Welcome back to An Author's Open Book: A Glimpse of Love & Grief

Happy Valentine's Day month!

Welcome back to my blog, everyone! It's been over two years since I've managed and written anything on here so you can imagine all the things that have happened in between. There's definitely a lot to write about, and I'm so excited to get right to it and connect with all of you.

Regarding the purpose of my blog itself, I am still calling it an Author's Open Book for two reasons:

First, I want it to be a place where I can write about many things with the purpose of someone reading it and being able to resonate so they don't feel alone at the end of the day. I will take my time and write about both the high highs and the low lows of these past few years throughout several articles, but I am also taking topic requests through Instagram since that's my main social media platform.

Instagram: @paunbylard

Or heck, if you have my number or see me a lot, just shoot me a quick text or tell me during a casual conversation! Point is, a lot of my articles will be vulnerable depending on the topic.

Second, I want to be more adventurous than usual and write about my personal thoughts on random, new things I want to check out such as restaurants, museums, bookstores, etc. I figured it would be fun to talk about my experience, give it a rating and offer suggestions to you guys in case you want to check it out. There are many tourist locations near me, so I'm sure there will be endless places to try :)

Now … that being said, let's get started shall we?

If you look at the main page of the website, it shows the last article I published was on October 2021 which is sort of sad, although I made the decision to put the blog on pause this whole time because I wanted to focus on writing a novel (I recently finished writing it!) which I will get to in another post, but I've missed writing about different things too. I'm at a point in my life where writing has been becoming more serious for me, and I have been slowly trying to build a portfolio and take baby steps towards making it into a career. It's really exciting, but also overwhelming since there are so many decisions to be made. But before I get into that in my next article, I wanted this one to focus on two main things where I experienced love at its greatest, and also at its hardest based on two different events.

August 2022: Dad's One Year Death Anniversary

To start things off, I'm getting right to the vulnerable part of the article. Although this can be considered depressing, it was also a very beautiful time that my mom, brother, my husband Kristian and I got to experience together honoring my dad. We ended up spending the day in Monterey and went to the aquarium because that was one of our favorite things to do when I was younger. For those of you who aren't aware, he passed suddenly back in August 2021 (the day after his birthday), and I remember getting a call from one of my uncle's early in the morning giving me the devastating news. It was awful having to make calls afterwards, and as I'm writing this, it's kind of weird thinking how in a few months it will be three years since his passing because I sincerely still think he's around sometimes; I'll get a random thought to text him to see if he wants to grab lunch over the weekend, and my heart still drops when I quickly come to the realization he's not here anymore. I have days where I wonder if I was successful in processing my grief, so it's been a journey to say the least.

My dad and I had a very complicated relationship for years, but we found our way with time. The more I talked to him, the more I realized how alike we are in certain things, and it made bonding easier. We had similar hobbies, and if anything, I thank him for the writing gene because he always had a way with words, and he loved to write as well. He was working on a book and never got to publish it, but he loved writing the way I did, and it was wonderful having someone to talk to about the passion I feel towards it. When I published my first book, I'd say he was the ultimate hype-man when it came to that because all he needed was a bullhorn to announce it to the public from how proud he felt. The thought of that always makes me smile. I admired how hard-working, confident, intelligent, bold and empathetic he was. Let me tell you, there was a never dull moment when my brother and I hung out with him.

To be honest, I started writing an article a few weeks after his passing because I wanted to dedicate a whole thing towards him, but I didn't have the heart to do it. I still have the draft, so I will share the little I wrote during that time:

"Hi everyone,

Today's article was sincerely difficult for me to decide whether I wanted to publish it or not. If anything, I wasn't even sure if I should write it in the first place. However, after truly thinking about it as the days went by, I decided I want to and it's also something I must do.

Although very hard to admit, I will say this is not the easiest thing to write about. Besides my dad's recent and unexpected passing, there is also a long and arduous journey him and I had that I will discuss. Before I get into that though, I will state that we did eventually find our way and built a good relationship.

I was a daddy's girl growing up.

I have so many memories of spending a lot of time with him and his family since we all lived extremely close to each other. Most of my mom's family are in Mexico so growing up I got the opportunity to bond more with my dad's siblings and their kids. Plus I was an only child up until I was 7 years old, so my cousins meant the world to me.

Most of my memories consist of doing so many fun activities with my dad and his family such as having annual Halloween and Christmas parties, throw huge birthday parties, plan camping trips or simply see each other almost every weekend at a different relative's house.

My childhood was absolutely magical.

When it came to my dad, I do remember thinking of him as my hero. He was family oriented, hard-working, funny, charismatic and so cool because I got to witness him do different things like painting, writing and even teach karate. There was nothing he couldn't do but my favorite thing about him was that he always made me feel like I was the most important thing in the world to him: he made me feel protected, loved and heard."

After reading that again, I regret not continuing it and publishing it. I'm barely getting the courage to even share what I've written so far, but thinking back on all the things that have happened, I finally felt ready to show at least a part of it. I'll admit thinking of our past hurt, and I didn't want to continue since I was also mourning him at the same time. I told my best friend a few months ago that a silly thing I tend to do is watch random videos or movies with Sylvester Stallone because he resembled him so much for a while when he started to work out a lot. I'm at a place where I like thinking about my dad from time to time and replay the wonderful moments in my head, but I also gave up on trying to get rid of the grief. I fought it for a while, thinking I could get away from it, but I've learned you have to sit with it. The longer one goes trying to avoid it, the worse it gets. But now, I've embraced the feeling because I want to remember him, and be thankful for finding our way back no matter how difficult it was.

