She doesn't have to cut her stories short because she has a friend in the room who she hasn't told her secrets to. I envy her for this. I want to be that free.

I stop myself from getting into relationships because I don't want to disclose my secrets. I have so many other stories of places I have been and trouble I have started that i can detract others from realizing that In babbling for hours, I have not shared anything about myself. The smart ones can see right through me. Not many can. I refuse to let a man hold me if I am upset because i can't stand the surge of emotion and the feeling of my walls being torn down. It makes me feel as though my flesh were tearing in half. I know why this is, of course. My stories are not unique and my bruises are not special. i wear the same scars that every other woman displays. but I don't know how to get past them. I don't know how to get over Raymond who left me the night I terminated the life of our unborn child to be with his other girlfriend. I don't know how to forget that My ex Kristian Lead me on and then tried to trade me in for 3 of my best friends. I don't know how to admit to myself that Bryant made my feel so insignificant. He would pretend to care, and give me his body, but let me know that he was looking to give his heart away to someone else. He told me of course that he would say these things hoping to make me mad enough to confess my love to him. I could never love him. I was too busy trying to pretend that he didn't matter. The list could go on forever. I, of course have crumbled the hearts of others. I've almost enjoyed it. How do I let this go? How do you stitch up your heart and allow it to love again...