Surviving NY Comic Con

As a semi veteran of the NY Comic Con I wanted to share my survival tips for those who are going to the con for the first time or who are looking to do it on the cheap.

Prior to the con I highly suggest getting a backpack that has a chair that can fold out. You will be waiting outside and this will SAVE your legs/feet and allow you to do more throughout the day. Also pack food and bring a water bottle. Make sure you have snacks (trail mix and apples are a favorite of mine) and make sandwiches that you don't need to keep cool all day. PB&J all the way! I cannot stress how much this will save you on money and time. Water is around $4-$5 a dinky bottle. Forget that! Bring a refillable water bottle because by all the bathrooms there are water fountains. Now if that is what water costs you can imagine how much the food costs. A slice of pizza will make you cry unless you are being bank rolled by Bill Gates in which case buy a whole tray and share it with me. I also tend to pack more food than what I think I might need because I would rather go home with an extra sandwich than murder someone in a hangry moment.

Here I am as a very tired Hermione.

Now when you are choosing your foot wear choose CAREFULLY!!! I cannot stress this enough. Do not buy new shoes without stretching them out. This is not a drill, you will want to die. Now if you are cosplaying there is little that can be done based on what character you have chosen. I always go with someone I know has sensible foot wear because I see so many ladies with heels on who half way through the day their legs are shaking. That is just not the experience I want. Last year I was Kaylee from Firefly and this year I was Hermione from Harry Potter. If you are going to be wearing heels pop those bad boys in your bag until your about to hit the floor. You do not need to navigate NYC with them on as well. Do not worry about looking silly or weird wearing sneakers with your cosplay, you're dressed as Harley Quinn. Someone already thinks you're deranged. I would also suggest getting those shoe inserts and if you are going for multiple days perhaps do not cosplay everyday especially if this is your first con.

The day of con if you want to see any panels, get there no later than 630am. Now Sabrina, they don't even start letting people into the building until 8 or 9 am depending on the day and then the con doesn't actually open until 10am so why should I get there so damn early? Well my dears if you want to see a panel suck it up buttercup. Some of the panels are ticketed. You will not know which ones until you show up that day. You then have to sit in line for them and they do sell out. And those freebees you see people with? If you want those you had better hit the show room floor EARLY! You go to the right booths and you get free totes, backpacks, tshirts, pins, books, food, makeup ect. There is no reason that you should be walking out of this con without some free swag. You will also want to check the weather, bring a collapsible umbrella, gloves, hat and an appropriate jacket. That backpack with a built in seat also comes in handy if it rains. You can still sit down for those hours.
  For panels that are not ticketed, you will want to show up about an hour prior to it starting to get in line. I am not joking. If the person at the door offers to let you sit in on the panel that is going on, do that. You'll probably see a cool panel that you never would have and you either already have or will have access to gaining a better seat for your panel. If there is someone on the panel who isn't doing an autographing session, head up to the front once the panel is over, they are usually super awesome about talking with fans, signing autographs and taking pictures. This past con I met Captain Planet and Ed Asner that way. That was also free.




Always check the schedule the week of Con and figure out what panels you want to go to and see when you have open pockets of time to go to the show floor or artists alley or check out the cosplayers. There should never be a moment where you are bored. You will be tired to the point where when you sit down you start to fall asleep but never board. Planning is a very important aspect of con. Also understand that people are going to bump into you and you're going to bump into them. Spaces get packed throughout the day, specifically the show room. The floor is HUGE. It usually takes me two days to cover it all. And if you are a wrestling fan they usually have about 5 wrestlers scattered throughout the show room (although usually they're on the right side of the floor area away from the Block but not always).  You can get your picture taken and an autograph with them, for a price.  This year I met the King and saw Ric Flair, Hacksaw, Million Dollar Man, Mick Foley, Noelle Foley, Animal and Jimmy Hart. Mick Foley was there two years ago too but he is the only reoccurring one I have seen.

Overall, stay hydrated and be prepared to sit in some lines. It'll all be worth it though in the end, I promise. I would also recommend bringing a portable game system or a book for when you're sitting in said lines. I read three books this past Con alone. I hope this list helps and if you have any further questions please don't be afraid to ask in the comments!

