…Boy, have I debated writing this blog post for weeks now, I’m still not even really sure what I’m going to say.  This might end up sounding like the ramblings of an idiot, but luckily for me, that wouldn’t be the first time ha…<\/strong><\/p>\n

 I debated so long on writing this because, this is a food blog (a silly one at that) and deep down I was just hoping to pretend like today was just a normal day…I would love<\/em> to pretend that today is a normal day, not a day that I remember every single horrible detail of, but unfortunately that’s just not the case.  It’s been a year exactly that you left us so very unexpectedly.  A year of trying to begin to even comprehend you not being here, a year of sooo many ups and downs of emotions, a year of expecting you to walk through the door any minute, a year of almost buying something for you that I know you would love or almost sending you a text message of something I know you would find hilarious.  A year of putting off going through your personal things because it feels like an invasion of your privacy.   <\/strong><\/p>\n

A year of a ‘new normal’ or that’s at least what everyone keeps saying to me.  It won’t ever feel like normal, or a new normal, it just feels weird.  It’s the first Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas I just couldn’t wait to be over, because it just felt so sad.  No amount of Christmas lights, decorations and beloved Christmas movies could mask the emptiness.  Your place setting was still put at the table with a candle, and your stocking was still hung but it was even more glaringly obvious you weren’t there.  We all felt overwhelming guilt not buying you anything for your birthday or Christmas, but I suppose that’s ‘normal’.
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Grief is a very strange thing, you never know how you’re going to deal with it until you’re thrown into the pit of it.  You can go from one spectrum of, ‘wow life is so much shorter than we think, I must go on great adventures’ to ‘eff everything, I’m not going to take care of myself at all, I’ll just eat this tub of butter because what does it matter in the end?’  As you might imagine I have been at both ends of the spectrum.  One day everything feels OK, then with no forewarning, grief pops up and smacks you right in the face…grief is a real b-hole like that.  <\/strong><\/p>\n

Overwhelming feelings of guilt is something else unexpected.  Feeling guilty because it’s a good, happy, fun day and you’re not here to enjoy it, or like you’re being left out.  Tremendous guilt that I was super duper sick in 2010, hospitalized for a week with more things wrong with me than right, ultimately being diagnosed with Lupus Erythematosus and I made a 100% recovery.  You even had some of the same symptoms I did at the time, and I kept assuring you, and Mom and Dad that they would figure out what it was and they would fix you right up. 
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What can I say? It really sucks you left so soon and were so young.  It sucks that Mom and Dad have had to live what I assume is a parents’ worst nightmare.  It just plain sucks, but you’re not in pain anymore, and you are remembered and will always be remembered and loved by so many. 
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…Boy, have I debated writing this blog post for weeks now, I’m still not even really sure what I’m going to say.  This might end up sounding like the ramblings of an idiot, but luckily for me, that wouldn’t be the first time ha…  I debated so long on writing this because, this is a…<\/p>\n

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