just keep going

January 7, 2020

All my life I’ve suffered from anxiety and depression. This little voice in the back of my head telling me I’m letting everyone down. That I’m not and never will be good enough, in any aspect. My sisters and my grandma have always reassured me otherwise. Now I have a beautiful daughter that only seems to see the good in me and is my world. A year ago we got a phone call that my brother had had a seizure (which he’d had almost daily for 20 years) but had fallen into a lake and drowned before being rescued. They did what they could, but he’d been without oxygen for too long and was declared braindead. The next day my dad let him go. One of my sisters was there with him. He was her hero. She’d been suffering a lot lately herself and was having a lot of personal battles. We all drove down for the funeral 2 weeks later and she stayed an extra day. The next day we got a call that she’d been in an accident and it was bad. She’d clipped a car while driving upset and her car flipped. She was in a convertible and was thrown out. Nearly every bone was broken. We found out hours after the call that she’d never wake up. They stopped trying to fix her. We held on for 3 days before being told there was no brain activity and 2 more before saying goodbye. A month later, to the day, my grandma went to sleep and didn’t wake up. These were the worst 6 weeks I’ve ever experienced and more than ever I didn’t know how to keep going. Two of my favorite people that had been by my side no matter what were suddenly gone. It wasn’t fair. A few months went by and I saw ZOX online and passed it off as an ad. Then I saw it again. And again. I finally clicked it just to see. I scrolled through the options and found “Move Along”. I read the story and cried. It was so relevant. “Keep moving forward”. It’s always been one of my favorite Disney sayings. Just keep going. Keep trying. That’s all I wanted to do and there it was. The perfect message.