Hello, it’s me…

“I was wondering if after all these years you’d like to meet
To go over everything
They say that time’s supposed to heal ya, but I ain’t done much healing”

So there’s a trend going around social media right now “2016 vs 2026” or “2026 is the new 2016” and it’s about bringing 2016 trends and pop culture back as well as showing the poster now vs then.

I have mixed feelings about this one for a few different reasons.

Least of those reasons is 23 turning 24 year old Adrian and 33 turning 34 year old Adrian had different lifestyles, fashion tastes, make up skills, etc. I was happy and loving a job I never thought of leaving back then and now I’m job hunting due to new year lay offs.

2016 Adrian was just a different girlie.

The biggest reason that causes mixed emotions about comparing the two years is that all jokes aside I don’t remember that girl without a lens of grief clouding her.

2016 was the last year before my life as I knew it shattered and my world view changed forever.

2016 Adrian was sand on a beach— free, a little wild, and shifted easily as the wind breezed by. Not even 2 full months into 2017, she was struck by lightning. By the time she was dug up and wiped off…she was crystallized and rough, but so very easily shattered.

2026 Adrian is changed on a molecular level.

She isn’t as quickly broken to pieces, but it’s still a possibility.

She’s still a little wild, but she isn’t as free and easy with the tides that come.

Grief does that to a person.

When you lose someone so ingrained in your life, you physically cannot be the same.

I was 8 months old when she was born.

I did not remember a time in my life without her in it.

One accident. One Friday morning in February. One. Final. Breath.

It was one lightning strike in the sand changing who I was forever.

Now my life is split into two eras before loss and after loss.

2016 & prior Adrian and 2017 & beyond Adrian will never meet. They can’t. Because we wouldn’t have one without the other.

Grief doesn’t care about the “before”. It is the chaos of the “after” and the “what could have been”.

It’s a tough pill to swallow, but it’s made who I am today. The fighting I’ve had to do to get to where I am spiritually, mentally and emotionally…it’s made me stronger.

There’s a lot about 2016 Adrian that I miss, but I can’t dwell on her or she will drag me down to 2017 Adrian. And I CANNOT be her again. I don’t know that I would survive again.

I’ve mentioned how grief is a never ending journey and the only way to go is forward or you’ll get dizzy going in circles. I’m not saying “move on”— there are somethings you will never move on from. But if you don’t put one foot in front of the other and look ahead, you’ll be stuck. Like fulgurites after a thunderstorm.

Love you always. Miss you forever, Sunflower 🌻