August 2025 (whoa!)

I’m doing great!

How am I doing? I’m doing great. And this week, that looked like a massive retreat into myself and my home.

This grief thing is weird. Annoying beautiful bullshit. The separation seems to make the love grow deeper. Maybe that’s easier when they’re not here to annoy you, but it makes the grief feel ‘griefier’ at times. And then, when everything seems to be feeling pretty good? Whammo-more feels.

For almost two years, gulp, I have been blessed to have roommates.  A few months turned into years just like that. I never had to come home to an empty house nor worry about my doggo when I travelled for weeks at a time. But, I began craving the emptiness. To feel the space, and all the meanings that conjures.

The space we filled together.

The spaces left behind.

The spaces that are now mine to add my own touches.

The space I get to empty.

The space without ‘us’.

The space with ‘just’ me.

So much space, with so many blessings….and things. Things that only have meaning because we/I assigned meaning to them. But, they are just that-things.

I will begin by emptying. Not completely, but enough. Letting go, with all that conjures up. I’ve parted with some of his things-mostly clothes and items more useful to someone else than the sentiment I’ve attached. But my first priority has been letting go of my own things. It only feels fair. We used to tell each other that the other person needed to let go of some of their shit. But I didn’t have any and it was all his, obviously. Ok. Not really, but, my story right?

Ah yes. My story. To begin chapter one. We wrote the preface together, but now, this is the start of my next chapter. I’m not sure if I’m still in the space between the preface and the beginning, or if the lines are already blurring. Perhaps only hindsight will offer me the distinction.

What I know for sure is this: lying facedown on the grass staring at it for over an hour, I was doing great. Falling asleep on the couch, I was doing great. Today, this is what ‘doing great’ looks like….even if it feels, messy. Just breathing in all the space. This is just part of my process. There is no way ‘out’, only through. Stupid (truthful) clichés.

Thanks to my friends and family for reaching out, for your patience, for allowing me solitude and emptiness. No rush to fill it; just experiencing a new resonance.

If I haven’t said it already, I am doing great. Thanks for asking. Truly💕

xo,

Brooke