We do not know about tomorrow, all that we know about is today. I sat at the edge of my Nanas' hospital bed and listened as she told me about her pain. She recently broke her hip and due to her age, she is not able to be operated on. So now she is in a rehabilitation center and she is just simply not that thrilled about it at all; She is stuck, in a bed and she is unable to move. I am sure that I would not be too happy about it either and I not sure who would. But my Nana is different. This is a woman who has crossed oceans to be with the man whim she loves. This is a woman who stomps on wasps with her bare feet. This is a woman who built a life with her own two hands - Brick by brick. This is a woman who quite literally probably even yelled out at the Nazi's. So, stillness just does not work very well with her; I suppose that it is just not in her bones and it just does not sit very well with her spirit and I understand this all too well, because it just does not sit well with me either. So I go to visit her as often as I possibly can and she tells me of stories of what it was like growing up in World War II (I told you she could tell stories). She thinks about her homeland and what it was like to leave her country behind. She reflects on her parenting skills and also of her marriage. She tells me stories of the people that she has loved, who are no longer walking this earth still today. She tells me that old people like to talk about the past so much, because they do not really have a future and that their memories are where they live. She says, "We do not know about tomorrow baby, all that we know about is today." And so I listen to her words, I repeat them as she says them. I let them roll around in my mouth and I also let them rest upon my heart. It becomes a chant of sorts, a soothing rhythm for my worried heart. "We do not know about tomorrow, all that we know about is today." I say this and she just laughs. I try not to worry about what life may or may not bring her tomorrow. I commit this to memory - My Nana, in her hospital bed, laughing because of my cheesy delivery; Telling me stories about her youth, her journey and of the moments of her life that she has committed to her own personal memory. I burn the sound into my brain, my Nana telling me to enjoy today and to stop worrying so much about what tomorrow may or may not bring my way. I listen to her stories of the years gone by and know that it is up to me to weave her into future memories. And for a moment, we both are still …. Crystal K. Floyd January 27, 2020

I walked through a cemetary today. I stopped at my twins' graves, before I soon found myself slowly juist walking around aimlessly. I was paying attention to the years that people were alive, the years that some of the people were married and also of the years that those people was alone without their partner. The more that I looked, the more that I felt the whole world in its entirety around me just simply start to slow down a little bit. My gravestone is not going to state my income, it is not going to state my salary, it is not going to state the amount odf social media followers that I have and it is not going to state the mundane tasks that I preform on a daily basis. I suddenly found myself caught up in the pace of life, all the while failing to see the silver lining to it all. There have been moments where I have blinked and I found myself months down the road and I cannot even seem to recall what it is or was that I did or even just where all of that time went to. A truth that I have realized this past week is that life passes by at such a quick pace. We are here for only a short period of time in the grand scheme of life. II also realized that all too often I get lost in all of the daily activities that does not even hold no true meaning in the long run. I realized that I stress myself out about the things that does not even hold any true value kin life at all. There is a reason that a global phenomenon is love and parenthood; To create a life, to shape that life and to also guide that life. That is truly powerful, but to do this all the while holding the hand of another person as a family navigates through life-I think that this is what life is really about. Crystal K. Floyd January 26, 2020

We learn life lessons in a hard and beautiful way. We live completely in a diverse world of complexity, we meet a lot of new people and we also make new friends. I have come to realize that I find myself left with a lot of words only written down on numerous sheets of paper, never to be read by another person, unless I otherwise, choose to do so. I left the thought that I will not be able to set my feet back from the place that I once loved and cherished, but life surprised me, yet once again. I keep all of my own personal memories throughout my life in a special place; Right inside of my heart, in my mind and also in my soul. The people in the photos that are not together anymore and their feelings are not the same, it is still a precious treasure to keep; Memories of simple joys from all of those little things. I am just completely amazed by the fact that the universe has allowed me to meet some people, even if those people were only able to be in my life for a short period of time- Nonetheless, I am truly grateful that for once in my entire life, I have had the chance to share it with the people that I have gotten the opportunity to many things with and create so many wonderful memories with. I want whoever might be reading the specific words right now to please know that you are not alone and I want you to also know that you can still count on somebody in the middle of the night when the world seems too heavy to lift up, when sleeping was hard to do because the deep thoughts are keeping you awake and when it feels like there is simply just not one single person there to listen to anything that you will tell or that