[Earlier entries aside, this must be said.]
I'm really not in that place where I can write to her yet; I'm not far enough away from the way we used to write. And it's funny, this didn't feel too soon for "one month", despite the fact that I learned of the loss on the 16th. I think I'm used to it always feeling too fast (and like it always was. Like it always was and never will be.) I'm not in the place to write something startling and beautiful, the way that you, Dixie, deserve on what would have been your twentieth birthday: 04/04/04. That's the sort of date I live to love, a cousin to the palindrome obsession, I suspect. I wish with everything that today was your twentieth birthday; if we were a movie, I'd blow out your candles and make that wish.
It's one month since we lost you; the way I cried yesterday...you know, you have to know, how much I miss you and how wrong this really is. I hope you know, too, that I don't blame you. And I'd like to think you knew I loved you before this even happened.
(Maybe I'm not entirely clueless how to write you...)
Today, I wore my hair in nine pigtails, with eight differently colored, sparkly hair savers (I picked two blue; I like blue)...and I didn't think until just now of the first time I saw you in that pink-purple sparkling dressed-up ensem. I feel like maybe I didn't think about you enough today, didn't make this enough about you, but I know it's better for me to just move along. And maybe you'd like nine crazy pigtails, a day on the town, a night anticipating home (if not without pain.) I'm sorry you won't be there the way I hope to be there. And I'm glad, that I really believe, you might be there another way.
Happy would-be birthday, Dixie Lee. I miss you, and I love you, and I will not say goodbye.
~me