It's been a while since I've written, friends. A lot has happened in a short time. I signed a lease and decided to stay in the city (well, in the opposite order). I moved in, and have a roommate for the first time in almost 10 years (heeeey D. Thanks). I made a conscious decision to live with someone...I still don't do so well with being alone. It's like being scared of the dark, when the dark is what's inside your own head. My parents brought back a lot of my furniture, my former life (no cats though; D is a allergic and they aren't allowed here...plus finding reasonable, good housing is ridiculously difficult). Work has been a whirlwind and intense and crazy. And, I didn't have internet until a few days ago at the new apartment, which we lovingly call the Zombie Fortress. Or Zombie Safehouse, depending on your perspective (hashtag a sense of humor). So, here we are, caught up, more or less.
At the time, this would have been a now, but instead it's a then, because time slipped by before I could tell you about it. So let's go back a bit, yeah?
May 21, 2014. The day that K received his Juris Doctor. A Wednesday, smack in the middle of the week and life and things. Early morning, I am in a car down to New Jersey. Man, I hate going to Jersey now. My stomach is riding high up in my ribcage and my eyes are threatening to spill over before we even so much as make it onto the west side highway. On the way over the GWB I'm thinking about how long it takes to fall, and the article I read in the NYT about how the Golden Gate Bridge has the highest number of suicides of any bridge in the country (what is it about serenity and the expanse that comes with the west coast that makes people so committed, I wonder). I can't imagine jumping, having enough time to think and change your mind and it's too late. Or maybe it's all peace and ease and relief? It's not my style, but for some reason it's my thought now. And then just as quickly, we're in Jers, we're in the town I spent the last 6 years in, we're pulling up to K's parent's house. And then it's his little brother at the door for me, and I'm in the living room, perched on the same wood chair I pulled into the kitchen the day of the accident, the same chair where I hugged my knees to my chest and realized that K and I didn't get to grow old together anymore. The day my life changed.
I'm sitting across from K's foldout couch bed, watching his dad tie on K's favorite purple tie ("I'm going to borrow this, okay boy?" K's brother, tightly: "come on Dad..."), me with my eyes wet as I glaze over the poster board of condolences from the kids at the law school, and the funeral program, a framed picture of K, a collage of our pictures that I made him one year for his birthday...and his ashes. His ashes. Again. His ashes. The body of my beloved all crumbled up into something I can't hold or kiss, something that can't laugh or talk, some-thing. Not someone. Not my someone. The beginning and end inscribed on the side, a whole person paired down to dust and dates. Fuck. I'm crying and apologizing to his little brother. I hadn't meant to cry so soon. I'm trying to stop the tears before his mom comes out from getting dressed. I can't, but I'm trying. And so I'm trying to smile through them, smile through all my pain. It's all I've done since January. It's all I know how to do anymore.
We're on our way now, K's family and me, and his little brother's girlfriend. I'm happy to see her, but she seems less so to see me. I know what it's like to be The Girlfriend (more on that in a minute), to be there but not really there, just a fixture for moral support and companionship. I don't know if she feels that way, but I have in the past. More than once in my life. At the graduation, we are escorted to the front. When the processional starts, I'm in tears again. They are pouring uncontrollably down my face, and I don't care if I'm streaking my makeup. K should be here, damnit. He fucking earned this. 2.5 years of hard fucking work, and more late nights than undergrad. No one knows better than me, sitting up with him, reading his case law out loud when he got too tired, quizzing him until I understood the difference between first and second degree murder and manslaughter, or what all the requisites are for a contract (consideration, it's all about consideration). All the hours spent pouring over jobs and fine tuning resumes and cover letters, and learning what kind of law firms K would like. So many hours it was days, weeks. He should be here, damnit, with his class.
Every speaker mentions K in one way or another. I don't know if that was planned, but it makes me proud. I assume it makes his family proud too, but I can only speak for myself. And then it's time. I wish I wore the title of wife, so I could have gone up on stage and gotten his hood and his degree. Instead, the dean called his father up and the whole auditorium erupted into a standing ovation. And my tears were uncontrollable, all the emotion pent up behind my eyes all these months streaming full down my face. But not just with sadness friends, with pride. I don't think I was ever prouder of K than I was in that moment. And I KNOW he was proud. And he should be, up there in heaven. I know he was dancing because he always danced a bit. Always for as long as I knew him, a little pop-lock here, Michael Jackson moonwalk step there. Always a bit of a joke to make someone laugh. I know he was laughing, and dancing, and whether or not you believe in heaven or afterlife or anything, I know he was there in that moment, full of pride and completely deserving of all of the love and adoration and sadness that filled the auditorium in that moment.