you have to say. You can fake it until you make it, as they say; But please understand that no matter how high that you build your walls up to keep away that emptiness from the people that are around you, know that there will always be somebody who tries to knock them down and to also see you on the other side without any ounce of judgments or false findings, for that matter. Life will eventually reward you with all of the things that you are hardly praying for, I know this to be true. You are, without a doubt, a person with a genuine heart of gold, as you know how to value those around you, you know how to selflessly devote yourself from the love of another person without even so much as asking for anything back in return, you know how to give endless efforts to show other people how you truly care and you also know how to sacrifice your own desires and feelings for the sake of another persons' joy and for their laughter. You are rare and the world needs you. No matter how hard life may seem at times, even if life does not seem so kind, I know that you are one of those people who will refuse to be hardened by this world, because you do not want other people to feel the same way in which you have felt, you do not want other people to experience all of the messiness of existence. I am so proud with all of the things that you have achieved and for all of the hard works of your hands. Your defining silence truly says a lot about how brave that you really are for fighting battles that nobody else knows, except you of course. It also says a lot about how strong that you actually are for carrying the weight of confusion running through your thoughts, it says how true that you love even in spite and despite all of the countless heart breaks, mistrust and broken promises. Know that whatever happens, there will be another person who you will be able to run to when the air simply just feels like thorns to breathe, there will always be somebody who will make time to listen to all of your randomness and there will be somebody who you will be able to share all of the heaviness of heart with. I hope that you will realize all of these things, once more. Never lose your light in all of the chaos of darkness, because your existence truly is a blessing, your existence matters and your existence also made my world once and again, a so much better place.

I have learned that it is not about who you miss, but I think that it is about choosing people who also choose you in return, as well. Maybe it is not about the doors that close, but focusing on the ones that open for you, as a result. Maybe it is not about perfection, but simply learning how to co-exist with your own personal flaws. Maybe it is not just about who walks out, but rather who ends up walking into your life afterwards, to help you clean up the mess from the person before. I have learned that it is not about how many times that you fall, but I think all that matters is that you eventually get back up again with another plan. I do not think that healing has to always be pretty and tears absolutely do not make you weak, but that sometimes those lonely moments are simply essential for growth. I believe that we are all going to miss someone at some point throughout our lives and that it does not make you weak, it just proves that the love and the feelings were genuinly real, even in their absence. I know people typically tell other people who are going through a loved ones' death tell them that “time heals everything.” However, I do not know about you, but that phrase does not seem to make me feel any better at that time. I honestly do not think that there is a timeline for healing, because there is simply not a place that you can go or even a version of yourself that you can become, to rid yourself of it. I have also realized that you cannot get over something or somebody by just simply trying to avoid it or that person. I have learned that there is not logic when it comes to emotions and sometimes another persons' feelings do just change and that there is nothing that you can do to reverse that. I have learned that the only real thing that you can do is to put your best self out there and hope that the person on the receiving end is at a place themselves where they are ready for that sort of thing, but know that this will not always be the case. I want you to know that you cannot teach another person to respect you and sometimes the hardest walks that you will ever take in your entire life are going to end up being when you are going to have to walk away from the people who just cannot support you the way that you might need at the time, so that you are able to become the best version of yourself, the version that you are meant to be. I want you to know that sometimes even the people who may very well love and care about us, are actually the most toxic to us and they will probably be the hardest people to distance yourself from. I have learned that if you must walk away from anybody or anything, please do so without bitterness, resentment or unkindness because ultimately it is how you walk away that people will remember the most. Sometimes you are going to have to forgive people even though they might not even be remorseful, because you simply deserve peace of mind and happiness within yourself. I have learned that the hardest person that you are going to have to learn to forgive is yourself, because each and every last one of us are still learning, still trying and still striving on a daily basis to do our absolute best and to try to lead a life that we can also be proud of. Sometimes on the journey to becoming your best self, there almost always are going to be moments when you are at your worst, but even then there will be people or atleast someone who will choose you as a person and who also will love you and want you but above all, you must remember to always choose yourself no matter what.

