"Death doesn't discriminate, between the sinners and the saints. It takes and it takes and it takes and we keep living anyway. We rise and we fall and we break and we make our mistakes. And if I'm still alive when everyone around me has died then I'm willing to wait for it. I'm willing to wait for it."

I've already discussed losing my mother on here, but her death has had such a prevalent impact on my life that I feel the only way for me to begin handling this is to talk about it-- to write about it on a platform where I can let everything out and begin healing from the damage that's been done by the cause of losing her.

No one can ever imagine the impact your parents have on you until you lose them. No one tells you how grief will go for you. No one tells you how hard it is to wake up one day and realize that they're not just a phone call away. No one tells you that when it's 2 in the morning and you're bawling your eyes out over something that happened last weekend, you can't just ask your mom to come into your room and hold you until you've cried yourself back to sleep. No one tells you that when their birthday comes around, you'll find yourself thinking back through the memories of birthdays past, becoming quiet and demure around friends trying to lift you up and hold you up from crumbling under the intense emotion you've been holding on to for what seems like forever. No one tells you that losing the one person you thought the world of would have such an impact on you. No one tells you that with each passing moment, each passing memory will make you miss them even more. No one tells you that one day it's going to hit you in the chest you crumble under the pressure, succumb to the emotion of it all against the flurry of tornados that are affecting your life. No one tells you that losing your mother, the one person who held you up when you were down could have such an impact that it makes you want to crawl into a black hole and never come out.

But all of this reigns true. Each day I think about her, each day I wake up and wish and hope that somehow this was a disgusting nightmare that I'll awake from and she'll be here, cheering me on, holding me from whatever I've been destroyed by. Grief has a funny way of pulling me in when it’s not wanted. When it's best to have it rest, when it's best to not be destroyed by it.

Currently, I'm working on a show that is going to the life out of me. It already has. It's big. It's massive. It's the size of my grief. And with each passing day, it's weighing more and more on me. I don't know how much more I can handle of this day - but I know that come next Friday, it will be open. And here comes the feeling you wish would go away -- the feeling of having an opening night of a show you're so damn proud of and not being able to share that with her again. Each opening night gets harder and harder to deal with because I come to the realization that she won't get to see me see how proud I am of my work. How much time, emotion, blood (literally, all the splinters), and tears (endless) went into this beautiful show I've helped to create. This pain comes and goes, but each night, I'm reminded of why I get to do this.

Why I was chosen to do this theatre thing -- and it all comes back to you, Mom. You pushed me in this direction without realizing it, and suddenly it became my life. And without it, without you, when you passed I wouldn't have been able to make it out alive. Theatre pulled me out of the darkest time of my life -- it continues to help me realize that without it, I wouldn't be anything. I'd be lost. Just like without you, at times, I get really lost. But then I think back to how much we went through together, how much you helped me and how much you loved me and how much you wanted me to succeed with this thing, that giving up now, giving it all up would destroy me the same way that losing you destroyed me.

I'm not completely over you. I haven't even begun to dive deep into the grief. I have moments of sadness, moments of needing to cry it all out and let it go. And I think I'm fine but then it comes back, and it continues to come back and then it just hits harder and I think I can't survive. And then I'm pulled back. It's an endless cycle that will never end.

But I know that you're there. You're always there. Helping me. Pushing me. Watching over me and making sure that I'm okay.

There will never be a day that I don't think about you, don't miss you and don't wish you were here. I wouldn't trade those 19 years you gave me. But I swear, this thing has been the hardest I've ever had to deal with. It's destroyed me. It's caused so much damage to me, but I don't think this will ever be over. This cycle will never be done. I will never heal from this. And that's something that has weighed on me so heavy that the only thing I can do is write, and write, and write.

"The moments when you're in so deep, it feels easier to just swim down."