I make sure to honor him every August by doing something we enjoyed doing as a family. As mentioned, we went to Monterey in 2022 and then Disneyland in 2023 where we even made a reservation at his favorite restaurant. I'm excited to plan what we will be doing this year, and can't wait to write about it.

Tell your parents you love them. I lost him so unexpectedly, and with my mom, god I wish I would've treated her better growing up. As an adult now, you think back and wonder how the hell our parents managed to do what they did. I was angry for most of my teenage years leading up to college, always thinking they could've done better in some ways but boy was I far from right. I want to smack the old me. I am nowhere near half the woman my mother is, and there are many things I wish I could thank my dad for but I never had the opportunity. No parent is perfect, so I encourage you to have patience with them, and be vocal about how much you appreciate them.

Rest in Peace, and I love you forever.

The experience with grief is something no one will ever be able to explain to another person if they haven't gone through it themselves, but I noticed that process leads to feeling love on another level too. Your heart somehow expands thinking of all the memories you made with the person you lost, and it goes on overdrive so much so, it develops a way to just throw all the emotions that exist your way. If you're not afraid of it to flow through you, I sincerely think it's one of the most beautiful things a human can encounter as weird as that sounds. It's almost a reminder of how much you're capable of allowing love to enter. The bond with that person, no matter who it is, was always that strong that it will still have the ability to pull your heart strings as the years go by.

It's not something to be scared of, but more of being grateful you encountered that level of loving.

To conclude, this was the other event where I got to experience love in another way.

December 2022: Our Wedding

I want to consider this part of the article as a "love letter" in honor of Valentine's Day being around the corner.

This day was beyond magical; I didn't think it was possible to love my husband more than I have all these years, but this day really added something special. Besides being surrounded by all of our loved ones, I never could have imagined feeling so over the moon with how everything turned out.

Our relationship has faced many ups and downs like any other, but because we have been together for many years, it can become a challenge navigating life as both of us are evolving as people in our own way. We met when we were fourteen and fifteen, began dating when I was nineteen and he was twenty and got married at twenty-seven and twenty-eight years old; Imagine how much change can happen!

I'm not going to lie, I'm a very complicated person: prideful, impatient and stubborn, but I also love hard. There have been moments in my life that made me feel people taking advantage of that, so I decided to build a wall as time went by. I refused to let anyone in, and I almost swore not to ever give my heart to anyone. I grew up not caring so much about settling down anyway because the only thing I wanted was to be by myself living in my dream apartment and have a dog to keep me company. Can you believe that? I didn't want to share my space, my time nor anything with anyone else. I didn't know it at the time, but now I understand that it was concerning levels of trust issues that had to do with it, but truthfully, I didn't care. I wanted to always solve my own problems and not rely on anyone but myself.

I was certain that was going to be my life, and I was totally okay with that. But then came along Mr. Kristian unexpectedly with the audacity to find a way into my heart.

To put it simple, he is the man of my dreams. I have never met anyone as patient as him, always willing to listen to me vent about the same things, he comforts me in a way where I didn't even realize it was that easy to fall into someone's arms when I'm hurting, he makes me feel beautiful when I am over-criticizing everything about myself, and as I said in my vows, he found a way to pick up all the broken pieces of my heart and glue them back together as if nothing ever happened.

But don't get it twisted … he is also not afraid to call me out on my bull****. He challenges me, he makes me get out of my head, and he holds my hand through some of the toughest times I've went through so far. He is my partner in crime and my other half, or as we say in Spanish, mi media naranja. (And my #1 enemy in Mario Kart. I get SO mad because he's so good at it!)

I do recall envisioning my wedding when I was a little girl, but honestly not as much as others talk about it. So when the day came, it was a fairytale, and I couldn't believe I found my life partner. Kristian is a special person, and sometimes I honestly look at him for a bit and wonder what I could've possibly done to have him in my life because saying I'm grateful is an understatement.

There are so many things to thank him for including being by my side no matter what, not just being a partner, but also being a best friend, helping me view life differently when I'm stuck in a rut, and even taking a Spanish class to speak with me and my family. As a bonus, he's the reason I found my two best friends (you know who you are). :)

The wedding itself took place in San Jose, CA, it was winter themed, and had a good mix of music, a buffet, open bar, Christmas décor, and just all around love for everyone. I am at my happiest when I'm near my loved ones, so I was overjoyed.

We had over 300+ pictures taken, but here are some of the very few I loved.

To my husband, I love you eternally.

Since timing worked out in a way I got to post my comeback article in February, I figured I would write about experiencing my love for my husband since our wedding took place while this blog was on pause, and also the love my heart has for my dad since we lost him too early, and learning how to navigate that while also experiencing grief.

I've been working on this for over a week, writing and deleting pictures and topics, but as I publish it today, it felt right dedicating it to these two subjects.

I'm not sure who views my blogs, but I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the support. This has been my way of trying to build a small and safe community to show that vulnerability doesn't have to be bad, and believe me when I say I'm still learning too.

It's so fun planning and writing about what these next articles will be about, and I can't wait to share more experiences whether it be deep or not.

I'm going to try my best to write either bi-weekly articles or monthly, depending on how busy I get with other things. That being said, Valentine's Day & even the Super Bowl will be over by the time I post something new, so I wish everyone a beautiful time whoever you're celebrating with and .........

GO NINERS!!!!!

Till next time! <3