I am grateful for my journal.  For the way it holds my heart without any judgment.  Each time I sit down to write a new story spills onto the page.  A story that I have held close but have been afraid to share.  My journal is my sacred space to release into.  It gives me the freedom to tell the truth, the whole scary truth.  

I am often surprised by the stories I am carrying around with me.  I feel as if I have let them go but then they resurface and an entirely new layer is revealed.  For survival I patch my heart up, again and again.  Tending to the immediate bleeding but sometimes not taking time to tend to the deep wound that has developed.  

Often times these wounds surface in my dreams and I turn to my journal to work through them.  The other night I dreamt of my mom sitting on my couch after recently getting through her cancer treatments and telling me that the cancer has come back and it was looking bleak.  My heart broke as these words fell from her lips.  

When I awoke I was immediately transported back to the moment that Dustin and I were standing outside of her hospital room the day she was rushed there because she was struggling to breath.  The doctor was with her so we didn't want to barge in.  He saw us standing in the hall having no idea who we were and he closed the door.  

We waited and waited in that hallway unsure of what was going on, my heart un ready for what I was about to learn.  The cancer had spread to her lungs, her liver, and possibly her bones.  What?  How could this be possible?  We had just recently celebrated her being "cancer free".  

Grief is a long and slow healing process.  

One that I deal with each and every single day in some capacity.  I keep stepping forward because I know I have to, but my heart is heavy and more often than not the tears are on the verge of spilling.  

As Dustin and I walked out of the hospital that night I quietly clung onto his hand.  "At least it is stage four" he said to me.  As those words spilled from his lips I couldn't help but chuckle.  It was obvious he had no idea that stage four was the worst and he was just trying to comfort me.

It has been a little under two years since I lost my mom and the wound runs deep.  I still can't believe that she is gone and cling to every single story that we wrote together.  I heal a little bit each day, but do not think that I will ever be fully healed.  

It is our stories that make us who we are.  We can dwell in them or we can learn from them.  In some capacity we always carry them around with us.  What story are you holding deep inside?  What words are looking to be spilled out onto the page?