Tamara Like Camera

That is all.

Mmm…hummus!

A couple of “Stinkyface”:

It KILLS me when she does things like this – holding onto favorite items (in this case, a bookmark stolen from me) while she climbs up stairs:

Teething, much?

Following her best friend:

And finally, the grand finale:

The day I found out my Grandma Bella died was the day I had my last final of the fall semester of my senior year of college. It was the only thing holding me back from holiday break. I woke up that morning and walked into the kitchen and instantly saw that something was wrong in my mom’s body language. She’s usually so cheerful and that day she was sunken and staring down at the kitchen table. I hadn’t expected Grandma Bella’s death so soon but I wasn’t surprised to hear the words come out of my mom’s mouth. I couldn’t imagine anything else on earth that would make her look so sad.

But I didn’t fall apart. At least not right away. I couldn’t with so much work to be done. I drove to Rutgers with my hands firmly on the steering wheel, determined to go in there and kick ass, which I did – getting an A on the final and in the class overall. Then I returned home and fell into a deep, dark, seemingly endless hole for a very, very long time.

The other day I found out some terrible health news about someone I care an awful lot about – someone who probably doesn’t even know how much I care. Someone who has been suffering for a long time and I hadn’t known until now.

But I didn’t fall apart. At least not right away. I couldn’t with so much work to be done – I’m working two part time jobs right now as well as an at home project on which I worked 50 hours on in the last week and a half, and that’s after getting home from my regular jobs!

But I’m starting to feel it, in my own way. I feel it in the way I held my head in my hands today at my desk and when my boss walked in and asked me if I was tired, I shook my head and turned away – my eyes quickly watering. I felt it even more after work during a gentle touch on my face from my eyebrow threader – her hands seeming sympathetic and understanding. My eyes were closed and they quickly filled with tears. I felt like I would explode. When she was done and I opened my eyes and the tears spilled out, I knew she wouldn’t think it was odd – people’s eyes constantly water from the stinging of their hair being ripped out from its roots, and that was my excuse, should I need it. I didn’t because they quickly dried and I turned numb again. I paid her and left and then felt it even more walking by a restaurant and seeing two very little old ladies drinking ice cream sodas and just grinning at me so widely. But I turned away and got in my car to drive home. I still had so much work to do.

And then I was nearly done with the work and the tears came. And the hiccuping sobs came. And I couldn’t breathe. And I blamed it all on work stress but Cassidy and Scarlet could see through that. And I’m so glad I didn’t keep my tears at bay so long that they shriveled up inside me. And I wonder – how long can you hang in the balance of sadness? What happens to a sadness deferred? I shudder to think about what becomes of it or what it becomes if you never confront it. I used to numb myself from pain and it would turn into nausea and it debilitated my life. And I’m just trying not to do that anymore. And it’s working.