After, and we're meeting a few people now. Some friends, and parents of students. "This is K's girlfriend" his parents say. And it's true, I am his girlfriend. I'm also his partner, would be wife. Girlfriend is so fleeting, so teenager. I hate it. I hate the casualness, the insignificance. The way it feels like I don't matter when I know I mattered to K more than he ever let on to anyone but me. I can cherish it, sure, but I hated the way I felt pushed to the side. The way the only possessions I have are a few t-shirts from our trips, a hat, a scarf and a leather bracelet. That's it. I don't even have the second copy of his degree that the law school gave (they give two), or the pictures we took together in a photo-booth in Florida, our last vacation (his dad keeps them in his car). I can count the number of photos we have together almost on one hand; we always took pictures of each other, but didn't necessarily take them together. And sure I have photos and memories, but there's something about the way the soul lives on in things, the way our energy embodies the possessions we love, leaving little traces behind everywhere. I wish I had more of those little traces so maybe combined all together I'd have something significant of the person who captured my heart for the last decade of my life.
So now that this chapter is done, the emotion is coming harder and heavier. Tears are disobedient and flowing more freely, more unbidden. Smile through it, smile through it. My anger is quelling and quiet, but still stirs on occasion. My stomach is unsettled with unfairness even now, and my frustration that people think I'm fine because some months have passed is louder than ever. Sometimes I feel like I'm laying just under a pool of shallow water, looking up at the sunlit surface. Everything is slightly off, slightly blurry. And I'm screaming but no one can hear me, I'm drowning so slowly that no one notices. A friend asked if I was okay the other day...the answer is still not really. I don't know when I'll be okay. I don't know if I ever will be (please don't reassure me. It doesn't help. I just want to be heard). My missing is so loud these days, my heart so heavily broken it hurts in my chest. I don't wish for a time machine, except late at night when it's still and loudly silent and I feel like God might have a moment to listen...and then I beg to be just a bit selfish, just to go back and fix that night. I beg to not be alone anymore.
All my love is misplaced and wandering now, and it all feels so wrong. Being "the girlfriend" and having no claim to anything feels wrong. It's all so unnatural to me, and yet I go on. Sometimes I wonder why I do, how I do. I don't know. I just do. And the smiles and laughter...it's all so false. It's all so useless. But here it is anyways, leaking through, trying to convince the rest of me we have to keep living.
And on that note, goodnight friends. May the next time be a little sooner, and just perhaps an inch less painful.
Music Redux: Childish Gambino - I'd Die Without You
Showing posts with label 2014. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2014. Show all posts
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Monday, May 19, 2014
Dig Deep
Dig deep, my mom said to me the other night. After her friend died in a car accident. After her horse died from a sudden onset illness. And I thought, what does that mean? What am I digging into, when I feel freshly dug earth, when I feel like shallow ground? Maybe there is some way to turn all this from scorched to consecrated? Or maybe not.
Everyone who's been on the outside, all of the I don't know what to says and am I saying the right things, dig deep with me. Dig deep and understand that it's not about advice given (and I've said before, it's really not advisable to give advice at all, although the desire to do so is certainly understandable) or the way you see me. It's not about you at all, and it's not even about me. It's about K. It's about everyone who lost this brilliant, funny, special young man long before it should have been his time. It's about parents who lost their eldest son, about a younger brother who lost the older. It's about old friends who fell out of touch not realizing that there was an end date on the "last time we spoke" and friends who were new and still developing. And then there's me. It's about The Girlfriend, would-be fiance, never-going-to-be wife, and not-mother. The love realized for so long, but somehow so short by comparison to lifetimes. Inconsequential by the definitions of the universe or God. All of us, missing K in our own way, learning to live with out him in our own way. All of us, digging deep.
You understand my vantage point perhaps, because I chose to be vocal. Because I cope by talking, and writing, and expressing. Because I am built to love and be open (I'm a Leo, all fire and passion as we are, all magnetic, catalyzing and angsty). Because I don't know what else to do with my broken heart, with the micro-realizations of OHGODHOWISTHISMYLIFENOW that might only ever come across to you in smiles slight and weak. Or sometimes in rushes of anger. Or weariness. I am so fucking weary. I'm weary of humans. Of men who think it is a good time to tell me about their attractions RIGHT NOW, of people minimizing and trivializing, who think I should be "over it"...or maybe just forgetting that 4 months might be yesterday and forever all at the same time as far as I'm concerned. To be clear, I don't say or write anything I don't want to. I don't feel like I have to tell you anything. There is no obligation or expectation on my end. So I ask, dig deep and leave yours behind. Try and remember who you're talking to, that the absence still exists. That my smiles and active engagement are there to protect us both.
