I Close My Eyes And Go Back In Time, I Can See You Smiling, You're So Alive.

It's been a month since I lost my friend.
How has it been a month?
It feels like I've been missing her for months, Ireland feels like it was years ago, but I remember her wake like it was yesterday.
I remember the last time I ever saw her so clearly, even with my defective memory.
When people die, you always hear friends and family say things like "not a day goes by that I don't think about them".  Everyone says it, and I knew that they were telling the truth, but I never understood the weight of that.
Not a day, not an hour goes by without a thought of Monica, without a twinge of pain at the loss.
Every time I think of her is a struggle.  I hate the word struggle because it's what christians say when stuff goes wrong.  They struggle.  Then God redeems them and it's happily ever after.  Struggle seems to be more of a story term, rather than a real situation.  I always think of luchar, a spanish word meaning fight or struggle.  But it's a real physical and taxing struggle, rather than a fluffy thing.
What I mean to say is that every time I think of Monica it takes a toll on me.  Do I feel the weight of her absence all over again, or do I repress this twinge and save the reflection, the feeling, for next time?
This last month has been a mess.
I sleep pretty well now, I can focus on homework and go to class without having panic attacks, I can see my friends from my Ireland team without wanting to cry.  That's progress right?
But then there are these moments when I can't breathe and I'm trapped because there's nothing I can do to bring Monica back, and there isn't anyone who understands what it's like to be in my head.
I'm going to LA in the fall.
I'm moving on with my life, taking risks and going forward.  What would Monica have said?  What would she have done in the fall?
There are no longer opportunities to talk about her, people no longer ask me how I'm doing.
So I don't think about it.
I feel like I have to be okay.  It's been a month, classes go on and life goes on but oh how I don't want to move on.
I don't want to go to LA.
I don't want to fly through life and leave Gordon and the N. Ireland trip and Monica behind.
I don't want to pretend like I'm okay with what happened.
Because I'm not.
It shouldn't have been her that died.
How can I go to LA and enjoy the program knowing that the further away I go from March 30th and Gordon College, the further I move from Monica.
What am I supposed to do with this?
Why did it have to be her?!
Why not me?
I'm so afraid that I'll never know, and I'll do it anyways.
I don't want to move forward and leave her behind.
I'm just so not okay with what happened.  I'm not okay with it and I refuse to accept that it had to happen because it shouldn't have.

 Come back.