World Mental Health Day.

It is no secret, the struggles I've been having all year. While I've never completely put them on full display enough of you know the truth. Enough of you know I've just been a a never-ending brain fog all year. The heaviness has never left me since my mother died. I can't believe it's been almost a year.

My mother died. It was sudden and it was cruel in how it happened. In these 10 months, I struggled to figure out why her, why me, why that way. I’m learning to sit with the fact that those aren't answers I'll get because those aren't the questions to ask. She and I didn't have the perfect relationship and there was much we needed to unpack as I got older and hopefully her wiser. We didn't get to do that so I have all these questions and nowhere to funnel them.

Yesterday I was down badly. Thoughts of her swim through my head every hour of every day. If you SWIPE over to the last slide I think Andrew Garfield who’s also lost his mother perfectly described the grief. It is constant it is there and it's the only way I feel her some days. He doesn't know this and maybe never will but how he speaks about his mother and grief has helped me so much.

Grief is just love with nowhere to go.

I finally decided that I needed real tangible help. My mother was an organ donor and with that comes help in the form of grief counseling. I will start my private sessions soon. I go because I need guidance that no one has been able to give me. You could tell me she's with me and that you're praying until the sun doesn't shine that doesn't change that she is gone. A part of me has died. Figuring out who I am without her is not easy.

I take today for myself. I am realizing that my mind needs more work. That I'll always grieve but I'll be ok. I'll meditate. I'll read a book. I'll sit in silence. Those things help me. Today is for remembering that it is ok to feel all of this, that my mental health is important, and that I must care for it.

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Today I try. I am taking the day off. Rest. Recover. Help is coming. I owe it to that little girl in the photos above to improve.