This New Phase Of My Life

        I’m still processing. I’m still dealing. I’m still going through a day to day routine as if everything is fine. I don a smile, I pop some happy pills, I make nice, and I carry on. Inside everything is still and silent. I keep going because when everything stops I’m reminded that he is no longer here. It’s been over two months and already business as usual, but how else are things supposed to be? One still has to make a living, be social, and take on opportunities. I am still here. My heart still hurts so much.
        Recently I attended a comic convention in Chicago. It’s the first vacation I’ve had in ages and was so desperately needed. For that moment in time the sadness had escaped me. I was able to feel joy for the first time in a long time. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, but there was a moment, while looking through my pictures, that I thought to myself “I can hear my dad’s laugh if he saw these.” The fact that I could clearly hear his laugh let me know that he did see them and was there enjoying everything with me. While there I also had a man read my aura. Since my father’s memorial service that was the first time I had broken down in public. This man let me know that something very sad happened recently and that I feel like I’m not a good person, but that I am. That I should stop worrying about it and truly know that I am good. He also noted that there are many spirits around me that are pulling for me. He grabbed my hands because he said they told him I needed it. Again he told me I was good. It reminded me of a time years ago when I had a car wreck and was going through so much crap with lawyers, the insurance company, and everything kept falling through. One day as I was leaving the house my dad said to me “Don’t worry. Everything will be fine. You’re a good person unlike me” and he just walked away. I was so shocked and hurt that he said that he wasn’t a good person. It’s something that always stuck with me. Since my father’s death that is something I’ve struggled with. I don’t feel like I was the greatest person to him in the end. I could’ve been better. I could’ve tried harder. It puts my mind a little at ease that possibly it was my dad coming through to reassure me that I am a good person and did the best that I could considering the circumstances. I still don’t entirely feel like a good person and I don’t know what it will take to make me feel that deep down, but my mind is slightly at ease.
        Still I try to process. I’m still trying to grasp the idea of death of someone so important to my life. Last year I entered the hospital room as my aunt took her last breath. I was there when the color left her body in a matter of seconds. Her toes and fingertips turned white almost instantly. Her body turned cold just as fast. Even though I was present for that when it comes to my father I still can’t grasp the idea of telling a person that you’ll see them later and have them be gone hours after you leave the house. It seems so foreign. Him not being here is like someone trying to hold a conversation with me in Korean. I don’t understand it. Death is the most simple yet most complex thing to exist. We all know that we’re born, we live, and eventually we die. You can live for 100 years but once you’re gone all that exists are pictures, tales, videos, and things. How mind boggling is that? You go from being a living breathing person to just a memory. As generations go on you go from being a memory to a story that’s passed down to the next generation.
        My dad was only a month and a half shy of his 66th birthday. I see that life is too short. You’re here one day and gone the next. I think about if he got to do all the things he wanted. I’m a true believer that we go when our time is up, but what happens when you don’t accomplish all that YOU wanted, but you accomplished everything that was all apart of the plan? I think about things I’ve tried to accomplish over and over and now wonder if this is even supposed to be apart of my life’s journey. For instance I’ve had to drop out of college more time than I can count for various reasons and what if that’s not what I’m even supposed to do? Perhaps that was years and dollars wasted that’s taken away from what my real goal should be? The question is, what is truly each of our main goals in life if we’re truly not the ones to call the shots on whether we live or die? All of my life I envisioned I’d be a best selling author/screenwriter, all of which has not come to fruition, and it’s all quite possible it may not even be what I should be doing with my life. I look at my father, a true artist in his own right, and nothing ever happened with that. Is there a point where if we deviate from the plan too much this higher being just gives up? I don’t want this sadness to keep me from pursuing all that I want to do, but it happens. I want to do things he never got a chance to so in some way he’s done it, but when life keeps throwing up roadblock after roadblock it hinders you a bit. I don’t want to be 60 and wonder what could have been. At the same time I’m just trying to exist in a world where my father doesn’t and taking baby steps just trying to get my bearing. I can only go through this process, no matter how long it will definitely be, in order to get to the next phase in life where I’m ready to conquer all the things I’ve ever wanted in my name and his. I’m not sure when I’ll get to that phase and that’s what worries me. For now all I can do is continue to try and make sense of how the rest of this new life will go. Phase one: Still loading….

-Asia Aneka Anderson, This New Phase Of My Life 2016©