I lost my girl a year ago today.

I am dying. I will be reborn, but the sorrow and pain stops me from being able to feel it. Even though finally here in Thailand, I can’t even find the strength to care.
For now.
I’ve always believed we can truly see ourselves in the hardest and darkest times, but I don’t even know how to do that at present. Like a shattered mirror in a clown house, the way I see myself is so disoriented that I’m not even sure what it is that stares back at me.
One day I will be able to see myself again. I will feel happiness and love. To give back to those who deserve it.
Just not today.
She would have been eleven on the first, but I lost her. On my mom’s birthday.
I was in a meeting in San Francisco when I got a call from the woman who hit her.
I told my sister, my whole family, not to let her out unsupervised because she’d get out again and get hit by a car.
My sister did anyway. And then we turned against each other; her, our mother and I. My sister, the golden child and me, the black sheep.
In losing Layla, I lost the love in me. My heart as well as my mind have since been full of dark and broken fragments. Absent but, as much as part of me hates the idea of opening back up, I’m sure not gone.
For a year I have not been able to feel love for anyone or anything. In so, I have lost almost all of those I held dear. The smile is still on my face and I try to put out the same positive energy, but while those around me seem to still be pulled in the same as in the past, it isn’t long before they are gone. Just like those I thought understood and were there to be permanently by my side. Gone.
But is that so bad? Of course it is, but it has also allowed me to finally let go of roots and fly free. Losing her is never someting I would have been willing to sacrifice, but I had to admit that it did lead to my finally, 16 years after the first try, moving out of the country. Well, at least to the beginning scout trip of figuring out what I want, what I’m doing and how to do it. Scouting as opposed to moving due to the unforeseen costs of a medical emergency and poisonous people stealing. Life is always so fun in those kind of ways.
Still, even on the other side of the world I can’t get away.

Sometimes we don’t know how broken we are until we start healing. I don’t know that feeling yet.
My Layla.
I am still so incredibly angry, lost and heartbroken. So full of madness at everyone and everything. For not being able to save her. For not sticking by me and understanding as promised. For not even really trying.
I had never felt alone before this.
I feel…rage, and I’m not even sure what it’s all about. I don’t know how to fix it, or even how to climb out of the darkness to try.
I don’t believe that the only ones that can save us is ourselves. I believe that it is the love of each other that does.
I will find it again. Just not today. For today, I mourn my four-legged little girl. The only family of my own I’ve ever known.

I love you Layla. And am missing you so achingly much.