0x66fF8F288C413e61c8Ee807088Ce301C03076e6EI regret turning away from you.
Releasing you to the enemy and allowing others to step on your name when I knew you clearly needed help.
I regret not calling you when the universe told me to a week before.
I regret more than anything in my life- seeing your missed call after you died.
It broke me. Completely.
You were screaming for help and no one was there for you.
On the night you died, you were backed into a corner, alone and frightened.
Asking for death.
I told you I would be there for you no matter what, I wasn’t.
I thought I was helping you.
I thought others were there for you.
I thought it was making you stronger.
God fucking dammit I was wrong.
You were born into pain
I thought you were used to it.
But life left you so broken and I was too fucking stupid to see it.
I regret watching the video of your death.
I will never be able to unhear your voice
Your tone.
Your fear.
You had always been the strongest person I knew and to learn that your strength came from those you kept around you, is a haunting truth I don’t think I will ever be able to reconcile with.
I regret not reaching out more to Ethan after you died. I was so caught up in my own pain that I let him slip away too. He overdosed in the morning, 4 months after you died.
Like losing my little brother I’ve known my whole life, even longer than you.
My heart shattered yet again.
Asking God why them? I felt I deserved to die in their place.
I regret letting these things affect my relationship with my wife and 2 daughters for almost a year.
I was a shell of a human being.
I could not be who they wanted me to be, at least not consistently.
It almost destroyed us.
It took every fibre of my being to stand up and fight to find my way back to myself.
Those three were there for me. They held me when I was weak and I will spend the rest of my life living to honor them for that., the same way I will live for Jared and Ethan.
***
We may not be able to go back and change the things we regret, but we can allow ourselves the grace to continue on for those who no longer can.
We all have proof of regret,
We live with it everyday-
It only defines who we are if we lay down.
Keep pushing forward.
Love you.
0x66fF···6e6EWe moved house many times before I turned 8 years old.
As a kid, its hard to articulate the feelings that come up when going through big changes like moving. The world you know as a kid is your rock. The routines, familiar faces and the security of knowing where you stand in the world. When that daily flow of life is interrupted and changed - you quickly realize that its not just a new place you have to call home, its a new school, new friends (again)- its all encompassing.
By the 3rd move, you are completely desensitized to the entire process. You know the drill. The pain and unresolved feelings of insecurity are replaced with phrases like "this is our fresh start" and "you'll be fine, we've done it before".
Even when we moved country (Canada to the US), I was given the same fortune cookie type sentiments of "everything will be okay" and "we must embrace this new experience".
They were the bandaid solution placed over a wound I would not acknowledge until much later in life.
My struggle with crippling insecurity would be misidentified throughout my entire childhood into adulthood. When big changes came up, I'd fall into states of panic, heavy depression, self loathing and misunderstood pain. As if every bad thing that happened or will happen to me or the people I loved was somehow my fault.
Empty Nests is more than color, words and abstract shapes, it is the wound I am still healing to this day.