I went wrong assuming this would be life rebuilt, a slightly altered mirror image of what it already was.

Clearing out the unnecessary leftovers and making it brand new again.

This is a dedication. A recognition, a plea, a melancholic love letter, this is all the things I can't seem to say. It's cryptic and coded and in my secret language that none seem to understand.

I'm sorry. For so many things. That things have come to be as I've let them. I don't know much about destiny, or fate, but I do know that making no choice, or taking no action is a choice and an action. It surrounds the causes and effects with negative space, a haze, and perhaps good things will naturally sprout, but that's not so common. But know that I hold myself accountable, in the quiet hours when all is still and suspended in dreams, I lay and wonder at every turning point when it was still not too late or too far gone or too anything. It's possible of course that it really was over before it began, and I have tried to cast off the residues that seem to sully my every new start, but I know not how to shed them. They are tethered to me as anchors, that perhaps once saved my life and held me to the ground when my thoughts soared too close to the sun. Now even with a running start and you pushing me as you do, my little baby bird wings flap until numb and when I come to I find myself still grounded.

Thank you. For so many things. I am probably terrible at showing appreciation. I'm too awkward to say heart whelming thank you's or make poetic declarations, no matter the depths of my gratitude and admiration. And it is deep. My debt to you is growing with every second and we both know I can never repay it.

It's been hard lately to love. Maybe it was me all along. My heart is swollen, always racing, pumping too much too hard.

I really miss letting my little self out and playing with her.

The closer these things come to becoming a something the scarier it gets. Tons of what ifs and lots of buts, but mostly the dread of settling in, that period of disarray before everything finds its place, becomes comfortable. And I don't mean materially, arranging and rearranging and organizing and setting up is my absolute favorite part. It's more about the minds of the inhabitants, it's more about finding the light switches in the dark and no hesitation in your steps to the bathroom in the late, still hours of sleep times. It's about the subtle, subconscious sighs that don't even register with us anymore when we enter the door, hang our coats, slip our shoes off and drop our days. I don't want it to be a new habitat for our habits, a continuation of what is, what we are; I want it to be a vessel. Each day ushering in chance after chance for a new evolution.

What if she and I are strangers after so long apart. What if our time is forced, full of awkward silences, nostalgic glances. What if it's never an anything ever again.

Merry. Happy.

All I really hope for anymore is reincarnation. If I could have my way, I'd come back as something small, not in size but in consequence; a blade of grass, monopoly money, anything that can't betray itself. A chance to exist correctly.

Looking back to one year ago, how much smaller my kids were, how different I felt, what my days and nights consisted of. Most of the time I can't breath anymore, if I start to cry it's nearly impossible to stop. Struggle to struggle less, squirming at the thought of starting another year in this way, I want to be able to file the hardships away, so looking back I can say 2011 was a bad year and leave it all there. I still don't feel like I'm moving in any direction, time always goes faster after my birthday and before I even realize it's almost Christmas. I started a completely new sketchbook/journal today. It felt good to have sticky fingers and touch pen to paper again, it's been so long.

If I'm really honest with myself, I'd do everything differently from age 6 1/2 on. I remember the exact moment I walked in to my new room on Meyer Lane and how I felt and what I thought, all the possibilities surging through me, even so young I was always bursting out of myself.

Everything since that moment has been a disappointment. At least I'm done blaming other people.

I acknowledge my smallness, my inabilities, all the things I'm lacking, perhaps too much, to a fault. We are all just small obscure puzzle pieces waiting to be placed, to fill in a gap meant solely for us, to fill a space so perfectly and come to rest there as a part of something bigger and more beautiful; a full picture.

When things are as they are and we're constantly cleaning up the messes of others does there come a point in love when we stop keeping score? When everything blends and runs deeply intertwined, when we would no longer even consider sharing because we'd never known our lonesome selves, our singular selves. Do we ever reach a point of blindness by true love, where there are no more tallies and we can't call anymore to mind the fights of the past? Is it necessarily bad for us if we do?