Order of Operations

I think lately I've been trying to find my voice again. My poetry, my cadence, my prose. Everyone who has read my blog and has said I should write a book, thank you. I appreciate that. This post though, it isn't like that. It's not trying to describe my feelings. It's memories. And memories are often ugly. No apologies, just facts. So let me give you the first memory from After:

8am, give or take. Cold, although the heat's always on too high in my apartment. There is fuzziness, confusion. Everything wavy and slightly surreal. It's too early; I haven't slept much and my head is pounding like it knows we're not sleeping again for months. Maybe ever. I try to put my contacts in, manage one, and leave the other on the sink where it will remain, dried out and sad when I come back to my apartment hours (days? weeks?) later. Take out the other, toss it in the trash. Put my glasses back on. Pace, pace, pace. Talk to my cats, try to explain to the them with no words. Cry a little. Sit. Stand. You see, I am waiting for the police to come and take me to K's parent's house, because this is the morning that K has died. His brother's voice is echoing in my ear. My voice is echoing in my chest from having just gotten off the phone with my parents. Echoes all around. I am remembering this for you because it recently came flooding back to me.

Over the past year or so, K and I were fortunate to make two very good friends. A couple out of Chicago, who went to college with us. I'll call them the Travelers, because they've managed to see the world in a way most people in their late 20s/early 30s don't. We didn't know them so well in school, though K played basketball on occasion with Mr. Traveler. On the day of K's death, one of the first phone calls I made was to this couple. I'm not sure why, but it felt right. And that has pretty much been the name of the game ever since. So just recently I received a save the date from the Travelers, who will be married in a few months. And I was absolutely elated. But as I read the email, I teared up. And my high started to drift towards a low. You see, K and I would have attended together. And even more so, our friends are so very similar to us. Met at college, dated for many years afterwards, made a life together, finally getting married. Echoes all around. After the funeral, Mrs. Traveler sent me a message that relayed a similar idea. All our parallels. So my joy for them is the joy I would have had for myself, and my sorrow is the sorrow she could have had, in a different version of this life.

Another memory now: Dropped off at K's parent's house, there is an ambulance outside, and four or five police. The officer who dropped me, he says if I can be strong for the family, that would be best. He tells me K's mom is having a hard time. The ambulance is there for her, just in case, and regardless of that, I don't doubt the scene I will find inside. This is a mother who has lost her first born, after all. A hard time would be a massive understatement. But this officer, he doesn't know our history. He doesn't know that this is my husband who has died, that we were boyfriend and girlfriend in title only, but the heart is different. Time is different. But I have always had a strange sense of duty, a way of doing what's asked of me, somehow.

And so a few hours later, I find myself in K's parent's kitchen, surrounded by aunts, uncles, cousins. Sitting on a wooden chair, trying to stay warm. It's cold and clear this day, but the cold is the kind that wraps around your heart and pulls on your organs, the clarity reminding you that you're still here. That I'm still here, when K is not. On any other day, had we been up early, I would have inhaled deeply and told K it was the kind of morning that made you feel life. But on this day, I cannot feel life with K; instead there is only the continuity from one moment to the next, each tip toeing further away from the last time I saw the love of my life alive.

And I'm sitting there, stoic. Strong for the family echoes in my short term memory. I've been carrying that particular echo for a while now, I think, these past few months. But that day especially, I held it well, that strength for the family. Phone calls and all that. And then suddenly, I am crying, because it just occurs to me how backwards all this is. And I'm telling his uncle and aunt how we were supposed to grow old together. I say that over and over, because that was my reality. I was never the kind of girl to plan her ideal wedding or any of that. But this was my life partner, my love, my spouse in my heart before God and the universe and all else, regardless of rings or papers or promises. And all of that is lost to me now.

And that's really what gets me down a lot of the time. Things are all out of order now. We had nine years together before K got snatched out of my life. Who knew old meant a few grey hairs as I entered my 30s, or that forever had a time limit? I am so excited to celebrate with The Travelers later this year, but when I dance, it won't be the way I would have danced with K. There is a certain joy in being that way you know, a natural rhythm that you have moving through space next to someone who fills your heart. I've thought a lot about the fairness of things, why some people get their partners and I do not get mine. I am intrinsically happy for anyone who finds love that way, but there are elements of jealousy too. I wouldn't be honest if I pretended I never felt it, and if there is one thing I won't do it is lie here in this place. Enough of those go on on to get us through the day, the lies we tell to keep us going, so let's have some truth, yeah?