Not supposed to be here.

Now I pick up again. I revisit prompts. Now almost nine months out. I try to write again because I am drowning, Listen to where I left off. It is most pertinent now: 

What does a shift in your grief, even a tiny, momentary one, mean to you? What does it say about loss? Or love?

“The pain, or the memory of pain, that here was literally sucked away by something nameless until only a void was left. The knowledge that this question was possible: pain that turns finally into emptiness. The knowledge that the same equation applied to everything, more or less.”―  Roberto Bolaño, 2666

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This is the void. Welcome. It is not grief anymore. It is a deep depression. I kept up a frenetic pace. I took a second job. I ate dinner with friends. I went to the gym six days per week. I listened to music and got sad. I avoided my bed. I avoided the quiet here with my words and my heart. I was doing “so well.” And then the void came. It was all that was left. It is a void and it is all that I have. This void.

Empty.

I am not just sad anymore. I am not just grieving you. You have become a sadness that is not outside of me but a part of me. Your sadness has integrated. It is consumed. It is a parasite. It eats my heart. My hope. It is not a thing that happened but a thing that is me. This is what I was scared of. When this loss becomes a part of me. How do I let you become a part of me when your loss is so heavy? It pulls me under. I lie in bed hating the people that I have to stay alive for, hating how hard it is to be alive for all of you. Because the pain is so deep, the depression so strong that I don’t know how to keep breathing except that I have to.

From an email to Brian:

I feel as if my emotional spectrum of happy to sad has been replace with apathy to anxiety. One or the other or often a confusing cocktail of the two. Like right now. I’ve done nothing at work today. I didn’t do much for our short week last week either. Even played sick on Monday. I’m not proud of it. I actually feel stomach turning shame about this behavior. But I don’t care to do anything about it. Don’t know if I even could do anything about it. And finally don’t care to find out if I can or can't do anything about it. SO, I give zero fucks and it makes me anxious as hell. But I can still do a mean tap dance to make sure you pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. It’s going to be a grueling winter.

He called and gave me the you’re-tough-suck-it-up-speech. I didn’t go to work for two days.

It’s been nine months. I’m supposed to be better. I’m worse. I’ve integrated. And it’s awful.

I think all the time. I’m not supposed to be here. I shouldn’t be paying someone else to fix my bike after that bad accident. I shouldn’t have had to ride home bruised with my handlebars cockeyed after that accident. I shouldn’t have been riding at all. I should have been riding a bus to you and met you in a McDonalds parking lot. Where you beamed at me from the car the second my hand touched the passenger handle.

I shouldn’t have been in Aspen for Thanksgiving drinking and doing drugs. I shouldn’t have sobbed my way through a snowy run on the Roaring Fork River, as beautiful as it was. I should have been in bed with you trying to make a baby. I shouldn’t have been drinking whiskey at 4 AM. I should have been nestled in your arms whispering to you through a nightmare.

I shouldn’t be in this basement, listening to a band you’ve never closed your eyes to. I shouldn’t be cozied up to a dog you never met on your bed that I inherited. No matter how dear this dog is.

I shouldn’t be a shell. I shouldn’t have to lie all the time. I’m not supposed to be here.

Litany to lint

After I washed your comforter in my new apartment: 

Have you ever cried over a lint ball. Gently stroking a dead mans hair. Moving it about to recall the kaleidoscope of colors that caught the sun. Dark brown, light brown, copper and grey. Did you recall tousled morning hair and chest hair between your fingers. Arm hair beneath your hand as you absently rubbed his forearm. A pubic hair perhaps pulled out during lovedmaking. Did you consider how you could maybe keep the thing. Seven months gone and you still have to fight the urge to steal away the most simple detritus. So you cry over a lint ball till you toss it in a strange trash an and go have a good cry. 

