I still miss her...

Today I was going through my photos and found my collection of pictures from the campaign.

In looking back not only are the final three weeks of the campaign a complete blur but in retrospect I know we worked so hard that we shot past all expectations. It was mind blowing.

I couldn't tell you what happened on any given day but I still smile when I remember the way she looked when she was exhausted and the way she insisted on sleeping with her glasses on. I laugh when I remember her enthusiasm and joy at every little thing. She was like a small child in her wonder. She is still amazing. It still hurts a little to remember saying goodbye.

I can't bring myself to tell the people who want to keep pushing and working to make for political change that I was never in this for them. I was never in this because it was my cause. I was never in the fight because I believed Obama mattered that much. I was always in it because I was hopelessly, painfully in love with her.

I gave up so much of myself because I loved her and believed in her. I still love her and believe in her but she's gone. She exists somewhere only in my memory and some far away place. She's off saving the world. A world of which I am not a part.

I know that everything I felt was unrequited and I'm childish for holding onto these memories and emotions but every once in a while I just miss her. I miss the way she believed in me with such unwavering conviction that she stood up for me against my superior and her subordinate.

I miss what she was to me not what she was in reality. I haven't seen or heard from her in months. I wish her all the happiness in the world. She deserves all that and so much more for making me believe in so many things.

if i lose my lottery because i fucked up my WS class...

then i give myself full license to have a crisis.

This will be the first semester i haven't wanted or tried to kill myself since i left high school.

I would like to hang on to that shred of pride.
I'm okay for now.





Miss Allison, I still miss you like crazy...

some days...

some days i'll forget to take my meds. sometimes i run out and forget to refill them and i go without for a few days.

things they don't tell you about SSRI's like cymbalta: if you miss even two days your body will spiral into withdrawal symptoms. You will shake and be dizzy and out of breath and it will feel like needles are pricking every inch of your skin. You will feel like you are being shocked electrically. it will start in your brain and traverse your entire body, down to your feet and all the way back up. You will want to convulse your body will be exhausted and if you relax your muscles will twitch like you are seizing. You aren't. You are fine but your body will twitch. Once you take your medications again it will take two weeks of consistent daily dosing before they are working fully.

This is all legal. All of it is FDA approved.

I never come off of my meds into a manic episode. I always plummet into depression. I don't have a reason to be sad or cry. It doesn't need a reason.

I feel like there is a weight on my chest pressing down and making it harder to breathe. Harder to care. I want to curl up in the corner and be left alone forever. I feel so alone already. I cry over nothing. I cry about death.


It's summer.
May 18, 1996: the day my Grandpa Hart died. His was the first funeral I ever cried at. I was 8.

May 2nd, 2003: the day my Grandpa Dan died. I was in San Antonio on a band trip. I got the news from my cousin. The last time I saw my Grandan I had forgotten to say "I love you" as he was leaving; I thought it was no big deal and I would see him again. It was the most excruciating pain I had ever known.

June 28, 2006: the day my Grandma Hart died. She actually passed away while I was literally sitting on my Grandma Wink's couch saying how she was a fighter and she might make it.

June 21, 2007: the day my Grandma Wink died, less than a year after my Grandma Hart died. I was holding her hand when she died. I was alone in the room. The nurse asked if I was okay. I stared at her and said "No, I just watched my grandmother die. Of course I'm not okay." I sometimes still don't feel okay.



Maybe these are all excuses but I'm in a bad way right now.

You're still here

Sometimes, when I'm really exhausted
when I haven't slept in what feels like days
and my nerves have been worn threadbare
I remember you.

I remember the way you laughed and scrunched your nose.
I remember how your favorite word was amazing
everything in the world was amazing
and I remember asking you what you were like
when you saw something truly amazing
and you told me you thought everything really was amazing.

that was amazing.

I miss you but I can't tell you that because you weren't You.
You were an idea. You are an idea.

What you are to me is something that doesn't really exist
but this fallacy is born of your reality.
I want to thank you but I can't thank you for being
the symbol I needed, the sign, the light, the thing you never saw.

I'm so proud of you.
You've changed the world.
At least my world.

And now look at you. Standing atop the hill so many struggle to climb.
so far ahead of where I would even aspire to be,
You rarely seem to look back.
I often wonder if you lie when you mention missing me.

I can't open my eyes because the sun is too bright but I try.
the tears stream down my face as I struggle to see you clearly.
eventually I'll stop.
eventually I'll give up.
eventually I'll admit you're gone. That you don't remember.
That it's over.

But now, when I close my eyes tight
when my breathing evens and I am finally still,
in those moments I lose track of the line between
those things that are real
and those things that exist only in my dream.

and then I let myself believe
You're still here.







It's always a bad sign when the name Maude Gonne comes to mind.

Goodbye is the hardest word to say.

I'm not ready for her to leave this world, not ready to say goodbye, not ready to not be someone's grandchild. She is the last of her generation of parents. She has fought long and hard and done her best. I know this is her decision, but it's too soon. It will always be too soon.

When white light passes through a prism it is broken into an array of colors. When grief is filtered through an individual's perception of death, grief is broken into an array of emotions too many to name.

You can't know what this is like for me, no one can. Death is filtered through personal experiences, we all grieve in our own ways. Hold me and let me sob, need to feel safe. If only for this moment, I need to feel this pain.



Dear Winkleberry,

Some grandparents are part of a child’s life only fleetingly, there to buy presents and spoil them, or there only on special occasions and then gone with little or no communication, some are not present at all. You have been an integral part of every stage of my life, helping to raise me, to care for me, to comfort me and to teach me. You took care of my sister and me.

When our parents would leave town, you would play games with me when I was lonely; you undertook projects to make headbands and play the organ, and bake cookies at Christmas. You were willing to get dirty, to help pick “pomatoes” in the garden, to sit on the floor and play with us. You made sure we knew you love us and are proud of us.

Once you played baseball in your back yard on Calle de Rosa with an Oar and a tennis ball, another time you invited me over to look at slides and you made me a Peanut butter and Jelly sandwich. I felt like the most special person in the world because you took the time to spend time with me. I treasure all the memories of you I have.

I’ve known you for 19 years, you’ve been there to shape who I am in every way. It was from you I learned to go after what you want and not to give up until you get it, it was from you I learned to be strong, and it was from you I learned that just because I’m a girl doesn’t mean I’m any less capable. Thank you for everything you have taught me.

I love you very, very much. I want you to know that I will always love you. I understand that what you’re going through right now is exhausting, painful, and scary. I want you to know that even if I don’t agree with the decisions you make, I will respect them because I respect you. I understand that if you are tired you have every right to rest.

I don’t know what’s going to happen when you are gone, no one does. But I do know that I want you to know how much you will always mean to me, and that I love you very, very much. I’m proud of you for fighting as hard as you have in everything you’ve done, you’re amazing.

Thank you, for everything. Thank you Grandma Wink.

Love you.
Kate