This morning my husband made a comment about me having freakishly small ears. Without thinking, I blurted out, "Jerry used to always tease me about my small ears." And then I teared up to the point that they just...leaked out of my eyes. I turned my head and said quietly, "I miss him." while trying to get them to stop, pressing the palms of my hands roughly into my eyeballs. Because pressure seems like a great way to make yourself stop crying, right? My husband sat there, quietly, and finally said, "If you go take a shower, you'll feel better." The shower didn't work -- it just distracted me.

It's always strange how certain things in your life can be going so well, while the most important aspects -- the things you really care about -- go to shit. For the longest time, I felt angst about my job and what I was doing. But then I switched positions at work and now find myself in a position that was literally created just for me -- and I love it. I love the people I work with, I love the activities and projects I get to work on, I'm happy and can see myself doing this job for years to come. The anxiety I've felt in previous years has abated. Even if I were to lose my job, I now feel like I could deal with that -- I'd find something else. My work life and career has had a shift that I find myself incredibly confident and comfortable with. Finally, it feels right.

I finally feel confident in my body and who I am. By the time I was 14, I was 5'11". By the time I graduated from high school, I had willed myself to be 6'0". All awkward, uncoordinated, gangly joints -- with the added complexity of crazy-curly auburn hair, freckles, and acne. When we played the game of "Which celebrity do you like?", I always said that I looked like what Julia Roberts' and Howdy Doody's lovechild would look like. But it's amazing the difference time and age can make...and realizing the impact that hair gel and not brushing curly hair can have. And embracing my height to the point that I'm comfortable rocking a pair of high heels. I'll never be the most beautiful person in a room, but at least I know that I won't cause the room to empty in disgust. My personality is still slightly off, with a love of all things nerdy and quirky, but I don't worry about stifling my lame jokes to make others like me; instead, I look at it's their job to keep up with me. So maybe only 2% of the population finds me funny...that's probably the best percentage to know.

I love my family and friends. I've been blessed to have so many kind, caring, passionate people be a part of my life. My family is crazy and dysfunctional...but it's a good dysfunction that I've finally figured out how to navigate. We often judge each other and make statements that are perhaps not realistic, but we love and support each other. And when a crisis arises, we will fight for each other like no other. This was proven as my stepdad went through his battle with liver cancer, when my biological dad went through his second divorce, and I plowed through the worst four months of my career two years ago.

So while one portion of my life is spinning out of control, I focus on these things above. And it's all compounded because I continue to miss and grieve for my stepdad. I mostly think my feelings of sorrow are under control, and then there's a small incident that happens -- like a comment about my tiny ears -- that makes me think of my stepdad and sucks the air out of me, causing me to tear up and feel a twinge of grief so painful it feels like a hot poker in the stomach. Over the last week, every night I've had a nightmare that involved my stepdad dying. In one dream, my stepdad's death revived my family's pet cocker spaniel, Snickers, who died when she was hit by a car when I was 13. In the dream, Snickers came back to life as she was prior to dying until my brother hugged her, causing her body to squish in half in one long strip...the rest of the dream was so horrible and graphic that I can't write about it without gagging.  It makes me feel guilty when I think of those of my friends who have lost their own parents over the last few years who I didn't reach out to or didn't keep checking back in to see how they were healing. I don't think you can comprehend the swirl of emotions that come with the death of a parent until you have experienced it yourself. The guilt and sorrow and just genuine despair that comes with it. And how all you want is for someone to hug you and ask how you're doing or just to share one of their favorite memories of your parent with you, just to acknowledge the pain that you're feeling and to know that someone else is thinking about this person who had such an impact on your life. Because seven months after Jerry's death, I still grieve for him and my mom and the years of marriage that he and my mom were supposed to have. I still miss him.