It wasn’t me. As usual.

Mayan (Starr), Sarah (Sookie) and friends spent a recent weekend in Estes Park and went snowshoeing in the mountains. I pinched a couple pictures off of Facebook to share:

The crew! Mayan is wearing the pink hat. Sarah in the blue.

The view!

I started this blog just over three years ago. I thought that it might help me find a voice, or just speak the one that already existed but I was afraid to share, and as a desperate attempt to “get over” the death of Sunny. Cheap therapy.

So far, I don’t think that I have truly achieved either one of those goals. I do have things to say (I mean REALLY say), every day, but I don’t. I do take a stand once in a while, against hate, against intolerance, for love. As for Sunny, things are better, I feel the load lightening, but it is oh-so-very-slow.

Mostly what I have found are some awesome people who I am blessed to have met, who have shared with me, who have cried with me, who have laughed with me and shared the last three years of my daughter Mayan (Starr), growing up, experiencing college, finding her place (so far!) in this world, all with a great weight on her back. And the joy and support her friends Lexie (Skye) and Sarah (Sookie) have been to both of us.

After stumbling a bit with my erratic posting this Fall, I have decided that the blog is feeling like pressure. A should do, that is weighing heavily on me.

So, I am taking a break. A mental break. It is time to focus my “worries” on other things. Making art. My health. Finding me. Because as much as I love this blog and, even more, the connections that I’ve made, I feel like I have let “me” slide in the process.

I may become a once or twice a week blogger. I may just ditch the project right here. Or…I may come back to it seven days a week! I just don’t know. I might just post again tomorrow.

What I do know is that I am taking my mental “should” away from blogging. I am letting go of the stress of days when I have absolutely NOTHING to share!!

“I never knew that flipping your pillow during the night to get the ‘fresh’ side was something that people did.” Starr explained to me the other day.

Her friend told her about the practice while they were in Vegas for the weekend.

“I’d never flipped my pillow over before. It felt really good when I did!”

Wow. All this time!?

Was pillow flipping a skill that I was supposed to teach her? Did I fail her? Laughing, I was wondering what else I might have missed. The little things that have slipped through the cracks. Where is the parenting master list??

A recent pic of Starr and her friend Sookie, while ice skating the other night.

They are growing up all of a sudden. Starr is thinking about graduation, Sookie is student teaching…sigh. They are no longer kids.

What I have learned, is that getting over the pain of Starr’s accident and Sunny’s loss is a very long process. Longer than I ever imagined, and I am beginning to feel that I may never actually be able to push through to the other side. However, I am not in the same place that I was last year, where I was slightly better than the year before. Slightly better is good, I will accept that and continue to work on my goals to live and breathe, to smile and learn to accept.

Here is last years post:

I just reread last years End of the Year/New Resolution post. Among other things, I said:

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions as a rule. Setting myself up for failure is something that I try to avoid. I believe that life is about learning and growing, fixing, changing, laughing, and loving…all the time. I try to make it a constant effort and avoid tying it to a specific day.

However, this year, today…not tomorrow…I am going to make a more conscious effort to allow myself to breathe, to live, to accept that I can’t fix this. To stop taking on everyone’s pain as my own. I have enough. It serves no purpose, it really doesn’t relieve them of any of their grief or suffering, it only adds to mine.

And to smile more and mean it!

Yes, Sunny is still on my mind each and every day. I miss her. I think about and send love to her family daily as well, as they still and will always carry the loss of their beautiful daughter. There are days that it catches up with me more than others, but I do think that I have moved forward in positive ways.

I do smile and laugh more and I definitely mean it!!

So, for 2010, I plan to continue…learning, growing, living, laughing, being silly, loving and healing. And I want to make more art.

Starr and Sunny, being silly, Summer 2005

mp3: “Raindrops” – Grand Hallway
“Oh the sound of life, oh the sound of love”
“Oh the sound of change, oh the sound of starting”
Buy it here: Promenade
Grand Hallway-MySpace