My Mom's Eulogy

I was asked about a year ago if I wouldn't mind sharing my mom's eulogy. I, of course, took my sweet time with this request. I thought about editing this for many reasons. One being that it is written to be spoken, not read. And the bigger reason, it still feels unfinished. But I understand that I could write and rewrite this for the rest of my life and it would never seem finished. I could never capture the person my mother was with words and so I have left it as is. Written the week after my mother died, it is raw and real. Here it is:

Since they told me that my mom was dying I've been trying to find the right words to even come close to describing the kind of person my mother was and it hasn't been easy. There just doesn't seem to be words to accurately describe the woman who not only brought me into this world, but supported me through every decision I made, even when those decisions were about her health. She nursed me through every heartache, tucked me in at night and always made sure that I KNEW I was unconditionally loved. And that's just some of what she has done for me. And while I don't believe there are words to really do my mom justice, I'm going to try my best to find them. I owe her at least that much.
My mom wasn't just a great mom, she was a wonderful friend. She never allowed anyone to suffer a hardship by themselves. If there was something she could do to help, she would. Thinking back to when I was in high school, there were always people at our house. My friends knew that it was a safe place for them to come, and it's no wonder that so many of my friends ended up calling her "mom" as well.
And no one can talk about my mom without mentioning how much she loved animals. She not only rescued animals but she often times rescued ones that nobody else wanted. Either because they were too old or had been abused and needed extra love to get them back to a place where they could trust people again.
My mom's biggest fear, other than death, when she was diagnosed was that everyone would forget about her. That no one would come see her in the hospital and that she would fade out of existence without anyone ever noticing. I am very pleased to say that wasn't the case. Somedays my mom had more visitors than she knew what to do with. She was so very touched to just have people come by and sit and talk with her. Those visits allowed her to to keep on living even when her body was dying. Mom was still cognitive at the end and in her last days, although her responses were difficult and at times impossible for her to make she was still able to understand everything. So my mom was able to leave this world knowing how much she's loved, which not many people get. And I want to thank everyone who come to talk to her while she was ill and for all the phone calls and letters that were sent to her. She cherished everyone of them and everyone of us.
My mom had a lot of love to give and I am so lucky that I was the recipient of most of it. It's that I'm going to miss the most. Even the small things like her talking to me on the phone at 3am as I drove to and from Connecticut. Her constantly wanting to me ler her know I had arrived safely when on a trip and that I made it back home safe. I still can't imagine a future without her. I honestly won the lottery when it came to moms because I couldn't have had a better one. In her final days I was able to tell her how proud I am to be her daughter. Children often hear from our parents that they're proud of us but we rarely think to tell them that. And I am so glad I got to spend the time with her that I did. Even though I'll always feel it was cut far too short.

Twenty Nine for 29

Hello my neglected blog of mine! I'm not big on New Years Resolutions but I am a fan of something my friend Stef turned me onto, goals based on how old you are. This past week I turned 29 so this year as the title suggests I came up with 29 goals for myself to accomplish by the time I am 30. One of the items on this list was to blog again regularly (and perhaps even edit what I have written before posting it*gasp*). This being said I thought the best way to kick off my return to #poundsign would be to give you my list and share this fun idea with you. The goals can be anything big or small as you will see.

Here is my 29 for 29.

1) Read 50 books in one year
2) Learn sign language
3) Blog again
4) Plant a garden
5) Volunteer more often
6) Do the Rocky Run
7) Complete at least 3 Penn Foster Programs
8) Stop picking at the skin around my fingers
9) Improve credit score
10) Win competitive book club (you can refer to an earlier blog post for what a competitive book club is)
11) Get another tattoo
12) Do a Christmas or Turkey run
13) Visit Jasmine
14) Visit Deanna
15) Visit Amy
16) Get a proper garage door
17) Keep my car clean
18) Do yoga at least 5 times a week
19) Clean out garage
20) Get the pool working
21) Get back into theatre
22) Do at least 10 runs
23) Complete all Hogwarts Running Club runs to get a Perfect Perfect Pin
24) Finish my library
25) Fix up the patio
26) Do a cross country road trip
27) Learn to shoot a gun
28) Be more responsible with money 
29) Be a better friend



So that's how you do it! I've been doing these lists since I was 26 and I always enjoy it, even if I don't complete everything on this list. I usually do at least half. It's nice to look back at a list of things you accomplished in a year and see also how you have changed. Sometimes half way through the year I don't even want to do something that is on the list anymore and that's okay. We change as people and it's neat to see that. Don't worry if your list is vastly different from mine, it should be! No two lists should match. If you decide to go ahead with this idea yourself please let me know if this was something you enjoyed. Give yourself perhaps a month once you're into your mid twenties to come up with these ideas and try to realistic and have fun with it!