This came up the other day: why bother protecting anyone? Why bother faking normalcy? Because the other option isn't an option. The other option is anger. It's letting you understand that you are striking a raw nerve ALL THE TIME. It's a sobbing mess, incoherent, so low it becomes nonexistent. And if there is one thing I cannot, will not do, it is lose my existence. I cannot dishonor K that way. I cannot collapse into myself, or give in to the hollowness inside of me. To be clear, I do not fake normal for you. I fake it for me, as tiring as it is. I fake it because anything else isn't even survival. It's not even base. And that I just refuse.
I have missed K from day 1, but every day it grows. I miss talking to him, and having someone who loves me so much, they put me first, just as I am putting them first, so that we are always trying to do the best thing for one another and nearly always getting what we need. I miss companionship and consistency. I miss the respect of someone who is emotionally invested in you. I miss love. Someone asked what I will do, with all this longing. I don't think missing and longing are the same thing. I don't long for K. That's pointless. I do miss him though and I doubt I will ever stop. And when it comes to what I will do, well, I suppose I will do what I have been doing. I will try to heal as best I can. I will keep writing. I will try to figure out how to do more than survive. I will dig deep, and keep growing, as we all are meant to.
I do not believe in "what doesn't kill us makes us stronger." I do not think I am stronger for this, and sometimes I feel like it IS killing me, at least the parts of me that are caring and human. Nor do I believe we are defined by our adversities, or even in spite of them. I don't believe that we are tested, or stretched just to capacity, no, I think sometimes we are pushed past limits and we break. At times, we are given more than we can handle. But I think at the end of the day, that is our survival mechanism, our means of evolution. Not opposable thumbs or invention. The ability to be pushed and pulled and broken and to continue on because we realize there isn't another choice. For all of us making that choice, for all of us digging deep, that is how humanity has survived for so long. That is how we evolve, and how we become better. Think of all the times that something brilliant and hopeful grew out of something tragic and heartbreaking. I could give you examples, but I think it'd be more meaningful if you thought of it on your own. A little homework for once. We are incredible that way, humanity. The bad may be ever so very bad, but the good, oh I believe in the silver lining of the good. Because what do any of us have, if we don't have hope that something good can come after something like this?
Until the next time.
Everyone who's been on the outside, all of the I don't know what to says and am I saying the right things, dig deep with me. Dig deep and understand that it's not about advice given (and I've said before, it's really not advisable to give advice at all, although the desire to do so is certainly understandable) or the way you see me. It's not about you at all, and it's not even about me. It's about K. It's about everyone who lost this brilliant, funny, special young man long before it should have been his time. It's about parents who lost their eldest son, about a younger brother who lost the older. It's about old friends who fell out of touch not realizing that there was an end date on the "last time we spoke" and friends who were new and still developing. And then there's me. It's about The Girlfriend, would-be fiance, never-going-to-be wife, and not-mother. The love realized for so long, but somehow so short by comparison to lifetimes. Inconsequential by the definitions of the universe or God. All of us, missing K in our own way, learning to live with out him in our own way. All of us, digging deep.
You understand my vantage point perhaps, because I chose to be vocal. Because I cope by talking, and writing, and expressing. Because I am built to love and be open (I'm a Leo, all fire and passion as we are, all magnetic, catalyzing and angsty). Because I don't know what else to do with my broken heart, with the micro-realizations of OHGODHOWISTHISMYLIFENOW that might only ever come across to you in smiles slight and weak. Or sometimes in rushes of anger. Or weariness. I am so fucking weary. I'm weary of humans. Of men who think it is a good time to tell me about their attractions RIGHT NOW, of people minimizing and trivializing, who think I should be "over it"...or maybe just forgetting that 4 months might be yesterday and forever all at the same time as far as I'm concerned. To be clear, I don't say or write anything I don't want to. I don't feel like I have to tell you anything. There is no obligation or expectation on my end. So I ask, dig deep and leave yours behind. Try and remember who you're talking to, that the absence still exists. That my smiles and active engagement are there to protect us both.
