Six months

Six months ago in the middle of the night, our phone rang and our world forever changed. It doesn't feel like it's been six months. Part of me thinks I'm still not able to feel much of anything because I'm still trying to figure out just how you're supposed to grieve.

I still have moments where I wish I could roll back the clock. I still feel powerless to fix the things that powers greater than I have deemed unfixable. I still question whether the things I choose to do or say are, in fact, the right things. I still find myself being hit by waves of sadness that remind me I'm nowhere near "done" this process. I don't think I ever will be.

Yet in some strange way, life has continued to evolve. I got a new job and threw myself into the opportunities inherent in a challenging new role at a fast-growing, forward-looking company. I started connecting with the real world again, getting out of my self-imposed writer's routine - countless hours spent alone in front of a laptop in a darkened home office - and back into a world of actual people, not ones you instant-message from the back deck.

Yet for all the new normalcy, new achievement and new potential, I still feel more than a little hollow. On the drive into work this morning - another new-to-me adventure - I turned a corner onto a rural road and saw a roadside memorial. As I made a mental note to return on my bike sometime, I connected the moment with my own need to remember. We all need to remember something, after all, and we all hope to similarly be remembered by others. Otherwise, what's the point of this life thing? Why bother if everything ends up back at nothing, as if we had never existed?

As I chewed on that nugget, the office grew larger in the windshield. I couldn't answer my questions any more effectively today than I could on a similarly grey morning in September, but I had an entire day ahead of me to make a difference in the lives of those around me. I parked the car and got started on another day where I hoped to leave a little something behind.

For now, it'll have to do.