Dress: Anthro Artist Rendering
Cardi: J.Crew
Oxfords: Crown Vintage
Watch: AE
Bag: Fossil
You either are or you aren't.
Touchy-feely, that is.
Maybe it's a severe personality flaw. Maybe it's just my love language, but I never quite feel like I'm effectively communicating with someone unless I'm touching them. It's a huge joke among my friends that I'm a hugger. My friend, Emilie, tells me,"I'm just not a hug person." And I always say, "Well, that's ok...but you're gonna get a hug from me anyway."
The thing is, I've learned that I don't really have to be touching someone to communicate with them. I read somewhere that true friends don't need to hold hands because they know the other hand will always be there.
Sometimes, the dialogue shared with a person far surpasses a lifetime of small hugs.
Sometimes, it's the little things that mean the most. A smile. A kind word. A gift.
And sometimes, I can sit on a porch swing with a friend just sharing the sunshine, never saying a word, and then go away feeling like that was the best conversation I'd had all day.
I don't really think the method matters as much as being aware of the countless opportunities there are to share myself...to make some connection, however brief, with others, so that in my own way, I can shine the light of friendship in my corner of the world.
Anthro Dress: Artist's Rendering Shirt: J.Crew Pumps: Nine West Bag: Vera Wang Watch: AE
Bridges are so symbolic. After losing someone you love, there's a great danger in constantly trying to go back...to stay stuck on the bridge spanning the rift of before and afterwards. It's hard to find the balance between moving forward and reconciling with what lies behind you.
When my brother died, so many people told me life would get back to normal, but for my family, our old 'normal' was never coming back--Nathaniel was gone and everything involving that relationship was missing. After the funeral, my parents and I faced the lengthy sorrow of trying to redefine how our family would function in the future, how our lives would play out from that point--even sitting down to dinner as a family was heartbreaking. Nathaniel's nonappearance was louder than our presence, and we faced the constant reminder that nothing new could ever happen between us and him.
Redefining normal is such a fluid process--the search for stable ground, an adventure. It will never be over. There will never come an exact moment when I can type my last thought, hit the print button and declare, "It's finished"...because dealing with loss doesn't necessarily get easier...it just gets different.
While my life has settled into another normal place, things will never return to the way they were while my brother was alive. When I try to take it in, the truth of it is still too enormous to grasp--knowing I'll never again find myself folded in the warmth of his hug or the thrill of his laughter.
I will never simply burn the bridge between what happened and afterwards. I will always be redefining. At each new stage in my children's lives, I reconcile with the reality that my brother will never meet them. I embrace with amazed wonder the gift of knowing him for eighteen years and worship in awe the Creator who is on my side, at work in my life, who allowed me to walk for a brief moment with such a special person.
I am constantly crossing the bridge between two extremes--remembering and appreciating the magic and mystery of being Nathaniel's sister and getting so caught up in life now that I block it out all together.
Excerpts from my up-coming book, After Nathaniel
Kristina J. Copyright 2014
