“You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of.”

Alright. I was going to recount the past year and yada yada, but if you want that just go through my archives. Everything is there. Well, most of it.

There have been a lot of ups and downs. Lately it feels like more downs than ups. I miss Marika every single day, and I don't know how to make things better. I cry a lot, and there's no way to make the sadness go away. I won't suddenly wake up one day and be okay with the fact that she's gone. I just have to find some way to function with the sadness, or else I'm in real danger of letting it consume me. I'm working on it, I promise.

The end of this year is filled with preparations for Birmingham Fashion Week. I'm making an entirely new collection. I stopped in ATL on my way home and got some amazing fabric from Gail K and I've been sewing every day for the past few weeks. Hopefully it all turns out how I want it to.

I'm really excited for Birmingham Fashion Week. I've made a conscious effort to stop planning my future so much, so I'm not expecting anything from this, I'm not trying to figure out what is going to look best in my portfolio, I'm doing it for the sheer joy of designing. I have spent a lot of blog posts talking about how I'm not sure I belong in fashion and how I'm not like everybody else, but at the end of the day, I'm doing what I love. I need to embrace that and quit worrying about what's next.

I think I've mostly processed the aftermath of the tornado. I still choke up when I read news articles about it and it still sucks to drive through the damage path, but it's getting better. It's beautiful to see how my community has risen above all of the death and destruction to hold onto one another and make it through. I take pride in living in Tuscaloosa; it really has become my home.

This past semester has been intense. I was far busier than I ever could have imagined, but I somehow managed to squeak by with the grades I wanted. I had some amazing professors who were willing to work with me when I missed that entire week before dead week.

Overall, I just want 2012 to be better. I got completely off track with my weight loss/healthy living goals, and I'm really disappointed in myself for that. I can make excuses about it all day, but it's a change I need to commit to and never look back. I think the best thing in the world for me was blogging every single day about what I was doing, what I was eating, and everything else. So I'm going to try really hard to make that a daily habit again.

I need to start living my life again. I need to do what I want to do, not what other people expect me to do. I'm not making New Year's resolutions, I'm not saying, 'this time it'll be different.' I'm making this time different. That's it. End of story. I will definitely fail. A lot. But I have to start trying again. If I don't, I am on a dangerous road towards depression and that's just not something I can live with.

So let's all get ready for 2012. 2011 was a huge jerk, and we need to just bury it and pay our respects. Maybe in a few days my memory will improve and I can do a sappy retrospective on the year, but for right now let's just look at new beginnings.

“He that conceals his grief finds no remedy for it.”

I need to be cleaning right now, so what do you think I'm doing? That's right, I'm blogging.

It's been a rough few weeks. The Monday of my last post I had just gotten into Alabama at 6 am, and I left again at 6 pm. Marika's surgery didn't go well, and they told me she wasn't going to make it.

That is one of the hardest phone calls I've ever gotten in my life. I cried outside of Adams, on my way home, while explaining to my history professor why I was leaving, and on the airplane to North Carolina. I told you, Marika is my hero. She was my second mom, and one of my best friends. I got to NC and my mom and sister picked me up from the airport. We spent most of that night in the hospital, and most of the next few days there too. George, Pete and Nagymama flew in and we all just waited and leaned on eachother. God blessed us with a few hours when Marika was off the vent and awake enough to speak to us, or at least listen to us speak. We got to joke a little and make sure she knew we were going to take good care of her kids. Marika went to be with Jesus on Thursday morning.

Sorry, just lost it for a minute.

This is one of the hardest things I've ever had to deal with. It's absolutely not fair, and it really, really sucks. That's the only way to describe it. It's not okay, it's not going to get better. It sucks. Her kids don't deserve to grow up without her, and life isn't the same without her. I'm angry, and I'm sad, and I don't like knowing that I can't just call her, or drive 7 hours and she'll be there. I know I'll see her again someday, but that doesn't make me feel better right now. Right now I just want to cry. A lot. And I am. and I will continue to do so.

I spent Thursday through Saturday with my cousins. I'm so lucky to have the relationships that I have with them. I spent 4 or 5 summers there, and it made us friends on top of being cousins. I just want them to know how much I love them and that I'm always always always going to be here for them. That's a promise I made to Marika, and it's one I plan to keep. They know I'm only 7 hours away, and I will drive there in a heartbeat.

We had a small memorial for Marika on Saturday. We will have another one in New Jersey probably around February. I miss my extended family. It feels like way too long since I've seen either side.

Since I got back, I've been just going through the motions. My apartment is a bigger wreck than it has ever been, and I can't seem to focus on anything. I somehow made it through the end of the semester and took my last final tonight. I think I did pretty well. I really need to clean my apartment, but I have absolutely no willpower to do so. Tomorrow, I have a phone interview with Macy's, Wednesday I get my wisdom teeth out, Friday I have a BFW meeting, Saturday I'm going to both graduation ceremonies and Sunday I'll drive home.

Oh yeah, did I mention I was chosen as an Emerging Designer for Birmingham Fashion Week? I found out Tuesday or Wednesday night while I was in North Carolina. I don't remember when. I'm really excited about it, and I'm going to somehow make a new collection for it over Christmas break. We will see how that goes.

For now, I really need to do at least a little cleaning and then get some rest. Sorry to spill my guts like this, but sometimes you have to get it all out there. Maybe next time we can talk about some other issues we have going on.