When I heard Legolas say in Fellowship of the Ring, "The grief is still too near for me. I haven't the heart..." I thought, oh that's so poetic, and look at that hot guy. But after the events of recent months I have come to think it is quite aptly spoken. And after Pirates of the Caribbean I know Orly Bloom is really hot. And, ya know, he can act too.

I never thought seriously about the distance of grief, time-wise or space-wise. But there is a direct correlation between it's proximity and it's power over you. It doesn't fade the way some people say it does. And it doesn't get easier. You get better at dealing with it. Grief guides your growth.

A friend of mine kept trying to assure me that things would get better. They didn't, but in a way they have. I really thought nothing in my life could be worse. I couldn't conceive of worse possibilities. My thinking was stuck deep in a revolving rut. May 30th 2K3 broke me from that rut. It was like a slap in the face to a person panicking. It woke me up. And boy was I ever wrong.

Don't misunderstand: my problems have not gone away. In fact there are more of them now. The dream was just that, a dream. I could feel myself beginning to wake up for months before it actually did. But I never would have guessed this is the world to which I would wake. A world full of everyhting except Mom.

A year ago--6 months ago--I never would have believed I could be doing what I am doing now. Which isn't much, but it is something. And it's on my own.

After Halloweeen (and the months of prep that went with it) it has been a little hard to get Lord of the Rings out of my system. Not that I am complaining. Just so you know. It's easy to quote these days. Empathizing with an orphaned, short, hairy, pudgy critter who has a serious case of bad luck and carries around a lil dose of evil has never been difficult for me.

Car insurance, rent, loneliness, phone bills, boredom, tears, and they call it Life.

Now I face the long dark of Moria (or for you non LotR'ers: the real world).