Day 45 of ...

Y'all I'm out here living 2020 in 2023... While y'all was stuck at home, looking cute up top and only wearing ya underwears or jammies under the table I was out EVERYDAY going to work cause Covid what? The jobs I held all throughout Covid quarantine did not care. Now the world is opening back and here I am living my version of shutdown, and the only difference is it's me against the whole world.

You see, as a business owner I have the beauty to work from wherever, whenever, so I did just that. Last October, my Godmother, who is also my biological aunt, was diagnosed with leukemia. I got the call while I was away in Georgia for an HIV-related event. I got back to Florida on Sunday and on Monday I was on a new flight to New Jersey to help with some of the beginning tasks as she was hospitalized undergoing treatment.

Fast forward to May 18, 2023, she was finally about to receive her stem cell transplant which should have her feeling brand new in no time. What generally takes most three to four weeks to be released home, she has now been in the hospital for exactly two months on 7/18... We are both missing home waiting until her levels start to increase so she can be released from the hospital and come home to her 2nd floor apartment in Paterson, NJ until doctors give her clearance to start her new retired life in Florida.

To say this hasn't been easy is an understatement. To watch  people you love suffer... cause my mom, who is her primary caretaker visits the hospital just about everyday... EV ER Y DAY... and the emotional toll this takes is something quite indescribable, especially after my brother, her first born, passed from leukemia..........

So as I sit and think about how I miss home, my fur child, my friends, my norm... it ain't shit to what my aunt and mom are going through... To wish that you could just take all their worries and pain away... but that's impossible from my hands... so still we continue... counting the days that we finally get to celebrate her release from the hospital and the transition to start her life in Florida with us.

It's funny, I've always joked and said I would never bring myself to say Florida is home... talk about crazy immaturity, lol, because hear me LOUD & CLEA, while the Jersey girl still lives in me... I am a FL girl through and through with my central AC and no worries about stairs to get to my front door...

I guess I say all that to say... as I generally do... Love your people while they are here. Remember that so many people are fighting a battle you know nothing about so always be kind... and might I add, medication adherence ain't for the weak or tired...

Love your people, love yourself, find things to make you smile and always find pleasure in the smallest of things. Anyone who knows me knows I love dandelions. They resemble growing through the hardest of conditions. I have never in my life seen them grow so tall, but I knew this was my reminder to stay strong, because no matter how tough things may seem, they will get better.

xoxo