This came up the other day: why bother protecting anyone? Why bother faking normalcy? Because the other option isn't an option. The other option is anger. It's letting you understand that you are striking a raw nerve ALL THE TIME. It's a sobbing mess, incoherent, so low it becomes nonexistent. And if there is one thing I cannot, will not do, it is lose my existence. I cannot dishonor K that way. I cannot collapse into myself, or give in to the hollowness inside of me. To be clear, I do not fake normal for you. I fake it for me, as tiring as it is. I fake it because anything else isn't even survival. It's not even base. And that I just refuse.
I have missed K from day 1, but every day it grows. I miss talking to him, and having someone who loves me so much, they put me first, just as I am putting them first, so that we are always trying to do the best thing for one another and nearly always getting what we need. I miss companionship and consistency. I miss the respect of someone who is emotionally invested in you. I miss love. Someone asked what I will do, with all this longing. I don't think missing and longing are the same thing. I don't long for K. That's pointless. I do miss him though and I doubt I will ever stop. And when it comes to what I will do, well, I suppose I will do what I have been doing. I will try to heal as best I can. I will keep writing. I will try to figure out how to do more than survive. I will dig deep, and keep growing, as we all are meant to.
I do not believe in "what doesn't kill us makes us stronger." I do not think I am stronger for this, and sometimes I feel like it IS killing me, at least the parts of me that are caring and human. Nor do I believe we are defined by our adversities, or even in spite of them. I don't believe that we are tested, or stretched just to capacity, no, I think sometimes we are pushed past limits and we break. At times, we are given more than we can handle. But I think at the end of the day, that is our survival mechanism, our means of evolution. Not opposable thumbs or invention. The ability to be pushed and pulled and broken and to continue on because we realize there isn't another choice. For all of us making that choice, for all of us digging deep, that is how humanity has survived for so long. That is how we evolve, and how we become better. Think of all the times that something brilliant and hopeful grew out of something tragic and heartbreaking. I could give you examples, but I think it'd be more meaningful if you thought of it on your own. A little homework for once. We are incredible that way, humanity. The bad may be ever so very bad, but the good, oh I believe in the silver lining of the good. Because what do any of us have, if we don't have hope that something good can come after something like this?
Until the next time.
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
Dear K, Part 2 of Many
Dear K,
I felt you near me tonight. I could tell it was you because of the sudden warmth on my skin, like the way you used to come up behind me and wrap your arms around me. The way your presence enveloped mine, and how you were slightly, perfectly taller than me. And I could very nearly smell you, and there was a smile there for a moment carried by a memory: us in Whole Foods, smelling all the natural deodorants until we found the perfect one (because you were so careful with what you put on and in your body). You know I have been in Whole Foods exactly once since you died? And how I still hate those words that go stabbing through me every time I write them? And that my disbelief still roars so loud I rush to cover my ears before I realize it's all coming from inside me?
Oh Lovey, it's been weeks since you have visited me. Why is that? I imagine because it has to be, because there are some great laws of God or metaphysics or the universe (we still aren't on speaking terms, the universe and I) governing all of this in something like a pattern. Something like reason and sensibleness. I imagine it's because I have to figure out some way to go on, and how can I go on if all I'm doing is holding on? You had this thing for honesty and integrity so let me tell you true: my mind is rarely on anything but you. All day, every day. All the things I want to tell you. All the things you would find funny or ridiculous or sad. All the times I want to ask you a legal question because I was so impressed at all the knowledge you had from law school. Simple things. Artifacts of our life.
I like to imagine you would be touched by all the things I've written. You were always my primary subject, all the little poems that popped into my head during the day because of how I loved you. How you loved me. The time I stood up in an nearly empty basement in the Student Union and recited the slam poem I wrote for you, about how you were my Adonis and how beautiful you are. How beautiful you were. You are. Past tense is wrong. I don't care. I don't care if I can't hold your hand or kiss you or see your eyes or wear your hats. I don't care if the only way I can hear your voice is an accidental voicemail not even meant for me, or if I'll never get to buy you shoes or hats again. I don't care about any of that because you are not past tense to me. You are here. I feel you and you are here.
I didn't set out for this to be sad. I didn't set out to be crying yet again, or to have my heart to be humming with the way a bird trying to break a cage might. I just wanted to write you a letter because I felt you and I wanted to say hello. Just that simple thing so many take for granted. Hi. Hello. How are you? I still love you. And so I'll sign off with a little missing poem for you, that you might see these words in whatever way you see things now and hold them with you where ever you are.
