One of the things I take pride in on Dammit, Hali is my willingness to provide raw, real stories from my personal experiences.

While I love talking about home improvement and DIY as well as fashion, sharing my personal stories is what I am most passionate about.

Ultimately, my goal as I open my heart in this space is to be relatable; to give whoever is reading an actual person they can connect with. 

I had a lot of “life” happen to me before I was even old enough to legally drink a beer. And in my 29 years, I have experienced a lot of loss and a lot of really sad things — most of which you all will experience at some point (if you haven’t already).

It is never my intention when I talk about loss or sad circumstances to make you as a reader feel sad for me. Please, never feel sad for me.

We all go through bad things in life that we have to learn to cope with, and becoming vulnerable and sharing some of my most intimate thoughts here on the blog is simply one of the ways I cope with my life stuff.

It’s not that life gets easier as you grow. In fact, life changes, it changes you, and you change the way you react to the bad you’re faced with (and part of your reaction is your coping mechanism).

It truly brings me so much joy when I receive messages from friends, acquaintances, and even complete strangers letting me know that they found comfort in one of my posts. That’s really what I’m here for — to talk about the awful things I’ve experienced (and the good, too, for that matter) so maybe someone somewhere does not feel so alone when they’re in the thick of their life stuff.

When I write about being a motherless daughter, a lot of what I share is from my perspective of losing my mom when I was only 19. 

At 19, I was still a child.

19 years isn’t enough time with a parent. As mother and daughter, our relationship was just beginning when it ended.

At 19, I was only starting to grow out of the “I hate my mom” teen girl phase that many of us go through.

Now that she has been gone for almost 10 years and I see all the things she has missed — many wonderful things, as well as some really unfortunate things — it makes me so angry that I had to live the past 10 years without her.

I also find it very cruel that, as a woman, I will never get to experience the “my mom is my friend” phase of life many women have. And I don’t even know if that would be our relationship, but I would like to think it would.

Those feelings have never felt so real and “in-my-face” until I miscarried Justin’s and my first baby earlier this year.

It is a bizarre and sad thing to lose your mom at such a young age. Like I mentioned above, there are many things she has missed and will continue to miss for the rest of my life, which is heartbreaking to me.

The bizarre thing is, having her in heaven and knowing she watches over me, is incredibly comforting at times. 

One of the things I kept thinking after my husband and I miscarried was that my mom was there to greet our tiny babe. Not all grandmas are here on earth; some are in heaven for the babies who need them there. 

The thought of my mom holding my baby in heaven when I couldn’t brought me peace in a time when I was struggling most.

As comforting as that thought was (and still is, actually), I still wanted my mom here with me. I wanted to pick up the phone and call her, just to hear her voice — a voice I haven’t heard in nearly a decade.

The sad thing is, I tried to imagine what she would say or do to help get me through those terrible days immediately following our loss, but I couldn’t.

It has almost been 10 years since her passing and I can no longer imagine things like this or remember her in this way. Which scares the hell out of me.

I only knew my mom when I was a teenager. If she were still here, she would be a completely different person to me now that I am 29. Her wisdom would no longer be relevant to a teen girl. Instead, her advice (the advice I crave) would be woman-to-woman.

I say this often, but as a woman, there are some things that only your mom can do for you; things you want her here for. I miss my mom daily — in the big moments and the small, on the happiest of days and the saddest, through each new chapter of life that I begin.

And this year has absolutely been the beginning of a new chapter.