ten years. how does it add up?

numbers. all around. I see them in patterns, remember dates, things those dates and numbers represent, sometimes I wish I didn't, sometimes I wonder why my brain functions as so. I'm not good at math, never have been, but numbers, I am a bit obsessed with...with finding the patterns, adding them up to a number that I can relate something to from my past or present....strange. numbers. meaning. superstitions. what have you. regardless, I can't set my alarm to the whole, like 10:00, or 10:10, but rather 10:03, or 10:09...etc. strange. I know. good or bad, what have you. they mean something.

10 years. It has been ten years since high school. so much has happened in ten years, yet it seems nothing changes day to day...

10 years. the year 2000. the millennium. some thought it to be the end of the world. In some strange way, it was sort of like the end of the world. my world I have always known, the familiarity of it all. my friends, my family...work, school, up until 2000, things were the same. they were familiar. 1 high school graduation, May 2000. Hello Summer. June 2000, change, shock, world turned around. my cousin lost her father. 1 father gone, Kenny. June 2000 . summer, I was in Maine, in the bunk bed, first one on the left the bottom bunk, heard my mom come down the stairs, talking to her cousin who had just lost her husband.

6 months later, 1 aunt gone. Auntie Terry. January 2001. 4 year battle of cancer, lost. 3 of my cousins motherless. The most magical new years eve I've ever had with my family, the 5 of us in the middle of the Magic Kingdom, Disney World. It was our Christmas present that year. The most magical, emotional new years eve, fireworks over head, every inch of the sky covered, tears flowing down slowly, thinking of my aunt.

the next 3 summers, 3 weddings, 3 cousins married. May 4, 2003, 1 grandfather figure gone. Phil, Sittoo's Phil, he was the grandfather I never had.

April 18, 2004, 1 more wedding, another cousin married. April 19, 2004, 1 cousin to be gone. Lindsay, a 9 month battle with a rare cancer lost, just 25 years old, with 2 younger brothers. hit me hard at the wake. the same family dynamics as my own. too young. too full of life. May 2004, my college graduation!

happy. sad. happy. sad. good times. bad times. loss. pain. years passed, time gone by, time? time to heal? no.

numerous hook ups, in and out of relationships. friends lost. 2 very best friends, no longer, a group of 5-6 girl friends, minus 1, minus me. So it's summer time again, August 29, 2004, 1 grandmother gone. Sittoo. suddenly taken. dropped dead in her bathroom, autopsy showed cancer. the healthiest grandmother I've ever had.

2000-2004: 5 deaths, 4 weddings, 1 high school graduation, 1 college graduation.

My 1st apartment on my own. paying my way, living my life without the familiarity of it all. my family. my friends. different. forever changed.

6 months after living on my own, June 5, 2005, 1 grandmother gone. Nonna. dementia. terrible disease of the mind. Her birthday in February was the last time I visited, I should have visited more. She didn't know me. disease. terrible diseases of the mind, body and soul. Such a horrible way to go, when you don't even know yourself anymore. My 1st eulogy delivered, I was only 22 years old.

few months later, September 2005, 1 uncle gone. Uncle Jeff. 3 cousins parentless.

many jobs, boyfriends, relationships... five years later, March 2010, 1 great aunt gone. Auntie El. sudden. shock. not again....1/2 of the table of power gone.

6 times. packing and unpacking my things and moving, 1 puppy, 5 homes, 1 engagement, 1 month later, called off. 1 ring removed. numerous therapy sessions, tears, laughs, and some more tears. November 20, 2009. 1 life altering moment. changed forever.

10 years. 10 long years. good, bad, happy, sad, frustrating, longing for familiarity again, getting there, so getting there. what a wild ride it has been.

Today I am grateful for you. for the most consistent 11 months of happiness I have ever had with another being. There will be no reunion. No need to meet with people 10 years later, the familiarity of their faces are no longer familiar. I've had my reunion. over and over again with myself and these memories, more painful than not. I am thankful for my strength, my courage, my love for myself, finally after all these years, to make myself happy.