20.

I remember when we celebrated our 18th birthday. Yours was one month and a day later, but we decided to celebrate together anyway. The venue of celebration? There was no question about it...we absolutely positively had to go to Chuckie Cheese's. There was nowhere else that could embrace the fun we wanted to have. It was decided.

So there we were. Two barefoot teenagers running around together in a place meant for five year old's. We pigged out on pizza. We crawled around in the play place, laughing hysterically and throwing balls at each other. We played those silly little games with such a determination you would've thought it was for money. And when we gathered all our tickets, we happily collected our cheap prizes and carried them home like gold.

Later that night, you gave me a card scribbled with your Micah handwriting.
"I hope you never 'grow up' too much that you can't have fun," it said.

Another birthday means another year from you, another separator. I'm reminded that in a month and one day, once again you won't catch up to me in age. Stuck, like some Neverland boy. Stuck, in that 18 years. Stuck, with the thoughts you were thinking that day and the way you walked into the music room in your sandals and gray, striped shirt and the way your voice trailed off saying "I love you" before you hung up the phone.

But you were supposed to live on. And that's valid enough to carry you in my heart so that every year I celebrate my own birth I'll carry you with me in age, too. That because you can't grow up to have that fun, I'll do it for the both of us. I do it this year and I will do it every year until I'm 100 years old.

11/8/10.

Hello. I miss you.
What's wrong is that a year and seven months ago today you died. (Or something like that. Something long and awful like that.) What's wrong is that it's been even longer since I saw you alive and fully as yourself.

The 8th of any month still sticks out against the other days; a subtle reminder of Time. One month Grandma took a scissors and cut out the 8th in her kitchen calendar, leaving a future month's day shining through the empty hole.

I wish I could do that with life. I'd cut "today" out and throw it away and make sure it never happened. I'd make sure it was just another sunshiney day.

10/31/10.

Halloween was this weekend. I remember "Masquerade" senior year and having so much fun dressing up with Micah as a German couple. (OH the lederhosen! Too much to handle.) We made up this cheesy dance where I ended up sitting on his knee, then we both yelled, "ACH JA!" with awful big smiles. So much effort went into that little dance, but when we got up there we were so embarrassed that all we could do was laugh. Oh Micah, we were so fun together.

Sunday afternoons are meant for playing pick-up soccer, sitting in the sunny-grass and talking to your parents for an hour, making cinnamon rolls, doing laundry that's been sitting there for weeks, planning a "wedding" with a friend. And of course: only starting homework until 11:00 pm. Oops.

Goodbye October, you were pretty good. November, what else will you bring besides a 20th year of life?

10/25/10

I want to write more on here. I always admire bloggers that do that, write daily. I feel like I only write when super inspired...that's not necessarily bad, but it would be fun to write more casually.

I was blessed with a wonderful week and weekend. For one, my phone has been completley un-working, and surprisingly that was really nice; to get away from texting and phone calls. Second, my dorm floor continues to make me smile. Such a perfect combination of supportive friends that also know how to snap instantly into a spree of spontaneity and laughter. Sometimes I just stop and appreciate how rare and wonderful college is, to be so close with so many people, psychically and emotionally. Yes, there are reasons to complain, but overall I feel grateful that my college experience has been both meaningful and educational---for some, that's rare.

Fall Break was nice. My goal of the weekend was to 1) sleep and 2) eat. Both were more than accomplished. I think I spent 90% of the time in bed just relaxing with my cat...ha! Funny how I've always hated cats until I adopted Ramona.

Homework calls, as usual. Hope you've enjoyed this little update.

Lean on me.

I found this picture on my computer last week. My junior year of high school I visited Goshen with Micah and several other friends; a road trip to check out the college. It was at just the end of winter, with snow melting on the ground, and my sister snapped this picture as we were walking back from the Music Center---Micah and I leaning on each other, the sun illuminating our backs.

Last year in college I leaned on Micah tremendously. I held on to the identity I felt with him, the identity we had formed together, and the identity his death had given me. I needed to lean on that. It was the only way I could endure my grief and in turn survive being away from home after everything. My lens of life was solely through leaning on him, and that's how I interacted with people and the world.

Last weekend was 1.5 years since the accident. Am I still "leaning" on Micah? It's a question I've been trying to ask myself. In many ways, the pure absence of him has taught me independence of self in a way I don't think I ever would have imagined. I've found ways to incorporate his absence into my life, ways I certainly didn't have a year ago. I've been to workshops and sessions and therapy and read books and journaled and cried. I've done as much as I've can, or at least as much as I've been able to do.

And yet such a large part of him makes up my identity. A part of me that I'll never let go. A part of me that will always want to claim that Micah and I shared something wonderful but it was so unfairly, prematurely whisked away.

In some sense my transition back to Goshen has been rougher than I've imagined it would be; mostly because I feel more in a limbo of these two identities than ever before. Now that I've "worked" through my "stuff," who am I? Last year it was okay to be where I was, but now what? After a year and a half of intense grief, I'm ready to be "me" more than I've ever been before---how can I be true to that yet also honor the identity with Micah I know I'll always have? I want to be able to lean on both, proudly and confidently.