What happened to you was absolutely not your fault, as it was far from anything that you ever asked for, it definitely was not something that you deserved and what happened to you was not even remotely close to being fair. You were merely collateral damage on another persons' demonic war-path, an innocent bystander who got wrecked out of proximity. We are all traumatized by life, some of us from wrong-doings, other people by un-processed pain and side-lined emotions. No matter what the source may or may not be for you, we are all basically dealt a hand of playing cards and more often times than not, they far from being a winning hand. However, what we cannot forget is that even though we are not at fault whatsoever, healing in the aftermath of a traumatic experience or sometimes a sequence of traumatic events, most generally we will always fall onto us and instead of being burdened and overwhelmed by this, maybe we can actually learn to see it as a truly rare gift. Healing is our responsibility because if it is not, in fact, our responsibility than an un-fair circumstance ends up becoming a completely un-lived life. I say this with almost certainty as I believe that the healing process is our personal responsibility, because un-processed pain gets transferred to every single person that are around us and we are not going to allow what one person negatively chose to do to us to become what we ourselves do un-to the people that we love. I think that the healing process is our responsibility because you see… We all have this one life, this single shot to actually do something important or to make a difference. Another reason as to why I think that healing is our responsibility is simply because if we personally want our lives to be different, then sitting and waiting for somebody else to come along in an attempt to try to make them different - Will not actually change anything at all, as it will only make us dependent on other people and it will probably even make us bitter throughout the remainder of our lives. I mean, we do now have the power to heal ourselves, even if we have previously been led to believe we do not have any power at all; As we tend to get un-comfortable quite often and discomfort, for me atleast, almost always signals a place in life in which we are slated to rise up and to also transform. Every great person that you deeply admire, began with every odd stacked up against them and they eventually had to learn that their inner -power was no match for the worst of what life could possibly offer. The word “healing” is actually not returning to how and who we were before, it is becoming a person that we have never before been or even known, for that A person who is stronger, a person who is wiser and a person who is also kinder. When we heal, I think that we then step into the person that we have always wanted to be. At that point, we are not only able to metabolize the pain, but we are also able to allow real change in our lives, in our families and also within our communities. Not only that, but we are able to pursue our dreams and our goals a lot more freely. We are able to handle whatever life decides to throw our way, because we are now or hopefully soon will be in the future, self-efficient and assured. Finally, we are more willing to dare, to risk and to also dream of broader horizons, ones that we never ever thought that we would have the ability nor the opportunity to actually reach. The thing is that when another person does something wrong and it affects us and also has an ever-lasting impact on us as an individual… We often times will sit around simply just waiting for that person or even someone in general, to take all of the pain that we feel away, as though they could come along and be able to un-do what has unfortunately already been done. I think that we also fail to realize that in all of that hurt, are the most important lessons of our entire lives and that is the fertile breeding ground upon which we can finally start attempting to build everything that we really want. I also do not believe that we are not meant to get through life un-scathed and I do not believe that we are meant to get to the finish-line unscarred, clean and bored. Life hurts us all at some point or another and also in many different ways, but it is how we respond and who it is that we end up becoming as a result that truly determines whether a traumatic experience becomes a tragedy or simply just the beginning of a beautiful and inspiring story of how the victim became the hero. Crystal K. Floyd January 2020