716 S. Logan

from my last night in our apartment: 

How can a beautiful blue also be black? In it's not dark blue. The sky is blue and black at the same time. This is dusk. The dusk of us. Crayons cornflower blue and black. You exist like that inside me. Outside me. You are both. Not against each other but the same. To put you in both places. But the sky can do it. And I touch the sky and I touch you so I can make it be. Stunning blue and black. Not streaming against each other but laying across each other as your body used to lay against mine. You are darkness an light and you are still mine. I don't mind either. I could take you then, generous and selfish, good and bad, seeking and flawed. I can take you now. For all. It is harder now. Absence wants absolutes. It wants to make your memory one thing or the other. But you are neither. And I love you. Even in your irrevocable absence. 

I'm wrapped up in you. The shirt I first stole and took that sexy, sleepy series of photos in. And the sweatpants you loved and I haven't washed because they still have a fading white wash of our lovemaking on the front of the waistband. I don't remember that time that's left it's mark. But I remember so many morning times where I'd be cranky and you'd cheer me with your urgency for me and tuck your favorite sweatpants down to slide into me against the bathroom. Whispering that we were going to be late. Me pouting and you playing pragmatic. So even though I've worn them since then on our wedding day by a fire you should have built but didn't know I could, I can't wash them. Relishing the smell of fire as I relish you and me against the soft skin below my navel. Holding our love against my womb as if we were dancing, you behind me and me pressed against you, your arms wrapped me from behind, lazy swaying into our future. A family never realized but held so dearly. 

I am yours. And now I have to carve out the piece of me that is yours. But I won't put it in a box. I will hold it with reverence. The part of me that is yours that no one else can't touch. It is sacred. And I carry it forward. And I don't want to spend this last night resenting you for not being able to see how that was possible. A part of me is always yours. And yes I do worry that one day they'll be nothing left with these gems held and otherwise occupied but I have to hope that it grows. This love. Our love. It is apart but something else regenerates. This capacity for love and hope and good. You couldn't see that. And I have to forgive you. 

Anger begins

A note on my phone from August 8th: 

I am going to be okay.

But, it's not because you did this. It's not because I'm better off without you. It's because I have something I need. It's not because you didn't have something I need. 

And still, at the end of the day. I need to survive. Yes. I'm a little more cavalier about my safety. But maybe that's good. I do things that scare me all the time now. Because I've been as scared as a person could be and I am still on my goddamn feet. You didn't do that. I fucking did that.

And I still reach for you. When things are, hurry to share the news good. When things are chip a tooth you're clenching so hard bad. I throw my arm across the bed to find cold comforter, and hear the rock from rainbow lakes slide across the box of your ashes. Even when I dream. I dream of waking and reaching for you and finding you gone. Everywhere I look you are gone. And I persist. 

I am strong as fuck. Not because of you. In spite of you. I do impossible things everyday. Starting with climbing out of bed. And ending with climbing back into bed to try to release as my brain races while my forehead furrows. And every moment in between. I fight. I may finally need the Botox my sister kept trying to push on me. And every moment in between. I fight. To savor moments of respite and surrender to the moment of relentless grief. I do the impossible because I don't know how not to. 

People say it's brave. I'm not sure bravery is much more than being terrified of the alternative. 

Placeholder

somewhere in the middle of June. I could write no more. The following posts are some notes I posted here and there. They remain unpolished but represent a stage of fervor. The absence of data is still data. As I was taught in my previous career as a social scientist. 

Here is a note from July: 
----
Hi baby. My baby. My sweet baby love. My sweet love. Oh my love. I had a good day. A good work day. The kind of day that makes the world feel full of possibility. And you. Are not here to share it. Which ruins it. Anything that makes me feel leaves a rock in my throat. I had a good day. I got excited. I thought I could make a difference. Wanted to tell you. I hurt all over. All the time. Like. Burn victim the air hurts my skin when it moves. I need things to stay still. 
-----

I do remember that day though I don't remember the details. Something felt full of possibility and then immediately it felt empty and alone. 

