Have you ever found yourself in an emotional tornado? Where everything is happening all at once and your world is spinning out of control? Where the only option you have is to stand and watch your entire life circle around you? Banging off the ground – flying in the air. Everything that has ever meant anything to you is free game to the storm. That sounds like the hard part. Oh darling, I wish I could tell you it was. The storm itself is terrifying and damaging. But going through the ruble of what used to be is far, far worse.  I would rather stand in the middle of a room and see what I have swarming around me, than to look at the ruins that are leftover. Memories soaked with tears are all that are left. Walk through the ruins of your mind to see that nothing is as it used to be. The tornado was a defining moment in time that everything will be measured by from now on. At some point you have to start picking up the broken pieces of what remains and start to build again. You’ll feel guilty for leaving what wasn’t salvageable – but some things aren’t meant to go into this new season. You might be entering this season alone, and that is okay. It’s going to hurt. You’re going to cry. You’ll feel angry and disappointed and nauseas. But you’ll keep building. Sifting through one item at a time, you will rebuild yourself. And before you know it, you’ll be functional again. You’ll look different. In some cases there may only be remnants of what used to be, and that is okay too. You are not what happened to you, you are not the storm that left you devastated. You are what you create after the storm. Mourn if you need to, but move on. Don’t stay staring at what isn’t there anymore, you might miss something new right in front of you.