I haven’t written in quite some time. Well, actually, just a few weeks but when riding an emotional roller coaster a few weeks feels like an eternity. I’m not really sure why I’ve been absent. It isn’t due to a lack of things to write about, anyone who knows me will tell you I rarely fall short when it comes to words, but it almost seems to be the exact opposite. I think I have too much to say. Lately, it feels like I have too much to write about, too many thoughts spinning tirelessly in my head seem to be getting tangled up in one another until they become so tightly intertwined that I have difficulty separating them and sorting through them piece by piece. On any given day I can go from feeling pure contentment and happiness to breathless anxiety and panic in a matter of a few minutes. I’ll think about writing an update, or continuing to tell the details of Ava’s story but then I find myself preoccupied with an entirely new emotion, new storyline, new thought, and I am too overwhelmed to type a single word. Sometimes the enormity of what I want to express is crippling, and instead of tackling it head on and just writing about it I choose to shut down and do nothing. Sometimes I choose to stay silent.

People have commented on and commended me for being “raw” in my writing but I don’t know how “raw” it truly is. I don’t simply have a thought and then announce it to the world via blog. I have a thought and then I think about it over and over and over again. I roll it around in my head, smoothing out the jagged edges, making sense of it all as I type it out, editing until it becomes a polished token which I am ready to share with you. Each blog post requires that I focus on one particular story or topic or emotion and I’ve been too tangled up inside to find the energy to sort through it all. Or truth be told, I’ve been investing that energy elsewhere. I’ve been investing my energy into living my life.

Over the last few months, I have taken on more work and personal projects than I realistically have time for. The idea of working towards a goal has not only kept my mind otherwise occupied but has also given me a plan for my future outside of my identity as a mother. For the first time in my life, I have actually created a list of things I want to accomplish in the next year. It feels good to take the time to recenter myself and rediscover the new person I am becoming, and I feel myself changing every day. I’ve really focused on making some positive changes in my life and over the last few weeks I’ve started to feel more like my grief is becoming a part of the sum of the whole that is me instead of simply defining me. And while I still have moments of intense and overwhelming grief, I am slowly learning to hold Ava in my heart without letting her consume it.

I have been silent on my blog for a while but know that I am still here. I am more than here, I am living. I will continue to share the final details of Ava’s story and I will continue to write about my journey through my grief, but at the same time, I am going to continue living. I have already seen tremendous growth in myself over the past eight months and I know there is so much more to come. I’m looking towards the future with hope and excitement, ready to face anything that 2017 has in store for me.