A year has passed. Slowly but surely, the days turned into weeks that turned into months; months I was sure I wouldn't be able to survive. I watch the snow melt away from the streets, revealing mittens and pop cans that got lost beneath it in winter. Though he's gone for good now and my life has moved forward, the memories of the deep, unbearable ache are still solid and unmoving in my chest. The cool, soon-to-be-spring wind is so thick with nostalgia that I can almost taste it; almost hear all those hurtful words riding along atop it, bringing back the emotions from a year ago, in those months I'd swore I'd died in.

But I'm still here, and my life is so different. Had you have asked me where I thought I'd be by now last March, I would never have dreamed thingswould turn out like this. My summer was beautiful. My christmas was sweet and warm; the new year brought with it a thousand changes. And they were GOOD changes: I rediscovered love- that kind that almost immediately heals you. I've made the best friends I've ever had; a group of people that undoubtedly love me and support me and want good things for me. I'm healing, I'm living again, and while the past still haunts me once in a while, if I'm alone in bed or walking down his street, it has long since let me go. There's nothing holding me back anymore: not a person, not a memory, not a place.

Sometimes I look back and wonder how I ever lived the way I did, how I ever managed to get through it: the clicnic, the liquor, the pain, the heartbreak. But then I realize that it doesnt matter HOW I did it. All that matters now is that I did, and I walked away from it a strong and ready person, devoid of cynicism or hostility. I have rebuilt my life from scratch, with the help of the people I know I was always meant to find, and I've made myself a beautiful new world where he does not exist and the past is just that: the past. After a very long time, I am able to say that I'm happy.

Maybe the promise of spring and the newly-clean air will always remind me of my past life, but I know that it will never be who I am again. It has made me, it has shaped me, and I've made my peace with it, but I'll never let it affect me again. There was once a time when I longed for nothing but death, but that time is not now. Now, all I want, all I've gained and worked so hard for, is life.

And I'm living it with more strength than I ever thought possible.