This is not the traditional sort of New Year’s Eve post.

It also serves as a sad sort of finish to a more stressful than average year, and I am sorry for that.  But I can’t deny that in some ways it seems fitting.

As I’ve touched on before, my maternal grandmother was a huge influence in my life.  Be it gardening, crafting, cooking, or anything creative, she had a hand in.  Her aesthetic has shaped many of my interests and much of my life as a whole.

And I miss that.  I miss her.  Whether it’s a new project idea, or just when the first flowers bloom in spring, I want to talk to her about it.  Always.

Grief is a strange thing, and her absence is like a weird ache that I’ve sort of gotten used to, a hole that I carefully skirt around.  I keep wondering, aren’t these the things that are supposed to get better with time?  It’s been bothering me more…I want to say lately, but I think it’s been this whole year and I’m just now realizing it.

I was musing over my birthday the other day, and yeah, I know “age is just a number” blah blah blah.  But for a multitude of reasons this number is not one I am happy with.  Maybe without further explanation that seems shallow.  Maybe explanation wouldn’t help either.  I don’t know, it’s just how I feel.

The point is, I couldn’t figure out why the two things seemed connected.  They’ll always have a bit of a link—with my birthday being yesterday and the anniversary of her death today—but it’s been that way for years now and it was never that significant.  Then it finally dawned on me.  My number?  It isn’t a “special” one this year.  But it is significant when you do the right math.

Because this year?

Today.

She’s been gone more than half my life.

And I can’t even fathom that.  I don’t understand it.  It seems really impossible, and more painful than ever, and I just don’t know what to do with this realization.