Beautiful, haunting, touching, heartbreaking, powerful—thanks for writing this, Zita. It’s a special piece for many reasons. The two parts that hit me the hardest:

• “Your demons stay with you, your loneliness stays with you, loss stays with you — forever. You don’t get to get away, you stay too and you fight and scream and shout and die a little every day. You make peace with the things that haunt you. You don’t run. You don’t hide. You don’t escape reality, you get used to it or die trying. This is the one life you are given, as shitty and as beautiful as it gets. You live it. And cherish it. There is no other way.”
• “Loss doesn’t know time. Grief doesn’t ever leave. You just make room for it.”

❤