A Day in the Mind of Courtney

People talk about closure like it’s a thing you can wrap up in a box. Like it’s something you eventually find, if you just search long enough or say the right words. But I didn’t get closure. I got silence. Not a dramatic goodbye.  Not a final moment filled with peace or clarity. I got a half-eaten ice cream sandwich. I got a mother who disappeared long before she stopped breathing. I got a lifetime of wondering. I still remember the way she loved Christmas. She made everything feel magical. That last Christmas, I helped set up the gifts, even though everything already felt wrong. And when I sat down to read How the Grinch Stole Christmas, I didn’t know it would be the last time I read to her while she was still breathing. But deep down, I think I did know. She didn’t respond. She didn’t open her eyes. She just… stopped. And I was grabbed before I could run upstairs. Like they were trying to protect me from myself. My silence started there. I didn’t get to fall apart in that moment...

You know what’s cool? Rereading old blog posts. A year ago, I was a shell of a person. I was existing… not living. I didn’t see the sun. I didn’t stop to smell the flowers. I didn’t belly laugh. I didn’t love life….. not the way I should have. Not the way I do now. Now? I want to get out of bed. I want to clean my house. I want to be a good mom. I want to be a good wife. I want to love life. and I do. Healing didn’t happen all at once. There were setbacks. There were days I slipped back into the shell, numb and tired and quiet. But slowly… I came back. Piece by piece. Choice by choice. Step by step.  Breath by breath. I stopped surviving and started living. I started noticing the small things the warmth of coffee, the sound of my kids laughing, the way my husband looks at me when I forget to treat myself kindly. And somewhere in all of that, I found myself again. Not the old version but someone softer, wiser, and more awake. So yeah… Rereading old blog posts is cool. Because it rem...

  I hate it here.   I hate the cracked tiles in the bathroom. The sinking floor that makes me want to crawl in a ball and cry as if that will make it better. The way the door sticks like it’s just as tired as I am. I hate the mess that I can never seem to keep up with. The endless laundry, and bottomless sink. The stains I gave up scrubbing. The corners, and shelves that collect dust like it’s their jobs,  and memories I’m not sure I want to keep. Sometimes it feels like the walls are closing in. Like the space is too small for all the emotions packed into it. Like no matter how many times I rearrange the furniture, and scrub the floors I still can’t breathe. But then again; I love it here. Because this is where my kids run to me with sticky hands and stories. Where my husband wraps his arms around me, and loves me, and always pulls me back down to earth.  Where the kitchen becomes a dance floor and the hallway a racetrack. Where I hear little feet pounding down the ...