The Sanctity of Friendship

As we come into adulthood it becomes more difficult to make and maintain friendships. In an effort to increase communication between myself and a few friends who live across the country, we have started mailing each other hand written letters. I first got the idea when one of my best chums did a six month stint in Wisconsin on an organic farm for what I call an artistanship because I cannot remember the correct term for what she won. These are coveted spots where artists get to work on their crafts which is wonderful, however, she was on a  farm in the middle of Wisconsin and cell phone reception was what you would expect. Thus we dusted off the old quills and inkwells and went to work! The joy one gets when they receive a piece of mail that is not a bill and or junk asking you to join AARP when you're in your 20s. (Whomever does their mailing lists should really consider entering another line of work) is exactly like I remember as a child. I enjoyed writing and receiving these letter so much and found it was a great way to keep in contact with someone who was not in your time zone I decided to add to my writing circle. I now have two different friends that I exchange letters with and I get overjoyed when I see one in my mailbox! Emails are never this exciting. It's great getting to laugh aloud while reading. My one friend, let's call her Katie because Katie is her name, when I first proposed this idea thought that I was bat shit insane but being Katie was up for this bizarre request. It did not take long before she agreed that this was a wonderful idea and even greater her husband is now jealous that she receives such fun mail! Success! I also feel like we are doing our patriotic duty by keeping the postal service in business.

On writing my latest letter to Katie, which I popped in the mail today -Katie this is your que that if you are reading this you must now stop until you read the letter!!!- that I remembered a funny story to write to her and thus started the idea for this blog post. I stopped by a friend's house and they asked me to try some this tea. I love tea but by the way he offered this tea I was mildly concerned: "Sabrina you must try this tea, if you do not like it I will give you a new tea of your choosing but first you must try this" I didn't really agree because it was clear there was little way out of this tea-dicament so I just accepted my fate- hoping that he loved it so much that he felt all should try. But something in his voice told me that was not going to be the case. As the mug was placed before me it was explained that it was a "savory" tea and that's when I looked to my other friend whom I remember warning me of this filth. I sniffed the aroma coming off of the curious tea and it smelled of celery. "I like celery" I thought "Perhaps it's just not something all gravitate towards". That's when I took a big mouth full of what tasted precisely like boiled dirt. At this I began questioning my choices in friends-these two are far too close to my own evilness. I am totally that person that when I taste something gross I tell everyone around me "taste this!". Case in point, when I came back from Australia I brought back Vegemite for my loved ones to try, I even brought it to the family reunion. That's what family is for after all, making someone suffer as you have. No? That's just mine? Moving on. I continued to drink the boiled dirt aka crushed up broccoli, cilantro, carrot, celery and a bunch of other earthy veggies that have no business being in tea. I was convinced that something that tasted like that had to be good for you right? About halfway through the tea they also said "Oh that tea also gives you terrible gas". Thank you friends for telling me this now. I decided at that point, healthy or not, I was not going to knock us all out with the contents of my butt. Shortly thereafter I said my adieu and wondered what I had done to wrong them so.

This brings me to another story of tea-rrible times. A former roommate of mine bought a box of tea from the Christmas tree shops. The box was completely written in Chinese so she didn't really know what she was getting but $1 for a box of tea is a pretty good deal especially for a broke graduate student tea addict. A few days later she began to get sick so she made herself some of this tea to help make her feel better. Everyone knows tea=miracle cure. The sicker she felt the more tea she drank. Well after a few days of her diarrhea getting increasingly worse she finally realized the only new element was this tea. Time for Google. Luckily her laptop could travel with her to the toilet where she had been living for the past 48 hours. And once she typed in the tea the word "laxative" appeared on the screen. This made her the first person to use tea as a weight loss system, albeit against her will.

My dear readers if you are still with me after what started out as a great way to communicate with friends and then literally ended up in the shitter I appreciate you. For those who abandoned this post they'll get theirs. They'll never know now to avoid heavily discounted tea. The deal is far too good to be true friends. These folks have now doomed their intestinal tracks because they would not read my tea-rrifc blog post. Just goes to show you can't save them all.

