Alice left the planet quickly and hurried home in her trusty blue mini.  She was smart enough to know that the feeling of numbness that engulfed her as her friends began to discuss the contents of Dana’s letter was not going to last long and she wanted to be in her apartment when she started to unravel.

Once she reached her apartment however she was no longer sure this was where she wanted to be either.   She stood there in the hallway feeling a rising panic building within her.  “Damn it Tasha” she thought as buried her face in her hands, “We don’t have a fucking plan for this now do we?”  Even before the thought was completed Alice knew that that was not exactly true. 

She and Tasha had discussed the fact that life was going to go on around them.  As much as they had tried to come up with some sort of approach to deal with all the situations that they predicted might occur , Tasha in particular had been adamant in reminding Alice that it would be the days when the unexpected happened when she would face her steepest challenges.

“You have to stick to the routine though.  If your Mom suddenly comes into town and wants to spend time with you or if you get sent away somewhere to cover some story for the magazine, no matter what, you still have to get up and go for you run.  Those days when it seems impossible, when it’s too hard, those are the days that it’s most important.  If you get through one of those days then you’ll know you have the strength to face the next one.”

Tasha’s words echoed through Alice’s head.  She knew this was one of those days.  It was imperative that she found a way to cling on to the routine that had kept her healthy since Tasha had left.   Alice knew that she had not even begun to deal with all the things that Dana had said in her letter but she also knew that as difficult as it had been to hear what was in it, reading the letter that Dana had written personally to her was going to be far worse.  She had to get through today to face tomorrow.  It made sense.