Dear Annette,

You don’t remember this, but one day we met for the first time. I can’t remember when exactly. Maybe my senior year of high school. Maybe the summer before I went to college. I don’t remember exactly. But I was sitting in the chair at your salon and you said that I looked so happy, that I looked like a beautiful happy person.

That was the very first time I ever considered myself being anything other than sad. Was I happy? Maybe, I don’t know. But hearing you call me happy gave me a permission that I didn’t know I needed - to be happy and think of my own self as happy. People saw me as anything other than the girl with the dead brother, the girl who has struggled for years? Someone saw me as happy? I remember thinking it was comical at first. But then I remember stewing over your comment later that night and thinking “Huh, maybe I can be someone who other people call happy.”

You gave me a gift that day that helped me start to view myself differently. You and I both didn’t know how much I needed that, but thank you. I am forever grateful for that one small comment. 

Dear Elizabeth Gilbert and Big Magic,

Thank you for being the source of inspiration behind my dearest life project: this.

Thank you for teaching me what a creative life is. Thank you for teaching me how to approach inspiration, how to recognize it, how to respect it, and how to dance the most joyful, big magic dance with it.

I am forever grateful.

Thank you and I love you, your mind, and your brilliant words.

Dear death,

You and I are long lost friends, it seems. I can’t shake you. You’ve laid claim to my heart. I’ll let you live there, but only because I know your enemy, life, holds me closer and tighter than you do.

You live in the scars on my left arm, in the deepest and jagged edges of the one on my right thigh. You live in the shadows of beautifully perfect sun filled days. You live in that one brief but sad glance across the dinner table when the reminder that the circle of routine and life and perfect love was forever broken by you, dear old death.

You were never invited in, yet you’ve made it clear you’re going to live in every big moment, every ordinary moment, and every moment in between for all of the days of my life. You’re at some of your most haunting moments in those three to four joyful minutes at every wedding - when the proud and beaming and joyful mother steps onto the dance floor with her equally as proud and joyful son. You knock the breath out of us in those moments every single time. You never leave, death. Just when I think I’m escaping you, when I’m not on edge awaiting your next arrival, you spring up from the darkest depths and attack again. You threaten to do what you do best - steal my joy and my faith and my bravery and my love for this life - over and over and over again. You steal my people and my comfort. You steal good days and replace the impending days immediately after your unwelcome arrival each time with heartbreak and loneliness. You turn things and people and families I love into ghosts. You steal it all.

My mama taught me how to stare you down in the face of the moment with courage and grace, though I still have a bit of learning to do on the grace front (please don't you dare take this as an invitation for that learning to begin now, you asshole). My papa bear taught me how to give you a swift kick in the gut with a strong foot and a brave face. You may try, time and time again, but you won't win.

I'll never be thankful for you and I'll always hate you. 

Dear trains at night,

It's silly to be thankful for such a thing as you, but I am.

You remind me of one of the last nights I had with my big brother. A night that was full of his typical wild spontaneity, a night that I sat in the car beside him on the way to a middle-of-the-night Jack In The Box run thinking "How am I so lucky to have him as my big brother?"

When you come up and out suddenly through the comforting dark silence of those country nights I've come to love so, I flash back to that night. To the love and pride swelling up inside my chest for that random adventure loving brother of mine. To the complete and total fun that it was - that he was.

You make me smile every time, and every time I think of one of the last nights I had with my hero, and every time I think the same thought I had that night: ""How am I so lucky to have him as my big brother?"

Thank you, random trains at night. I really do love you.

Dear Grant,

Remember when we first met? We were both kids, but it was one of those few instances when the stars cross and everything aligns just so. One of those few instances in life when you meet someone for the first time and find that there’s already a bond between you both, one that as you both grow up together will only become stronger and more tightly coiled, one that will be threatened with different relationships, ideas, words left unspoken and words spoken aloud, but one that will always remain. Some bonds never break, and ours is one of those lucky ones.

You have always been a safe place. Just a bear hug away from comfort and protection, a note away from reassurance, a glance and a smile across the room and away from loneliness.

We'll always be two high school kids passing notes in between classes, making mixed CD's, and speaking in code. My fondness and my love for you will forever remain rooted in the uniqueness and specialness of our relationship.

Thank you and I love you.

Dear Italy,

You were the best thing I ever did for myself.

Your narrow alleyways and cobblestone streets redirected my two feet in a direction I never could have guessed. I fell in love with the world, and with you, at the bottom of the Spanish Steps in Roma. I pondered my previous choices and those exciting ones before me in the Tuscan countryside, and I felt the most alive I’ve ever felt in life amongst the streets and canals of Venice, skipping down those old streets hand in hand with a soul sister, whom you also gave me. You gave me a hunger for a different way of life, a confirmation that the soul I’d wrestled with for years was only meant for another time, another country, different people. I feverishly sketched out the columns and the steps and the citizens that make up your charm and your ways in my sketchbook, all the while feeling more and more invigorated with each stroke of that pen. I wrote my first ‘letter’ to a city while watching the locals at their daily fruit stand in Venice, not knowing that writing letters to people, places and things would indeed become my very ‘thing.’ You taught me the importance of an afternoon siesta, a lesson that I smile and giggle at each time I find myself knocking off at 2pm in the summer for a lemonade and a reading session by the pool. You taught me the direct correlation between fresh ingredients and good food and a body that feels capable, strong, and beautiful - a lesson I will forever be thankful for. You gave me so much. Mostly, a soul reborn and a place that will forever feel like some sort of home.