We Lost the 9th Wonder of The World

After yesterday’s post I was deeply shocked that the first thing I saw when I woke up this morning was one of my colleagues asking me if I was going to come into work today following the news of Chyna’s death. I quickly checked her Instagram, which I mildly stalk, and was devastated that she had indeed passed. At this point they are not sure what happened and I will not speculate. I only hope that she died peacefully and knew on some level that she was loved by many. I also did go into work by the way. 

I think the one word that sums up my feelings on Chyna’s death is anger. She deserved so much more recognition than she got from the WWE for everything she contributed. I am glad that Stephanie McMahon tweeted about her death and called her a pioneer. Chyna spent so much of her life in recent years trying to mend fences with the WWE, be acknowledged by them and inducted into the Hall of Fame. It seems bitter sweet that they are only now acknowledging her contributions and star power. I hope that they induct her into the Hall of Fame in 2017. I feel like I may riot otherwise.

Chyna pictured below with her Women's Championship belt and below that she is pictured with the WWE IC Championship. She was the first, and so far the only,  woman to ever hold that belt.

What Culture has done a fantastic job paying tribute to her and her career today and I will include the link to their video Thank You Chyna because they say it all so perfectly. I am so beyond blessed that I was able to meet her when I did. Chyna had an incredible influence on my life and dazzled me with how strong women could be. There will never be another Chyna. #ChynaHallofFame2017

This Feminist's Guilty Pleasure

I thought to shake off my rust in blogging I'd return to the root of why I started blogging; feminism. This led me to thinking about my guilty pleasure as a feminist. I think it is time that I confess to the masses, I LOVE Pro-wrestling, specifically WWE's brand. This has always shocked everyone who has ever known me. And while there are some serious black spots on WWE's history, as far as their treatment and use of female talent goes, I cannot help but love the overall product just the same. And I was overjoyed when they announced at Wrestlemaina that they are returning back to the Women's Championship and have retired the Diva's championship. The women they have wrestling today, for the most part, are seriously badass wrestlers NOT the atrocious "we never learned how to wrestle or never watched it growing up" divas we had been subjected to for almost a decade (With a few exceptions like Natalya who struggled through having matches with opponents who didn't know what they were doing).

 Thankfully women like her soldiered through and saved the division. Even the Bella Twins learned how to wrestle properly. And that is why that ridiculous Brat's accessory of a belt had to be replaced by one that looks respectable. Pictured above is Natalya with the old Women's Championship and the Diva's belt- I'm not kidding. That's the Diva belt. But let me backtrack a little.

Growing up I wanted to be one of four women, Xena Warrior Princess, Cher, Buffy and Chyna. Now two of those women are fictional and have aspects of superhuman abilities. And well, I also cannot sing. So by process of elimination I realized I could aim to be like Chyna who during the Attitude Era of wrestling was seriously paving the way for women in wrestling. She held the Intercontential Championship and was in the Royal Rumble. She fought the guys and looked like she could do some serious damage. I was in awe of this real life Xena. I bought her fitness VHS with the hopes of having some serious guns like her (Side note: Chyna Fitness is probably still the best workout I have ever had in my life with kickboxing being a close second). Chyna’s time was cut short in the WWE by personal issues, bad things happen when your live in boyfriend starts dating and then marries the boss daughter. And from there Chyna wound up on celebrity rehab, porn and being abused by fellow wrestler X-poc(whom I always disliked and this gave me proof positive that he is indeed an a-hole). All of that effectively broke my fangirl heart. I met Chyna a few months ago at an autograph signing. I am a 28 year old woman and I nearly burst into tears when I met her because meeting ones idols is INTENSE. I managed not to cry but could barely spoke for fear of embarrassing myself. How do you tell someone “OMG I WANTED TO BE YOU!?!?” without sounding like an insane person as an adult? You can’t. I will say that she was incredibly nice, and she signed my book on the outside and the inside and took a picture with me. And when I say she was nice, I mean she signed my book that was from her time with the WWE and she has very negative feeling towards the company for their treatment of her when she was let go and after. She was also so much smaller than I thought she would be. I have come to find that wrestlers usually are. I definitely just see them as larger than life and so meeting them is so weird size wise.

