Did I ever tell you about the time I was cursed...

 Actually twice.  I was cursed twice in my lifetime. 

Once when I was a kid.  I can't recall exactly how old I was, but I was at the age where the highlight of visiting your great grandparents was the doll that went over the toilet paper roll in their bathroom.  I loved that doll.  She hid the spare toilet paper roll with her mint green crocheted gown.  She was a beauty - and I'm sure she had seen some things. 

I'm sure all I ever talked to my great grandmother about was how much I loved that doll.  My memory is not all that great, but from what I do remember my great grandmother was a cold woman - oh and apparently she was a witch. True story. 

On one particular visit to my great grandparents' home I was presented with that nasty little toilet doll - and upon touching her fuzzy mint dress, which was unforgivably toilet roll shaped - even though the toilet roll had been removed - I vomited.  

You have to know, I never throw up.   I can probably recall all the times I threw up and in my childhood I threw up three times - once on TP Barbie, once when I licked a dandelion outside and another time when I went to bed too soon after eating at Chi Chi's and threw up purple on my wall. 

TP Barbie never recovered.  It was traumatic.  Looking back now, I am not entirely sure if it was from excitement or the fact that it was a vestibule for my great grandmother's curse - which may still exist to this very day.  It may have been a hearty bowl of Count Chocula and a long car ride to Richmond Hill, but I am willing to bet it was a curse.

The second time I was cursed was by my first ever roommate.  Actually I'm not sure if she really did curse me because she said it would be worse for her if she did or something like that.  If the curse of my life is from her spell I figure she's probably a gnarled up old troll somewhere if she's three times worse than I am now because things haven't been so great. 

All joking aside. I am writing here today because it's been 18 years. 

18 years is a very long time and a lot has changed

but I still cry sometimes. 

The grief of losing him.  The grief of losing what our future would have been. 

The grief of the best and worst time of my life - how is that even possible?

I am writing here today because I cried at a commercial about Smile Cookies today. 

I am cursed. 

Nothing has been normal for me. 

and although that is not always entirely bad - I feel like the curse has never left. 

Except the times when I was happy and I didn't think about it. 

When he was here. 

Grief changes. It is never the same the next day, the next year or even 18 years later.  

My grief is not the same as your grief. 

All I know is it does get easier because we cope. 

We learn how to live without the person. 

and everything is okay.

PS - I guess I should address not being here for so long.  I had to look up something here and I realized how much writing helped me cope.  I can't promise I will be here regularly.  I even lost my domain and I'm not really that evil anymore - thank you for reading.