I'm remembering all the little ways you loved me tonight.
I'm remembering things easy simple,
the smells and soundtracks of our lives,
the imprint of your person on my couch from years
of existing right along side me,
the way you used to flick my fingernails--
drove me crazy but felt like some tangible part of me for you,
before you realized that you had all of me--
and how hard was never nearly hard when you made me laugh,
and when didn't you make me laugh?
and things that are so tiny they aren't even memories
but shy glimmers and shadowy sparks,
and how I never knew I was beautiful
until I was beautiful in your eyes,
and all the ways you made me feel fearless.
All these tiny things I hold now,
and offer back up to keep you
warm and comforted in forever.
Always,
Your Leppy
Music: Ed Sheeran – Give Me Love
I felt you near me tonight. I could tell it was you because of the sudden warmth on my skin, like the way you used to come up behind me and wrap your arms around me. The way your presence enveloped mine, and how you were slightly, perfectly taller than me. And I could very nearly smell you, and there was a smile there for a moment carried by a memory: us in Whole Foods, smelling all the natural deodorants until we found the perfect one (because you were so careful with what you put on and in your body). You know I have been in Whole Foods exactly once since you died? And how I still hate those words that go stabbing through me every time I write them? And that my disbelief still roars so loud I rush to cover my ears before I realize it's all coming from inside me?
Oh Lovey, it's been weeks since you have visited me. Why is that? I imagine because it has to be, because there are some great laws of God or metaphysics or the universe (we still aren't on speaking terms, the universe and I) governing all of this in something like a pattern. Something like reason and sensibleness. I imagine it's because I have to figure out some way to go on, and how can I go on if all I'm doing is holding on? You had this thing for honesty and integrity so let me tell you true: my mind is rarely on anything but you. All day, every day. All the things I want to tell you. All the things you would find funny or ridiculous or sad. All the times I want to ask you a legal question because I was so impressed at all the knowledge you had from law school. Simple things. Artifacts of our life.
I like to imagine you would be touched by all the things I've written. You were always my primary subject, all the little poems that popped into my head during the day because of how I loved you. How you loved me. The time I stood up in an nearly empty basement in the Student Union and recited the slam poem I wrote for you, about how you were my Adonis and how beautiful you are. How beautiful you were. You are. Past tense is wrong. I don't care. I don't care if I can't hold your hand or kiss you or see your eyes or wear your hats. I don't care if the only way I can hear your voice is an accidental voicemail not even meant for me, or if I'll never get to buy you shoes or hats again. I don't care about any of that because you are not past tense to me. You are here. I feel you and you are here.
I didn't set out for this to be sad. I didn't set out to be crying yet again, or to have my heart to be humming with the way a bird trying to break a cage might. I just wanted to write you a letter because I felt you and I wanted to say hello. Just that simple thing so many take for granted. Hi. Hello. How are you? I still love you. And so I'll sign off with a little missing poem for you, that you might see these words in whatever way you see things now and hold them with you where ever you are.
I'm remembering all the little ways you loved me tonight.
I'm remembering things easy simple,
the smells and soundtracks of our lives,
the imprint of your person on my couch from years
of existing right along side me,
the way you used to flick my fingernails--
drove me crazy but felt like some tangible part of me for you,
before you realized that you had all of me--
and how hard was never nearly hard when you made me laugh,
and when didn't you make me laugh?
and things that are so tiny they aren't even memories
but shy glimmers and shadowy sparks,
and how I never knew I was beautiful
until I was beautiful in your eyes,
and all the ways you made me feel fearless.
All these tiny things I hold now,
and offer back up to keep you
warm and comforted in forever.
Always,
Your Leppy
Music: Ed Sheeran – Give Me Love
Monday, April 21, 2014
The Scratchiest Broken Record Alive
An apology for last night: I couldn't find my words, couldn't get my feet back under me. I wrote it after walking home from a good weekend with a friend, after talking to K's parents because it was Easter and it's been longer than it should be since I called them last, after passing under the Williamsburg Bridge with tears streaming down behind my new sunglasses, after sharing with K's mom the fact that I have his voice on a voicemail in my phone, after thinking about how sad it makes me that I have so much of the man he was and they only have memories of the child. So much After.
