It's okay

After every tornado, there's a time to sift through the debris, to clean up, to salvage what can be saved and throw away what's too damaged to repair.

Then there's the grieving and anger period. The intense and utter sadness that is accompanied by feelings of hate and misunderstanding; of pain and of loss; of shock and sometimes shame at not taking cover, or running earlier to save yourself from the damage that you had surely been warned about.

And then there's the rebuilding period. There's the moment when you wake up and you realize, it's time to rebuild. It's time to take what you saved from the wreckage and decide on a place for it. Maybe it hangs in the foyer of your new home, or maybe it eventually ends up in the next garage sale. Maybe you pack it away in a box and promise yourself not to open it again until you're stronger, or maybe you just throw it away and replace it with something new.

One day you wake up and realize it's okay to hold on to some things, but better to let some things go. It's okay to hold on to the happy things, but the bad ones can blow away with the storm.

One day you wake up and realize it's okay to be happy. It's okay to be without him.