It has been 3 months.

It feels like it was yesterday, and at the same time it feels like it was years ago.  Mornings are still the roughest time of day… and Sundays are still the actual roughest day.  Some people still look at me a little funny… but for the most part… it’s become business as usual.  Only, it really isn’t business as usual… and it never will be again.

Ten days ago I was on the phone with Pudding, and as usual she recounted what happened that day six years ago still in awe of it all.  She reminded me that I had been listed as “missing” for about 9 hours that day… and that the person who came home at three in the morning that night covered in white chalky dust was not the same person she dropped off in a blue uniform.  Of course, I’d heard this all before and have been acutely aware of it.  Then she asked me, “How do you keep standing with everything that has happened?”

When she asked me, I really didn’t have an answer.  How do I keep standing through all of this?  How will I keep standing through today?  How will I keep standing through Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years?  How will I keep standing in February when DJ‘s birthday rolls around and he SHOULD be eight?  How will I keep standing when the circus comes to town again?

Love.  That’s really the only explanation to any of it that I could come up with.  How else are we, as humans, able to cope with such pain other than through love.  My family gives me the strength through their love… and by being there in the darkness of the morning.  My friends give me the strength through their love… and by being there on those dark nights.  All the times in between… when no one else is there… it is all of you who give me the strength through your love.  From you its 24/7/365, and that is something I am so grateful for because my moments of extreme weakness don’t always happen at the most convenient of times.

I’m really not looking forward to anything other than a potential hurricane.  I usually like the holidays… but I’m really not feeling them at all this year.  I don’t think I can really do them… so I think I’ll probably skip them.  I’ll work or something.

First though, I need to get through today.

Oh, and Dana rawks.  Serious ‘s for the awesome video.