Samira

thank you todd.
thank you kelly.
thank you lucho.
thank you carnen.
thank you andrea.
thank you ember.
thank you mateo.
thank you frank.
thank you tracy.
thank you shama.
thank you jeffrey.
thank you lisa.
also, thank you holly.

and most of all: thank you, paul.

thank you to everyone who has been present for me this past year,
which has been such a difficult, but necessary journey.

to each of you i haven’t connected with in a while: i hope we do soon.

i have learned so much about myself this past year.
i have felt more emotions than i knew i was capable of feeling.
there was a lot of fear, a lot of anger, a lot of sorrow.
there was much self-doubt & there were many lackluster days.

there has also been a lot of re-discovery & a renewed sense of joy.

i look back at some of those months & i wonder how i made it through.
how Paul made it through. how you made it through. we had a rough year, didn’t we?

but, on that faithful sunday of Kelly’s birthday weekend,
after Paul and Todd and Andrea and i stood embraced
after all the talking and all the crying and all the healing took place,
it all started to make sense again.

remembering why we all ended up amongst this group in the first place.
it gave me a sense of hope, a tremendous amount of relief, and i felt a little less jaded.

i miss Paul and our relationship more than i can approximate here with these word-things,
but i also know we had to find ourselves on our own. we both did the right thing.

i feel calmer these days. i feel more peaceful.
i am incredibly grateful for the honesty and grace you’ve all shown me.

should you ever need somebody by your side,
you know where to find me.

samira