But wait...there's more!

But wait... there’s more! That sham wow commercial has truly become a meme for my life. Prior to the year of loss, my life was not all lollipops and rainbows. In fact, I wore the scars of my experiences as a badge of honor, truly. It equipped me to navigate difficult situations and people and it made me really, really good at my work. My superpower is people.

All of that came to a dead stop when Thomas died by suicide. The amount of judgement and comments and people pouring out how THEY could have saved him only made my sister guilt worse. I would go toe to toe with a pair of siblings that think they talked more or were closer than Thomas and I were. We talked ALL DAY EVERY SINGLE DAY. I knew instinctively when something was wrong. I knew by his tone, his expressions, his movements what was going on. And I NEVER saw it coming. Plain and simple, this was not a movie depiction of suicide. It was an impulsive, regretful, horrible moment that shattered us.

What his loss did was take the Kristy pinata and broke it open, pouring out every traumatic experience, all the chaos, all the events in my life and left me standing there picking up each piece. I went from the middle child, the perfect one, the unicorn, the “fixer” in my family to just Kristy. In my desperate attempt to problem solve WHY my brother made this choice, I landed on an entirely different journey. Understanding myself, where I came from, how I got to be who I am and what do I really want and need in this life. That loud, chaotic, Italian family of mine was also a family unit that created what became all the loss we endured.

Grief and loss is one part of my journey. It is not the only part, but it is the part that opened up a path to acceptance and an absolute refusal in me to live a life beneath what I am capable of. I can’t...I am living for two people now.