I'll love you forever and be thankful for you always.

Dear Fiona the Fiat,

It’s kind of silly to love a car, right? But I love you. I didn’t even know I liked cars until you. In fact, wait, I don’t like cars. But every single time I drive you something inside me opens up. You make me feel like myself. Sometimes I giggle out loud while driving down the street in you because you just feel so right. You’ve given me a sense of sureness that is silly and laughable, but damn it feels good to get pure joy from a big red and white machine. Plus, you’re just so cute.

Thank you, and I love you. 

Dear Luke,

Hey gummy bear, thank you for all of the rides to CiCi's after school. Devouring cheap pizza and too many cinnamon rolls wouldn't have been the same if we all had managed to get there in some vehicle other than that van of yours. My memories of high school and the joy and the support it brought will always contain you, and for that I'll always be thankful. Thanks, old friend. I love you.

Dear Garrett,

For the first time since Zach died, you gave me something to live for again. This was a scary feeling. I didn’t exactly want to want to live at this point, but you made it worth it for the first time since. You fought me and you taught me - more than you will ever know. I know without a doubt that you saved me from myself, that you taught me how to love, that you helped heal a few thousand broken cells. Thank you, and I will always love you.

Dear Infertility

You're hard in a million and ten thousand more ways, but one of the reasons you're so terrible is because you're so stagnant. I can't move you.

I can't outwork you, I can't try just a litttlleee bit harder for a litttllee bit longer to swing the pendulum in my favor with you, I can't will you into existence - or I guess in this case, extinction. You're also a really evil bitch, but more on that later. This is a place for my gratitude, remember?

I'm not grateful for you yet. I don't know if I ever will be. Am I grateful for death? No. But has it taught me an amount of immeasurable things that I don't think I could joyfully live my life without now? Yes. I hope I will be able to find the same message and lessons within you, and one day I'll be able to return to this page and tell you thank you.. But right now all you've given me is an empty room in a big ole house, waiting to be filled with more love than you could ever kill, an empty heart that reflects an empty womb, the worst pain since the worst day, and a spirit that has to fight every single day to believe in the future. You are the darkest part of the night, and right now I have nothing to say to you except you won't win. And also, fuck you, too.

Dear Lillian,

It happens very few times in ones life, but sometimes you meet someone and in no less than one minute you know you already deeply love this person. I loved you from the minute your loud and energetic (and beautiful) ass shook my hand. This wasn’t the best time in my life. This wasn’t when I was feeling most myself, or most confident, or most fulfilled. My days were full of fear and questioning, of dread and of exhaustion. You were the whoosh of energy that I didn’t know I was desperately in need of. You were the woman and friend I wasn’t looking for but immediately knew I would count as an influence on my life for years to come. You promised the security guard you weren’t homeless and I remember thinking “Who the hell is this girl?” You practically forced me to try on your absurdly dark Maybelline lipstick. I listened and obliged, and then you built me up in two minutes flat like the company I had been keeping at that time hadn’t done in more than a year. You sent me home with that lipstick that day, even though you said it was your current favorite Fall color. You practically shoved that tube of confidence into my hands. You may have forgotten this, but I never will. You taught me about a vital part of the woman and friend I wanted to be in that one instant. I’ll keep that tube of lipstick for the rest of my life. It’s a story and a lesson I hope to tell to my daughters over and over and over again one day. I admire you, look up to you and love you dearly. You are an incredible human being and it is a true honor to know you. 

Thank you & I love you.

Dear Mrs. Dornon,

To be honest, I'm not really sure where you came from, or why, but boy am I thankful you showed up at some point.

Your voice has been a constant one of support and of encouragement, and more appreciated and needed than you know. Thank you for the sweet comments of love and prayers, of reminding me of the ones who are proud, who are the support beams against this thing called life. Your faith in my abilities to stand again and his and His love for me means more than you can recognize.

Thank you so, so, so much.

Dear Photography

Zach always told me to “find a hobby.” How stupid is that? What kind of kid has a hobby? Why was it so important for me to find a stupid hobby in the first place? He said it’s because I sat around thinking too much. He said I needed to get out, do something and enjoy doing that something and stop thinking so hard and so much about everything. Kind of sounds spot on, huh?

Sometimes I think Zach sent you to me. Sometimes, especially in those early days, I wish I could scream up at him "Is this a hobby yet?! Are you happy with this hobby?! Is that what you freaking meant?!"

But I know I don't, and didn't, need to do that. After all these years, after abusing you, after using you, after growing tired of you, after growing tired by you, you're still the one thing I can do in this life that brings me total peace, that quiets the never ending stream of thoughts within my head.

You're still one of my favorite ways to view the world, one of my favorite ways to express my gratitude for the mighty things. Would you look at the way the light shines on that window sill? Would you look at the way Brinton cocks his head to the side sometimes? Would you look at the way the sea envelops the earth?

I'm so glad you found me and I found you. Thank you for saving my life, for giving me a purpose and a direction. I will always, always love you.