Dear Roses, Today You Felt Normal

This is mostly for me.

***

Dear Roses,

Today, you felt normal.

You struggled, crawled, and dragged yourself through a college semester that began just eight days after your dad died.
It was hard. You cried.
But you also kept going. You kept your job. You showed up for every class. You worked hard, you pulled your own weight when your group project team members did not.

This past Tuesday night after the last exam of the semester, you expected to heave a great sigh of relief, but it didn't come.  Sleep elluded you, and in the middle of the night you found an upsetting email from a family member regarding your dad's estate.
While contemplating this email on Wednesday, you received almost cryptic messages from a friend who wanted to visit on Thursday.

It was an emotionally difficult week.
But it sorted itself out.

The relative later retracted the item in the email that had been upsetting.
The visit with your friend was very pleasant and somewhat refreshing to learn that some good things never change.

This weekend was the first one since August that you didn't have anywhere to go, and you didn't have any homework to do.
You cleaned. You sorted. You baked banana bread AND brownies. You washed dishes the same day they were dirtied!

These two days had been yours.  You accomplished things you'd had to put off other weekends.

You felt healthy. You felt optimistic. You thought about things you might do "someday".

This was about more than surviving a school semester. The classes were were straws on the camel's already broken back.
You lost your mom and sister.
Your family, damn, your family went stupid without your mom.
You watched most of your friends get divorced.
Your boys grew up.
You had a full-on mid-life crisis and quit your radio career and went back to college at age 47.  Shit.
Your dad had medical problems and your family went apeshit stupid again.  Then you lost your dad too.
And now it's the fucking holidays without either of your parents.

Baby, you've had some really hard years.  But look at you. You're *doing*.  By God, you've done freaking amazing things when you could/should have just shut down.

You *have* struggled hard. You have been exhausted. You've been gone for a long time.

But today, Roses, you felt normal.

And I want you to remember this day, because I suspect soon you will feel less than normal again and forget that you'd ever been at this place.

I write this because I want you to remember that today you believe someday you will have another normal day.  After that, you may have more normal days.  Someday, you will have more normal days than not.  Today, you believe this is possible.

I can't remember that last time you thought there'd be any hope of that.

Today.
You felt normal.

I love you.