I woke on Saturday with a heavy heart. Many things on my mind, but the date of the eleventh loomed largest. I was exhausted, but I couldn’t sleep. I spent the morning on the couch, flippping through the channels, trying not to think about anything. I paused on one of the music channels when I heard one of my favorite songs, “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac.

I have two periods in my life – everything before April 7th, and everything since. Before, the world came through a sunny little filter. Now, that filter is gone. Things I’ve done a million times become new experiences. A familiar song plays, and it’s like the first time I’ve ever heard it.

Can I sail thru the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

Well, I’ve been afraid of changing
cause I’ve built my life around you.
But time makes you bolder
Children get older
I’m getting older too.

As the song played, I listened to the words and cried. I know that Stevie Nicks wrote it when she was at a crossroads, her life tumbling around her. Only she knows what churning currents were truly on her mind that day. Just like only I know what I’m feeling in my heart and head.

I don’t know if I can navigate the changes in my life, the seas and the seasons seem so wildly out of control and unforgiving.

I’m so afraid I’m going to change, even though I know I already have. My life has changed forever, the life we built around our child. Everything we did was for her. And I don’t know how to live this new life without her, even as the winds swirl and shift around us.

I’m getting older, but on the day she would have turned 20 months old, she did not. She will forever be frozen at sixteen months and 27 days, the day the landslide brought me down.