What is in front of you now is a response to the emotional weight of loving someone struggling with addiction.  

For a while, I believed the weight of my experiences was mine alone to carry. Through sharing my work and conversing with others, I came to understand how powerful vulnerability is. I realized that pain is not what isolates us, butis a bridge that connects, allowing us to recognize one another and aspire for a better tomorrow. 

Dusted off an old notebook that echoed a hundred tears from a couple of years. Sitting with the words like an old friend that you haven’t seen in a while, the memories reflect like light on shattered glass. A reverberation of a crisis and fears. The future didn’t seem so bright. 

I flip to a page that rang with the pain of a time when temptation got the best of someone whom I really love. _ always said I love you infinity, at the time that phrase was hard to retain.  

What a predicament to be in. If only you realized how much better off you would’ve been. Some days I believe in change, and then my heart breaks again. Oftentimes, I wonder the life she could’ve led.   

Maybe she got lost, and forgot what it was like to win. Maybe she had too thick a skin to tell us how stressed she is. Maybe she couldn’t pivot and was forced to swim, in the wild with the alligators and crocodiles. Maybe, after a while, her hopes were lost to the wind.  

I’m reminded we’re all just human in the end.  

So let's not allow the weight of our sins to take the shine off our soul’s gem. Your story is a testament to the lessons I follow again and again. Life goes on. 

Dusted off the old notebook… and closed it again. I crack a smile now knowing that everything turned out all right. It's funny how life works out.