And I felt lost again friends, in this new place and new world I am in. I felt dizzyed up in confusion and eagerly afraid all together at once. I felt my heart and lungs and stomach contracting into themselves, dehydrating from this pain that I can hardly describe let alone touch or treat or heal. And I was thinking about how these themes are so damn reoccurring. The lost and lonely. The isolation. The confusion about how I am here and why and what to do. Always what to do with nothing to do at all. I feel like a broken record. I feel like the scratchiest fucking broken record in the world. Sometimes I wonder if these words are nails on a chalkboard to you. It's so easy for friends to forget the place I am in. It's so easy for them to treat me like the Sara they used to know. And I feel bad for them but worse for me, because I can't just remind them all the time, and sometimes I have to play along and it hurts. It fucking hurts to pretend that hard. Who knew Grief had so many kinds of pain? Who knew there were this many ways to feel sick?
I'm feeling vintage tonight. I feel older than I should again, like I'm posted up on someone's shelf, once loved now left behind. I feel dusty and dry, bitterish like tannins and tightened up like a short finish. It's important to write this all down I think, how I feel when I'm feeling at all. I don't think people really get what it's like not to feel because who does that, truly? Psychos and Socios who are out torturing animals before they work up the nerve to try it on a human? That's not me. But truly, I feel nothing. People say they're dead inside, but I wonder if that's just the numbness talking. My nothing is more like absent, some indeterminate hiatus from this plane of being. I guess the fact that I don't know how to get anyone to understand is why I keep trying. And that fact that people say all this is helping them. I can't begin to guess why or how me rambling on about how angry or sad or frustrated I am is helpful to anyone else, but so be it. I don't question anything anymore.
So let's see...how about some lessons making themselves recursive as of recent? I learn so much these days, like not seeking action where there is none. Like letting us be as still as we want without telling us to be gentle with ourselves (that's a repeat from last night, but it's my current source of irksomeness) or to feel the feelings we are trying to find again. It doesn't matter if it's anger or depression or joy, anything that will make us something like tangible and here and accounted for is welcomed. And knowing the only wrong thing to say is to say nothing at all, because then we don't know if you're uncomfortable or uncaring due to the equilibrium of our social queues being off, understandably. That just being with us is so important, that no matter how okay or normal we seem, or how little or much we cry we are still going through something horrible. How important it is to know and remember and do the best as best can be with any of us at all, the way we are so tiresome in our sadness. And the thing is, we know this. But it is not to be helped for some time. And that just sucks.
And realizing the converse of all that is all the people who want us to listen. Maybe because we've become so still, we seem like a receptacle for other people's stories/problems/existence? Maybe because we are empty, others desire to fill us up, selfishly or not, I don't know. And no matter how we react or don't, we are not ungrateful. We are incapable. It's different, you see, because it is surviving, or maybe living once in a while if the day is especially bright. So here I am, your favorite broken record played on repeat. But it bears repeating. It bears trying to fill in our gaps and blanks, understanding and compassion that cannot be returned just now, and so many other things. Just being with us in time and space, grounding us back to this earth and this reality. Keeping us here because the locale we desire is (must be, so important) unobtainable to us. Because holy fuck we just can't believe this our life, and how are we still breathing or existing at all? Don't talk about strength or anything else. We aren't strong, we are just here. We just exist and that is not strength but a bar set low for living, and that is okay. It's okay to not be encouraged or uplifted. It's okay to just be.
I spend a lot of time figuring out what is okay. I hope you haven't minded so much that I decided to share.
Love.
And I felt lost again friends, in this new place and new world I am in. I felt dizzyed up in confusion and eagerly afraid all together at once. I felt my heart and lungs and stomach contracting into themselves, dehydrating from this pain that I can hardly describe let alone touch or treat or heal. And I was thinking about how these themes are so damn reoccurring. The lost and lonely. The isolation. The confusion about how I am here and why and what to do. Always what to do with nothing to do at all. I feel like a broken record. I feel like the scratchiest fucking broken record in the world. Sometimes I wonder if these words are nails on a chalkboard to you. It's so easy for friends to forget the place I am in. It's so easy for them to treat me like the Sara they used to know. And I feel bad for them but worse for me, because I can't just remind them all the time, and sometimes I have to play along and it hurts. It fucking hurts to pretend that hard. Who knew Grief had so many kinds of pain? Who knew there were this many ways to feel sick?
