August comes around in a flash. The living of life keeps me busy throughout the year. Work during the day, either client or my own making, and family all other times. If I'm honest, I'm a bit of hermit.
But then thank god Julie asks me, reminds me, to take the last week of August off. Time to breathe. Time to think about our girl, Tia. She would have turned 9 this year on August 31st. Another year without her.
This morning is the first day that I'm actively trying to slow my brain down. To stop it from jumping from code, to science,too problems, to anything. It's probably a problem of our era, but this week is specifically for me to slow down.
And then I can feel it, right behind my thoughts, right behind my eyes, right under my breath. That sadness of knowing we live our lives without our Tia. Somehow we carry on. Of course we carry on. The living live. Those who aren't stay still in time.
After Tia was born, after she died, during those painful months that followed, I would think about another world that she existed and we were parents to her. For a long time I could see her clearly, even as a toddler - I think maybe Ellis helped with that, he could show us what you might have done. But now. Now at 9 years on, I can't see her face. I can't imagine what she'd look like. What she'd do. I know that I'll look at other kids, teenagers and eventually young women and use them as a template of what Tia might have been. But it's hopeless too. I go around in circles in my head and get no where until I have to put the thoughts down and move along.
As I said, I can feel the sadness floating just under everything, and I hope it can come out. I have to try to find time this week to let it out a little, to let the pain and sadness breath a little. Because I know, from previous years, that come September 1st, just a mere 24 hours after Tia's date of birth, life kicks in again and time drags us all forward in its unrelenting way.
This post isn't really for anyone except for me to find words to my feelings. To take a moment for myself, and to capture, for myself, thoughts about Tia that would otherwise be quickly forgotten to the river of time.
There's a lot of shit in the world. Most nights I have nightmares (it's rare that I don't), so when I wake I feel stressed and disenchanted by the world. I know hope and happiness lives in living the moments that I have.
I know I'm not perfect and I know that I don't always practise what I know to be good. My mind is pulled in so many directions, but for what it's worth: Remy, close the laptop, turn off the phone, go sit with your kids. Go make memories. Tia would want you to.