With Chyna gone there were still a variety of badass such as Jacqueline, Ivory, Trish, Lita, Molly Holly and Victoria who kept the womens division interesting and provided fantastic matches on the level of their male counterparts. Then something happened. These women started retiring or were let go from the company and the women that replaced them were not trained wrestlers. They were simply there to be sexy and when they got into the ring it was painful to watch. Women's wrestling hit a serious decline and during this period I really stopped watching because even the woman who was left, Lita, what they turned her career into was sickening to me(ring side TA-no wrestling). I’d still catch matches and watch the big PPVs, the men in the WWE were still highly entertaining (most of the time) with talents like John Cena, Randy Ortin, Daniel Bryan, Y2J, Edge, Booker T, Kane, Taker, HHH, CM Punk, Dolph Ziggler and Wade Barret just to name a few. I am actually wearing a John Cena shirt as I write this and to all the Cena haters out there, I got two words for ya: SUCK IT. Those 5 moves of doom are entertaining as hell. Moving on.
We have since seen a revamping of the women's division due to NXT and perhaps HHH and Stephanie, although I am not 100% sure on that. Stephanie was a former Women’s Champion herself and I always enjoyed it when she would wrestle and still do. She’s literally a billionaire and did not need to learn how to wrestle but she did and in my opinion she does it well. Her brother Shane O’Mac even with 10 years of ring rust is still one of my favorites to watch in the ring. I don’t know if it’s that little dance/skip he does down to the ring or the crazy ass shit he is willing to do (see match with Kurt Angle where he is thrown through glass and almost legitimately breaks his neck-it was supposed to be made of sugar glass but someone messed up and put the real deal there and Shane nearly died as a result especially since he insisted on being suplexed through until the real Plexiglas broke #badass). I also believe the bring about of the PG era helped women's wrestling. It’s not PG to have a sex celebration, bra and panties matches or whatever other disgusting ideas were thought up. Another side note: when I watched wrestling as a kid, I would do so with my Dad. Ever watch a bra and panties match with your Dad when you’re 13? No? Well I have. It wasn’t exactly a bonding moment. More like neither of us knew what to do and it was awkward as hell. Thanks again Vince, I’ll be sending you my therapy bill. Also is it any wonder that my Dad did not want me to be a pro-wrestler after that?
I saw my first live event when I was 17. I went with a car full of my guy friends and I will never forget it for a few reasons. 1. The backseat did not have any seat belts so it was decided that I would sit in the middle with the two fattest guys(who were very overweight) so that if we crashed hopefully I would be so squished I wouldn’t fly out the front window and I’d have padding on either side of me. I don’t think that would have worked for the record, but I didn’t care. I was about to see the WWE live! A little life threatening danger was deemed totally worth it.  I was about to have a dream come true. 2. We got to the arena in about 20 minutes because we were running late- due to one of the guys for the record- the arena was 45 mins away if you went the speed limit. I know I am lucky to be writing this story right now. The arena was in Binghamton NY, Brooms County Arena. I have been to several shows since then and at different arenas and I will say nothing compares to the energy that I saw that night. I remember when Kane’s pyro hit and I felt the heat of it all the way up in the nosebleeds. Pure magic.
In college I actually found one woman who was a fan as well and who shared my Hardy boyz love. #besttagteamever! I have since met them and they are as nice, if not nicer than I thought they would be. One of the sad things for me was during the Attitude Era it was definitely the golden age of tag teams, which means it declined with the women's division. We saw things that had never been done before and the talent was off the charts. TLC matches baby! I haven’t seen a decent TLC match in I can’t remember how long. But honestly how can you compete with that stuff? Unless you are Y2J and Chris Benoit…and then there’s that. Benoit.
I was a HUGE Benoit fan. His in ring ability was mind blowing. The Wrestlemaina when both he and Eddy won titles made me cry and was such a wonderful moment. That’s the Benoit I knew as a fan. Then the news broke that he had killed his wife, son and himself. My heart stopped. Too many concussions and the very serious effect they have on the human brain took his sanity along with all of their lives. The WWE banned the use of his name and all of his matches were hidden away. I understood not referencing him but taking away his matches I did not agree with because the wrestlers he worked with didn’t deserve that. Y2J specifically had some of the best matches of his career with Benoit and I wanted to be able to see them damn it. I had them on VHS thankfully and now the WWE has made them available again on the Network. By the way if you have the Network, watch Swerved. You won’t regret it. I don’t think he should ever be inducted into the Hall of Fame. I agree to with Chris Jericho’s stance on this. Fantastic wrestler but what he did at the end of his life does disqualify him and would taint the Hall. It’s also unfortunate that his wife Nancy, who was in the wrestling business, isn’t talked about either even though it’s not her fault her husband murdered her.
Wrestling is often very problematic on issues of race, gender, sexuality and religion. I know this. I’ve seen it. I’ve touched on some of it -barely- here. Has some headway been made? Yes. Do they still have a long way to go? Give me a Hell Yeah! But nothing is perfect and the problems I see in wrestling I see in other entertainment like tv shows, movies and books. Remember WWE is basically a soap opera with body slams. There are story lines and yes the results and matches are “rigged” no one, except small children believes it is real in that manner. But what they inflict on their bodies is very real and unlike other sports (yes I am calling it a sport-bite me) you can see a much wider population represented. There is almost someone for everyone to relate to. And what some of these people can do with their bodies is literally beautiful-the high flying moves that some superstars do are beyond graceful. Beautiful is the only way I can even think to describe it.

