On the day I found out my dad had a year to live, I was standing at work, typing away stupidly about something I can’t remember now. And in an instant, I was catapulted into a terrible grief I knew nothing about. Like a dark room I’d never entered, feeling my way around. Gemma called my boss, my colleagues, and my best friends. Ordering one to give me time off, to get coffee, and to buy moving boxes. In the apartment, I couldn’t even remember my own name. Gemma found my passport, called my sister and arranged a pick up, and booked my flight for the next morning. Early but not too early, because she said I needed sleep. How do I even begin to pack right now? Gemma told everyone what to do. She put on my favourite songs, Taylor Swift, whom she didn’t particularly care for, and made the executive decision to toss my near-empty shampoo bottles. We walked through a handful of outfits I’d need - certainly comfy ones - as Gemma proposed. And when I’d come back to collect my t...
This past year has been weird. Not in a way that I struggled all that much, it’s just been a really big long learning experience. I promised myself this year would be about getting to know me for who I was. I promised to relax and be good, better than the good I was last year, and to try start my life out of school with all these amazing different ideas. Plans change, I guess. Without school to stress out over, I found a new way to worry, this time it was about something way more broad and way more brutal, my future . I should’ve been that for Halloween. It’s all I can think about. Who am I gonna be? How am I gonna get there? Who will be there with me? When will it all make sense? Where will I end up? How much will it cost? How much longer can I wait? Am I going to be okay? Will there be love when I get there? Will I have done all the things I needed to do before the opportunity comes around? And then, in true, wouldn’t-be-a-Haleigh-blog-without-it fashion, a song came on the radi...