Sometimes, life just hurts.

When I was little, I wanted nothing more to be a grown up. I wish I knew what being a grown up really meant and what came along with it. I would have spent more time just enjoying being a kid. Being a grown up sucks. It hurts. Sure, there are wonderful parts to being a grown up but, when you get down to it, most of the time, it just freaking hurts. There's nobody that can protect you from the moments when your heart crumbles into a million itty bitty pieces. You'll have an army of people (if you're lucky) to surround you with love and support when it does but, they can't stop the train of hurt from crashing through your life. There's no one to sugar coat the awfulness that is the after math of that hurt. You can't reason it away. You just have to steel yourself against it, fall apart quietly so you don't upset your kids and get back up. You might be a little shakier after it and less secure about what life brings your way but, you'll be wiser for it. There will be a moment, when you're feeling content and that all is right in the world, where you've forgotten all of the horrible things life has done and BAM, life gets you right in the guts. Someone you've meant to get in touch with but, life happened (like it always does) and you let the moment slip by. And then, without warning, they're gone. And, you're here but, they've taken part of you with them because, when you were little and they were little, your lives existed together. Maybe in a big way, maybe in just the small way of a mutual kindness when you both needed it. Maybe, in the way that you'll look back on a memory you thought was fuzzy and you'll find them there. You'll wish you could pull them out so you could replay that memory together and they could see that all these years later, they mattered.  I wish you knew that. Thank you for being kind to me even though my hair was longer than everyone else, my clothes weren't the coolest, and I was so much shorter than everyone else in our class and that alone gave people reason enough to pick on me.Thank you for making me laugh when I felt miserable about the fact that I had to leave the class for extra math help.Thank you for not being too cool in middle school to stop me for a hug and to remind me that from that little tiny school, I would always have a family to call mine because, we hold each others childhoods in our hearts, good, bad or otherwise. You sir, were a rare and wonderful kind of person. There's nothing I wish more for you than the peace you couldn't find here. You were loved in little and big ways because, it would be impossible for a person like you NOT to be loved. I wish you knew all that and that I had a chance to tell you that.