A million little things

My brain won't shut off tonight. This isn't profound or anything, but losing Amanda wasn't just a one-time loss; it's a million little losses for the rest of our lives. 

For instance, tonight I made an apple pie from scratch...ok, the crust was courtesy of Pillsbury, but the rest was from scratch. That was the first time I'd ever even attempted one, and Amanda wasn't here.  But before that, I had pulled out a bunch of recipes, loose ones and looked through my recipe book, and it's in looking at that recipe book that I see the recipes she hand-wrote out for me just to help me out, and the recipes she just taped in there in the appropriate sections that I remember thinking when she did it that I would go back and re-do in a neater fashion.  Now I wouldn't redo them for neither money nor gold. She did that for me, to save me time and headache, because she loved me. I love seeing her handwriting. Seeing it makes my heart hurt...I just miss her so much.  Then, as I'm looking through the recipes for the apple pie recipe I'd saved years ago for "one day," I see her recipe...the one she'd learned and written down in Home Economics and asked me a bunch of times if we could make...the one I never took the time to go get the stuff for.  Why didn't I??  What did that communicate to my sweet girl?  What would it have hurt to go to the store and take some time out of my "busy day" to make these with my girl???  So many missed opportunities, wasted chances, always thinking we could do it "some day."  We had "some day," but I was too busy being busy.  I'm sorry, baby girl. Regret is such a big pill to swallow when it was so easily avoidable.

I'm supposed to call the detective, Aaron Bucy, on Thursday if I haven't heard from him by then.  Thanksgiving is coming up, and it makes my heart hurt so much. Our first without you alive. That is the day you tried heroin for the first time. You should have been with us, with your family who loved you and wanted the best for you. Now I am going to have to cook for me, Dad, and my dad, possibly others, and pretend it's just another Happy Thanksgiving.  I'm just so sad. I want you here. I want a do-over. I want to take those missed opportunities to pour into you and love you and spend time with you. I'm sorry I was so selfish and self-involved. I hope you knew that even though I'm this selfish, flawed person, that I loved you more than life itself...still do, always will. Feeling like...