I'm feeling vintage tonight. I feel older than I should again, like I'm posted up on someone's shelf, once loved now left behind. I feel dusty and dry, bitterish like tannins and tightened up like a short finish. It's important to write this all down I think, how I feel when I'm feeling at all. I don't think people really get what it's like not to feel because who does that, truly? Psychos and Socios who are out torturing animals before they work up the nerve to try it on a human? That's not me. But truly, I feel nothing. People say they're dead inside, but I wonder if that's just the numbness talking. My nothing is more like absent, some indeterminate hiatus from this plane of being. I guess the fact that I don't know how to get anyone to understand is why I keep trying. And that fact that people say all this is helping them. I can't begin to guess why or how me rambling on about how angry or sad or frustrated I am is helpful to anyone else, but so be it. I don't question anything anymore.
So let's see...how about some lessons making themselves recursive as of recent? I learn so much these days, like not seeking action where there is none. Like letting us be as still as we want without telling us to be gentle with ourselves (that's a repeat from last night, but it's my current source of irksomeness) or to feel the feelings we are trying to find again. It doesn't matter if it's anger or depression or joy, anything that will make us something like tangible and here and accounted for is welcomed. And knowing the only wrong thing to say is to say nothing at all, because then we don't know if you're uncomfortable or uncaring due to the equilibrium of our social queues being off, understandably. That just being with us is so important, that no matter how okay or normal we seem, or how little or much we cry we are still going through something horrible. How important it is to know and remember and do the best as best can be with any of us at all, the way we are so tiresome in our sadness. And the thing is, we know this. But it is not to be helped for some time. And that just sucks.
And realizing the converse of all that is all the people who want us to listen. Maybe because we've become so still, we seem like a receptacle for other people's stories/problems/existence? Maybe because we are empty, others desire to fill us up, selfishly or not, I don't know. And no matter how we react or don't, we are not ungrateful. We are incapable. It's different, you see, because it is surviving, or maybe living once in a while if the day is especially bright. So here I am, your favorite broken record played on repeat. But it bears repeating. It bears trying to fill in our gaps and blanks, understanding and compassion that cannot be returned just now, and so many other things. Just being with us in time and space, grounding us back to this earth and this reality. Keeping us here because the locale we desire is (must be, so important) unobtainable to us. Because holy fuck we just can't believe this our life, and how are we still breathing or existing at all? Don't talk about strength or anything else. We aren't strong, we are just here. We just exist and that is not strength but a bar set low for living, and that is okay. It's okay to not be encouraged or uplifted. It's okay to just be.
I spend a lot of time figuring out what is okay. I hope you haven't minded so much that I decided to share.
Love.
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Fuck 2014
I'm done with this year ya'll. I'm done with the universe picking off all our loved ones. People keep telling me it's the dying season. Fuck the dying season. Fuck reading a new status message every few days about yet another young person dying. Or someone's parent. Or someone's partner. I just...I can't.
Yesterday was the 2nd month anniversary of K's death. I still have a hard time typing that. Because every time I do, it makes it real. I don't know when I'll be able to type that, or say it, without feeling like if only I didn't say it, it wouldn't be true. I remember when we first started dating, I made us celebrate all of our month anniversaries. We'd been dating for a few weeks at the time, but made things official Nov 30th, 2004. So it was always the 30th of the month, until we hit one year. Now I wonder if I'm going to keep counting the months, until they become years. The 18th. The fucking 18th of every month for the next year. And then January 18th. November 30th. October 16th, his birthday. Those are the days that matter. Birth, love, death. All it boils down to in the end, made up out of 3 days each year my heart will catch a little.
I spend a lot of time wandering between remembering and forgetting. Forgetting the why and the how, but trying not to lose this beautiful person who I made so many memories with. For some reason, I remembered the first time K took me around people he knew as his girlfriend. It was this dance in his dorm, and he invited me. He wore a blue checked flannel shirt, black slacks and shiny black shoes. I remember how shiny his shoes were because of how well he danced. He was a great dancer. And I wore this spanish influenced black dress with red roses. And I remember at one point, he was spinning me, and salsa dancing, and all this other stuff while everyone else did the awkward two step with stiff arms on hips and shoulders. It was like a middle school dance where everyone was a little taller. K and I never two-stepped though, we always dance danced. And at one point, the Destiny's Child song Solider came on. And the whole room made a circle around us, dancing as we were. And every time the chorus would come on, they'd point at K. He was a little embarrassed, but also proud I think. It wasn't far into our relationship, but after that, I knew I loved him.
Through our relationship, I always felt that way, like he was my solider. Always there to protect me. And somehow, I couldn't return it. The only time it every actually mattered, I couldn't protect him.
