#TWM...

"Doesn't matter how tough we are, trauma always leaves a scar. It follows us home, it changes our lives...trauma messes everybody up. But maybe that's the point. All the pain and the fear and the crap. Maybe going through all of that is what keeps us moving forward. It's what pushes us. Maybe we have to get a little messed up before we step up." -Alex Karev

Advice Is Like Snow...

"Advice is like snow-the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon and the deeper it sinks into the mind." -Unknown

It snowed tonight. It was the first of the season. The wet, sticky kind that would stick if the earth were cold enough to let it. Instead it melted as it hit the pavement. I was at work talking with my GM and a few other employees when I noticed the flakes falling outside. For the very briefest and fleeting of moments I thought about the silence that seems to befall the world when it snows. It's as if all the night's noises are muffled by the pillow of snow. And then I thought about how the most audible of sounds at that time is the splash of cars' tires as they push their way down the road through the slush. That led me to thinking about endless months of cold and wet and blah. All these thoughts passed through my head in seconds...then I reached for my phone to call you. My hand didn't even make it half way to it before I stopped and remembered you wouldn't answer.

On my way home from work an hour later, I called you anyway, like I do every year. Even though I knew you wouldn't answer, I just wanted to hear your voice on your message. And then it hit me. I haven't cried in a while when remembering you. I think of you every day and I miss you all the time. And it often makes me sad. But I haven't cried. Tonight I did and it was overwhelming.

I miss you, Dad. Sitting here typing this, I am thinking about all the memories I have of you that involve snow. Sledding at the Prior Lake house down that big ass hill, then later at VA when we were older. I can remember you teaching me to make snowballs. I can still see your hands packing the snow together, showing me just how it's done to create the ultimate sting. I remember all the times you'd arrive home from work and my brother and sister and I would be too consumed in building snowmen to notice you'd pulled in the driveway. It wasn't until we were being ambushed and bombarded with snowballs that we even realized you were there.

I have always felt like I have this empty place in my heart, Dad. When you died it quadrupled in size. I have no idea how to begin to close that hole. I know I'll never fill it, but I think repair is possible, to some extent. The thing I find myself missing most often are our talks. Never very long, but always so full of thought, love and honest advice. I miss talking to you everyday, multiple times a day, more than anything I've ever missed. Sometimes I miss our talks as much as I imagine I would miss my right arm if I suddenly lost it in some tragic turn of events. This last 2 days alone I have wanted YOUR advice and thoughts on things at work, at home with the kids, men in my life, my car, future education I may one day seek more enthusiastically...the list continues.

My life will probably never be the same. I can't honestly say it would be more bearable had you died as an old man instead of the young one you were. I think I would still feel the same things as deeply as I do and with as many years between your death and now. I can't stop missing our talks. I love you, dad. And I miss you. All the time.

I Don't Make ANY Sense These Days...

I always wanted to be THAT woman that THOSE men fell in love with. You know the girl. Like Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's. The one with those quirky-awesome personality traits that she doesn't even realize she possesses. I wanted to be smart and witty and irrestitably mysterious and never realize how amazingly beautiful I was. The woman men like Billy Joel write about. The fact of the matter is, I am so not Audrey Hepburn or Christie Brinkley. I always thought I would have a man like Richard Gere in Pretty Woman.

Wait. Wait. WAIT. Backup. I am not comparing 2 hookers to the woman I wanted to be and that's just wrong. I didn't want to be a hooker. I just...I guess I always had this view of who I was going to be and who I was going to be with in my head. When I made the decision to divorce my husband and make a new, better life for myself I saw myself finally growing into the form of this woman I had been aspiring to be for so long. And then I saw myself with a man that saw and appreciated all that growth and struggle and journey I had been on to become her. I thought that I would meet a few men, hate their lack of things I knew I needed or wanted, become bored and move on.

I didn't think I would meet someone immediately that listened to what I said, admired me when I was doing simple things. Someone that saw me as all the things I wanted to be seen as and did it in such a way that you never once thought he was anything but genuine and sincere in his actions and thoughts.

The horrible part of it is that I met that man and I am too damaged and too lost in a horrible sea of self laothing that I can't be for him all the things I wanted to be. I need time to be independent. Time to take care of myself. Time to date and learn and be so sure of everything I want in a man that when I see it staring me in the fucking face I do everything I can to keep it and him in my life. I need to live alone (with my kids, obviously, but apart from a man). I need to see myself as all the things I always wanted to be (or at least appreciate the woman I am, regardless of who exactly that woman may be) and then I can maybe be enough for someone else.

What I defintely do not want is to be the woman that defines herself by the man she's with. I am not her. But I want to be the woman a man hopes to define himself through.

#TWM...Letting Go...

"It's one of those things that people say, you can't move on until you let go of the past. Letting go is the easy part, it's the moving on that's painful. So sometimes we fight it, try and keep things the same. Things can't stay the same though. At some point, you just have to let go. Move on. Because no matter how painful it is, it's the only way we grow." -Meredith

#TWM...Life is a gift. Accept it...

Your life is a gift. Accept it, no matter how screwed up or painful it seems to be. Some things are going to work out as if they were destined to happen. As if they were just meant to be. -Meredith

March 1st will mark 3 years since I lost my dad, the man that was the rock in my life, to leukemia. The very last thing he said to me, just hours before he died was, "Life has a funny way of working out, KB." At the time I thought he meant 'funny' as a bad thing. His way of referring to the fact that he was indeed going to die, despite the extraordinary efforts put into saving his life. I now believe differently. I believe now, after 3 very painful years where I have made so many mistakes-mistakes I now know were necessary for my growth into a better, more mature, more thoughtful and reserved person-I believe now that what he meant was despite all the horrible fucking things that happen in this life, happiness is still possible. After moving on, healing and becoming whole again, happiness DOES exist. It can exist in even the most cynical of hearts and minds.

I believe that good or bad, all things happen for a reason and I believe what you gain in the end of it all is definitely a positive. Always a positive, even if you don't see it. Because some things? Some things work out as if they were just meant to be.

TWM...Double Whammy...

So last week I slacked off and didn't make a TWM post. Here are 2 good ones to make up for last weeks super-slacker-ness. Both of them definitely describe a good part of my life lately, too. Happy Thursday!

When we're headed toward an outcome that's too horrible to face, that's when we go looking for a second opinion. And sometimes, the answer we get just confirms our worst fears. But sometimes, it can shed new light on the problem, make you see it in a whole new way. After all the opinions have been heard and every point of view has been considered, you finally find what you're after - the truth. But the truth isn't where it ends, that's just where you begin again with a whole new set of questions. -Meredith

Ask most surgeons why they became surgeons and they usually tell you the same thing. The high. The rush. The thrill of the cut. For me it was the quiet. Peace isn't a permanent state. It exists in moments. Fleeting. Gone before we knew it was there. We can experience it at any time, in a stranger's act of kindness, a task that requires complete focus or simply the comfort of an old routine. Everyday we all experience these moments of peace. The trick is to know when they're happening so that we can embrace them, live in them. And finally let them go. -Derek

TWM...Recovery...Starting Over...

The length of your recovery is determined by the extent of your injuries. And it's not always successful. No matter how hard we work at it, some wounds might never fully heal. You might have to adjust to a whole new way of living. Things may have changed, too, radically to ever go back to what they were. You might not even recognize yourself. It's like you haven't recovered anything at all. You're a whole new person with a whole new life. -Meredith