I plan on writing several more blogs on wrestling and feminism but I wanted to give a general background and I apologize because I know this is all over the place so if you’ve made it this far thank you. I think that writing about wrestling as a fan who is also a feminist is important because it isn’t something I have seen before. And if you are a feminist who is curious check out matches that have Natalya, Charlotte, Sasha, Becky Lynch, Naomi and Tamina in them for current. Or for old school Chyna, Jackie, Ivory and Molly Holly.  Serious BAMF. Wrestling is my guilty pleasure, always has been.  Fan girl out!

The Truth in the Illusion

When we lose someone, someone we truly love, we may find ourselves thinking that they couldn't have possibly existed. That's what my mind did about a month after my mother died. The loss was too great. She must have been a fantasy I thought up. I would remind myself that obviously wasn't true since I was born; I had to have a mother. In the end, I recognized what I was doing as a coping mechanism, my mind couldn't handle the lost therefore, it tried to remove it. It's a very strange feeling. One that I dismissed quickly because losing my memories of my Mom would be losing her again. She deserves to be remembered. Perhaps it is a testament to how wonderful she was that my mind just couldn't bear to remember. I am not alone in this. I've read of other people having the same sort of fog. My advise to those who suffer the same, is to fight it. Hang onto the memory of them. Do not let go of them. Forgetting may save pain at first, but in the long run you will better off for remembering.

Last night I had a dream that my mother was alive. She came where ever I was and she looked like she did before she got sick. I said to her "Mom you're dead." She said " What are you talking about?" I decided to go with it, to enjoy my dream time with her. To follow the illusion, even though I knew it was a dream.

The Christmas after my Dad died I begged my Mom to not do Christmas. She wouldn't listen. It proceeded as normal. Looking back I am glad she did that. Tried to keep it normal for me, so not to ruin my future holidays any more than they were. I am trying to do Christmas but the magic is gone. "As long as you have a Mother and Father, there will always be a Santa Claus." my Mother would tell me as a child when I'd ask about Santa's existence. It's the same answer her mother gave her when she would ask. That answer convinced me that there obviously must be a Santa because you always have parents. Well I am 28 now and Santa, along with my parents, is gone. Still the tree is decorated. My ornaments hung without her this year. The memories attached to each handmade or ancient keepsake are solely mine now. It's a loneliness that permeates throughout the body. Still, the holiday season isn't as bad as I was expecting. There are low points, but mostly it is a steady pulse, nothing particularly joyous, but not wretched. Mostly I am content.

I still enjoy giving presents. Trying to find the right gifts for people. In that though I always see things I would get for my mom and have to turn away, or redirect myself. I do not believe in buying gifts for the dead. Materialism is one thing that they are gladly stripped of and the living left with.  I wrap myself in ugly Christmas sweaters, all but one of which belonged to my mom. She did not think they were ugly and did not wear them ironically. She loved the cutest sayings and the like. Wearing them warms more than just my skin and makes me giggle at the memories. 

I do feel the love of friends and family. They have not forgotten me. They know it's hard and that I do not want to be pestered with questions constantly, but they treat me like always. Like a whole person. I find myself returning to my Uncle's for holidays, something which we used to do when I was a child. The familiarity of this is comforting. It's normal for me to be there not somewhere I would have to go so as not to be alone but a place of belonging. It feels right. And I am lucky for that. And thankful. Everyone who has lost someone, and their traditions along with them, should be as lucky to feel as though they belong. So to the people who include us, try to understand us, listen, provide distraction, laugh with us, cry with us, and help us light the tree when there are so many reasons why it would be easier not to, thank you.

Thank you for telling me I am handling it well. It's a credit to my Mother. And thanks to her, and you, I know I can do this.