📌 Yesterday, Cocoa's (kitchen) water bowl has officially dried up. We haven't emptied it since the last day she took a sip from it 13 days ago. It's hitting me pretty hard. The grief I feel comes in waves. At the same time, it also feels like being stranded in the middle of a vast ocean, where I spend every waking moment treading water. My legs burn, and my lungs are screaming for air. At this point, the shore is nowhere to be found. People keep telling me that the storm will come and go, but the water has not calmed around me since we've had to say goodbye. Some moments, the water is only choppy enough to remind me that you’re gone. Other times, a wave crashes over my head before I even realize it’s coming towards me, and suddenly I’m fighting just to breathe again. I'm crying, and I just can't stop. It usually happens in the middle of ordinary things. While making coffee. Brushing my teeth. Sitting on the couch, reading. Eating dinner. I’ll feel it slowly rise from somewhere deep inside me that I can’t hold it back. Before I know it, I’m bawling my eyes out as though my body has just remembered that you’re gone, before my mind has had the chance to catch up. I keep trying to stay afloat, because that’s what everyone expects me to do. I keep swimming. I keep trying. I keep waking up without you. I answer messages. I go to work. I smile, whenever my face allows. But no one sees how utterly exhausting it is to carry an ocean inside of my chest. Or how every breath of mine feels borrowed. I honestly don’t know when I’ll be back on (to?) shore. Right now, all I know is that the ocean feels endless without you. I’m just so, so tired from trying to keep my head above water. I miss you, Cocoa.