I wrote a blog today about how it’s the two year anniversary of publishing the book Natasha and I created, about how I hope it did her words and life justice, how I hope she knows it’s out there and how I hope her poetry has touched others souls deeply and then the app glitched and it deleted it all. And that felt…fitting. I’ve tried so hard to put on a brave face and pushed through all the pain of losing her so tragically to make sure her words got put into the world. And normally this is the part where the person says, “and I’d do it all again.”

I desperately want to be that person, the person that would do it all again, knowing the detrimental effects it had on themselves, to honor someone else’s life despite the pain it had caused themselves. Maybe that makes me selfish but I’m not sure I’d do it all again. Don’t get me wrong, I’m deeply proud of the book she and I made, I’m deeply proud of myself for publishing it all on my own, I’m deeply proud that I’m still here, but I’m also angry and exhausted that I was left with that choice. The choice of scrapping it all because it was too much for me to do on my own, or pushing all my anger down, all of the loneliness aside, all of the feeling of utterly drowning and just feeling like my life is only to make sure others stories are heard and known.

And the irony of it all is that this poem of hers is the one I keep returning to, over and over again.

I am drowning. The feeling of being a burden or not enough, or too much.

I don’t know if anyone is actually reading these posts. I’ve just been writing because it’s cathartic and my hope is that in writing, I’m somehow connecting with a friend out there. I’m reaching out a hand desperately hoping one will reach back.

It’s been two years and I still feel like I have failed her somehow.