As Lacey Green says, "Well, hi babes!"

So you have opened my article. CONGRATULATIONS! You get to know who I am, what my life is like and my favorite flavor of chips (sour cream & onion, look you're already learning) and so so much more! It will always be a super fun time with super fun topics! Like, oh my gosh!

Sass. Much sass. It lives in me. The truth is, my articles will not always be super fun. They will not always be the happiest or the most informative articles. You see, I am hoping that you don't learn about just me because that is not how a character is born. They have backstories. They have joyous moments and traumatic moments. That's how life goes, and I think everyone on the planet Earth knows that. I know it. I've been painfully aware of that fact my entire life, and I really wish I was exaggerating, but I'm not sorry to disappoint. This is because they have shaped me to who I am today. They are not what defines me, but what gives insight to me. But for starters, we will start off with some of the typical facts about this twenty-something year old gal.

I am twenty-one, but my mind and my joints feel much older. I have the darkest brown eyes you might ever see on a person, I have been asked if I have pupils or if I was a vampire (my teeth were also in a bizarre position: fang form). I have what I call an "elf ear" which really it's just a little bump on my ear that I used to call "my Irish spot." Fun fact, I'm not Irish at all. I love to play with makeup, but have recently become comfortable with my natural beauty (say wha?!) and just like to highlight my beautiful brown eyes. I love the song Brown-Eyed Girl. I love the sound of a vinyl on turntable, makes the music sound so special and memorable. Oh yeah, and music is my life. Music theater is my forte (pun, intended) and ya know what, I do dream of Broadway someday. And the Met. And the smallest of theaters, too. I just need to perform. I love my family and all the weird things about each and every one of them. I looooove Barbra Streisand and Megan Hilty!!!!!! Let's see...what else... Oh!

Did I mention that my boyfriend died next to our bed?

...bit of a punch in the gut, isn't it?

This is where things aren't so super. At all. But that is why I decided to join Odyssey. How many people in their twenties or younger do you know that have gone through such loss and heartbreak? I bet you do know a few, but what they might not know is that they are not alone. They are not the only one who has lost their partners to death, or a best friend or anyone else in their lives. I am here to vouch for that because I have lost someone in every category. It can be traumatic. It can be so hard and painful to comprehend that you might just not even try to deal with it. It just rolls right past you. You can tell yourself it's a part of life as much as you want. But young death really isn't supposed to be a part of life. We're supposed to grow old and wrinkly and drink prune juice. But not everyone gets there and that fu***** sucks.

I am hoping that whoever reads my words will find comfort, connection, and most of all, hope and love. I hope that every person who reads these will share them over and over again and not just so I get anything out of it because I am not doing this to benefit me, but so that the people you readers love and have maybe suffered can just feel less...alone.

I hope you will follow my journey of both good times and bad times. I will be sharing both to show how life continues on after tragedy. How it will feel normal and how it might feel like it's time for you yourself to go. I promise it won't always be depressing because guess what?

Joy is also just how life goes :)