When I Slip

It's funny the way music works, how a simple melody or someone's voice can catapult us into an emotional extreme. And maybe the lyrics don't quite match up with how you're feeling, but somehow they still do. Today I was having brunch with a new friend and this song came on: Miike Snow – Animal  and it's not new and I've heard it before, but then the chorus hits and I hear

I change shapes just to hide in this place
But I'm still, I'm still an animal
Nobody knows it but me when I slip
Yeah I slip, I'm still an animal

and it's got me thinking about slipping. And what happens when we slip back towards darkness and low points and things that are scarier than they should be. These past few weeks have been hard for me, and I've been worried that I'm coming out of some sort of shock I didn't know I was experiencing (not that I think I'm fine, but just that I've been moving along in some capacity). I'm feeling a little at a loss for words tonight, but my heart is aching hard and I feel like writing something, anything at all, might ease my pain. So that's a disclaimer against what may end up as a stream of consciousness.

K's Law School is throwing a fundraiser for him this week. He used to wear brightly colored socks--amongst other sartorial choices that I always liked--and so they're asking everyone to wear bright socks on Tuesday to raise funds for a scholarship. So maybe if you think of it, and you own some bright socks, wear them on Tuesday and think of K, even if you didn't know him. 

So let's talk about that. Knowing K. Because many people thought they did, and they didn't. He was intensely private, although kind and attentive and a good listener. He was guarded about himself and his goals and his life. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person in the world who really knew him at this stage in his life, because he told me things he didn't tell anyone else. The way you get so comfortable with someone you don't sugar coat, you can just be candid and honest and open and know they get it. Even when I didn't get it, I got it because I got him and how he saw the world. I was lucky to have known him like that, to be trusted so much by someone who didn't trust very easily at all. 

I'm feeling lost. None of this is helping my heartache tonight, but I still want to write it. Sometimes I just want to talk about K for hours and move in and out of crying and memories. I want to show whoever is listening pictures and tell them stories. I want to play the single voicemail I have so they can hear his voice and try to create an image of the whole person I knew.  And I don't want them to say anything. I don't want to be told it will be okay eventually, or to see a therapist, or to be gentle with myself, or to let myself feel the anger and sadness. I appreciate it, the kindness and the good intent, but I don't want to hear it anymore. I just want to be able to talk forever about someone who doesn't exist anymore. And how fucked up it is that it's so easy to stop existing (yes he's still with me, etc etc didn't we just talk about not saying those things anymore?) and how unfair.

My heart is too heavy to write the way I want, or say the things I want to say. So I'm just going to stop. Sometimes I wish time and world and everything would just stop. Sometimes I wish I didn't bounce between extremes and confusion and feelings of nothings and everythings. I wish I wasn't vulnerable and that I didn't trust so easily. I wish I was more like K, who was good at so very many things that I am not good at...and I am good at things he wasn't good at---that's why we worked so well. 

I just really, really miss him right now. I want the person who completed me to be here to hold me. He is the only person who I want to tell me it will be alright. He is the only person I want to make me laugh, or to keep me company so I don't feel lonely. He is the only person who could truly keep me from feeling lost. Good night friends, in all this confusion and odd ramblings of tonight. The next one will be more coherent. The next one will have a point. I think I said inspirational on Facebook? The next one will be...something. Hopefully inspired. Hopefully better.