There is a familiar, uncomfortable ache that comes with growing. It is a death. A severing of your former self. 

 Crows have always held deep symbolism for me. As a child, my mother had an entire murder that she fed, much to the dismay of our neighbors. They were loud, descended on the yard like a cloud of black smoke and unapologetically took up space. We lived in the city and the crows knew that there was always a constant food source at our house so they made our place a routine hang out. I learned a lot from watching them. Years later, living in a different house, my mother found a baby crow that had fallen out of a tree and was abandoned. She nursed it back to health and cared for it until it was strong enough to fly away on its own, but it still came to visit us every now and then. That crow taught me about perseverance. 

   " When I was a boy & I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers.You will always find people helping." -Mr. Rogers

   Well hello there. It's been a while! Life has been a whirlwind for me these last couple of years and I have fallen away from my writing, so I thought I'd write a post to catch up. After working  full time really, really hard, I graduated college with an associates in human services. That degree landed me a job with an amazing, women owned organization where I get to do street outreach for individuals experiencing homelessness. I have seen and learned so much from these experiences that I could write a novel about it. More reflections on that will come in future blogs, I'm sure. 

   This month is always hard. More than one person I know lost their life to addiction in the month of August, and every year I'm forced to remember. With those memories come flashbacks of my own past, and my struggles with addiction. My story is no worse than some of the other stories I've heard in the rooms, but it certainly isn't a pleasant one. I am 15 years sober now, and looking back it's a miracle that I am here to say that. My addiction almost killed me.

   " It never goes away. It just gets a little softer around the edges."

   Some Thoughts On Hope and Gratitude