Hi friends,
I’ve written before about how I’m still unsure on how to properly define a year.
There’s the notion that a year is only 12 months…only a fraction of a fraction of what life will be. A year can also be 12 months of missing someone deeply and learning to live without that specific hand to hold.
For Too Damn Young (and for me) it’s been a little bit of both.
It’s been 12 months of growth and growing pains. 12 months of tears, laughs and immeasurable support.
My favorite part though is that it’s been 12 months of fostering a kick-ass community.
You have all filled my year with an incredible amount of love and presence. A space that this time last year was just a lot of nothingness now has a name…multiple names, actually. Names of those I’ve been able to publish.
Like: Hannah, Jordan, Josie, Molly, Holly, Mallory, Luna, Ana, Stephanie, Darren, Emily, Muluba, Vicki, Sandra, Silvia, and the list goes on….
Names of those who consistently tweet at us — @jackieg02 I’m looking at you.
Names of those who reach out to me by email because they trust me enough with their stories. (Will I ever really capture how honored I am by this?)
Then we have the names that we hold dear, but that others are too afraid to ask about. This website would be nothing without those we lost. (Ironic, huh?)
One of the most common themes, or threads, that string the entire website together has to be how every single one of you demands for the reader to know the name of your loved one. Some of you introduce the name subtly, some of you make it the center piece of your essays, but none of you ever hides the fact that they lived.
Yes, they died. This too is fact. My grandmother isn’t around. My mom has been dead for 12 years. They also lived though. They lived awesome lives, they had sense of humors and they had bad days.
They weren’t perfect.
They were human beings — and this fact doesn’t cease to exist just because they do.
So, I guess, that my favorite lesson learned in this last year is that I’m not wrong (or alone) in choosing to remember that my mom and grandma also lived.
It’s also pretty great to know that I’m not alone when it comes to how awkward dates can be, how social situations can be hard, how no one ever asks me to tell them about my mom or grandma, how anxiety and mental health is so so real.
Today, I wish Too Damn Young a happy first birthday.
I’m honored to be a part of it. I honestly don’t know where I’d be without it and without all of you. My #TDYConfessions would stay as thoughts in my head. There would be no one around who could understand my struggle of staying in on a Friday night because the exhaustion is real; no one who would tweet back saying that they feel this on a spiritual level. (@RomyEvans, you get me.)
If I didn’t have Too Damn Young to come home to, I don’t think getting out of bed would be easier now than it was this time last year.
I’m lucky to have you. To be in the position where I can personally thank all of you for clinging on to an idea I got 15 months ago and officially launched 12 months ago. You guys made something out of some scribbles in a notebook and a conversation with a good friend over dinner and I….I am all the better for it.
Thank you so much,
Vivian <3
Feel free to tweet @2DamnYoung or @vivnunez with your favorite TDY memory, article or just to wish us a happy birthday!
(Image: WeHeartIt)
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