Here's a poem I wrote, about how I've been feeling. About time and some other things. I'm trying to document these a little better, because sometimes poetry just feels so right.
I've been wondering about how time passes,
about long lines of possibility,
and the choices we make.
And how months feel like years and seconds
all at once somehow blurring by,
tenuously. Everything so damn tenuous.
I can't stop remembering the last time I saw you,
every second larger than
the life you left,
all in perfectly painted detail on my memory,
because time stopped then
--and my heart started beating broken--
and here I am,
monthssecondsyears passing me by,
still trying to understand how this is truth,
and what kind of cruelty exists that
our world takes you and leaves me, empty
and searching.
I'd be alright, if I could just see you.
I'll be alright, when time stops passing
lonely and broken like this.
Because I'm so over 2014, I've decided to publish this blog. I've had it secret for a little while, not sure what I wanted to do with it. I wanted to add some more entries maybe, make it feel more complete before I offered it up to the world. Opened myself up to everyone. But how can I sit on everything I'm going through, when so many people are sharing my experience? I want us all to heal by the commonality of the human experiences of Grief and Sorrow, not sit seemingly placid and quiet to the world while we break down inside. And lord knows I've been breaking down inside more and more. The outside though, that porcelain facade is on lock. Don't worry about me though, it's not a bad thing. I don't know how else I would get through my day.
Love.
Yesterday was the 2nd month anniversary of K's death. I still have a hard time typing that. Because every time I do, it makes it real. I don't know when I'll be able to type that, or say it, without feeling like if only I didn't say it, it wouldn't be true. I remember when we first started dating, I made us celebrate all of our month anniversaries. We'd been dating for a few weeks at the time, but made things official Nov 30th, 2004. So it was always the 30th of the month, until we hit one year. Now I wonder if I'm going to keep counting the months, until they become years. The 18th. The fucking 18th of every month for the next year. And then January 18th. November 30th. October 16th, his birthday. Those are the days that matter. Birth, love, death. All it boils down to in the end, made up out of 3 days each year my heart will catch a little.
I spend a lot of time wandering between remembering and forgetting. Forgetting the why and the how, but trying not to lose this beautiful person who I made so many memories with. For some reason, I remembered the first time K took me around people he knew as his girlfriend. It was this dance in his dorm, and he invited me. He wore a blue checked flannel shirt, black slacks and shiny black shoes. I remember how shiny his shoes were because of how well he danced. He was a great dancer. And I wore this spanish influenced black dress with red roses. And I remember at one point, he was spinning me, and salsa dancing, and all this other stuff while everyone else did the awkward two step with stiff arms on hips and shoulders. It was like a middle school dance where everyone was a little taller. K and I never two-stepped though, we always dance danced. And at one point, the Destiny's Child song Solider came on. And the whole room made a circle around us, dancing as we were. And every time the chorus would come on, they'd point at K. He was a little embarrassed, but also proud I think. It wasn't far into our relationship, but after that, I knew I loved him.
Through our relationship, I always felt that way, like he was my solider. Always there to protect me. And somehow, I couldn't return it. The only time it every actually mattered, I couldn't protect him.
Here's a poem I wrote, about how I've been feeling. About time and some other things. I'm trying to document these a little better, because sometimes poetry just feels so right.
I've been wondering about how time passes,
about long lines of possibility,
and the choices we make.
And how months feel like years and seconds
all at once somehow blurring by,
tenuously. Everything so damn tenuous.
I can't stop remembering the last time I saw you,
every second larger than
the life you left,
all in perfectly painted detail on my memory,
because time stopped then
--and my heart started beating broken--
and here I am,
monthssecondsyears passing me by,
still trying to understand how this is truth,
and what kind of cruelty exists that
our world takes you and leaves me, empty
and searching.
I'd be alright, if I could just see you.
I'll be alright, when time stops passing
lonely and broken like this.
Because I'm so over 2014, I've decided to publish this blog. I've had it secret for a little while, not sure what I wanted to do with it. I wanted to add some more entries maybe, make it feel more complete before I offered it up to the world. Opened myself up to everyone. But how can I sit on everything I'm going through, when so many people are sharing my experience? I want us all to heal by the commonality of the human experiences of Grief and Sorrow, not sit seemingly placid and quiet to the world while we break down inside. And lord knows I've been breaking down inside more and more. The outside though, that porcelain facade is on lock. Don't worry about me though, it's not a bad thing. I don't know how else I would get through my day.
Love.
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