This is a placeholder. I can barely remember the frenetic pace I kept throughout these days. Trying to be brave, 

Not Today

Especially in early grief, we replay events and memories in our minds, desperate to hold onto them. We have lost so much. We are terrified to lose what little we have left: the things we remember, the inner pictures of our life before.
 
“Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever," he said. 
                             "You might want to think about that."
"You forget some things, don't you?"
"Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

----------------------
I already have lists of the things I want to remember. I keep one on my computer and one on my phone. I added a memory to my phone list yesterday. I went to brunch with an old friend and one time significant other. The conversation stalled, so I listened to the couple next to us talking about the new park up the street and the sound of our silverware on the plate. Wondering how Sean and I always had so much to say to each other. Then, I noticed. My companion was looking at my right hand, and I checked to see if there was food on it. And it flashed. Sean was sweetly astonished at how I consistently got food on my right ring finger, always in the same exact spot. I honestly couldn't explain it either. And that flooded into all the times he would catch me before I'd put my sleeve in the food I'd spilled on the table. Or shake his head at the egg yolk in my hair. I'm a famously messy eater. It would probably annoy most people. But Sean found it endearing. 

So. I added it to the list. 

It is a list to hold tight to. The things I want in my head forever. 

But. There is another list I wish I could make. A list I would make and burn with black magic. Turn it to ash and blow it into the wind so that those things that got put into my head could disappear with him. 

This list would include the naked picture of his ex-wife that I found after he died. It would also include the. 

I can't. I've been working on this prompt for hours. I already have lists of the things I want to remember. I can't make a list of the things I want to forget. I was excited about this prompt. The Road was Sean's favorite book. A story of boundless love in desperate times. But I can't do this. I already know all the things I want put out of my head, a laundry list of could have, should have, would have. I could pretend that this is a list of what came after, but the truth is it's a list of so many moments. before. There is so much of this that I want gone. I want it out of me. That list runs like the credits at the end of a movie in my mind, on fucking repeat. I can't talk about that list like I can't talk about the thing that happened that night in college or when my sister's dog died. When someone you love kills them self, you have a very scary list of the things that you can't get out of your head. 

My therapist tells me to think of it like this: When I met Sean, he was sick. He was terminal. And his disease took him. And I want to believe her. I do. But. I don't. So there. I wish he'd never met me. I wish he'd met a nice girl who had never had a threesome or dated a guy who went to jail. Who'd never been thrown down a stair case or done drugs in the woods. 

It's too much to think about. All the things I can't forget. I know they're there. I just can't talk about it. At least not today. 

For Example: Wednesday's Grief

Especially in early grief, every object, every landscape, it connected to grief - whether it is something they loved or touched, or it's something that only exists now because they're gone. Grief is everywhere. It comes attached to everything.

It's the lens it's all seen through, the connective glue between disparate parts. Begin your writing today with this not-so-simple sentence: grief is everywhere

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Grief is everywhere. Every moment. My constant companion.

She was there each of the 28 times I woke up on the loveseat. I sleep there now since spiders and nightmares find me in our bed. My new bed is too small for even my 5’1 ¾ height and so causes dangled feet to fall asleep and my neck to cramp.

Grief escorted me off the couch at 6 AM to lay my head on the floor. She tucked the sheet around me as I stroked the carpet where he use to lay his head. He would fall asleep on the couch every night, and I would transfer him to bed on a three count. But sometimes, I’d get him upright, and his sleepy self would give me this shitty little grin and then crumple to the floor to sleep there instead. He was so stubborn. I’d both laugh and swallow my temper at the same time. Say, “fine, sleep there if you want.” Cover him with a sheet and put a pillow under his head. Grief does this for me now, and she lets me sleep for another hour.

When I woke, grief let out an exasperated sigh when I spilled my water. She looked at me disapprovingly as I did nothing. I said fuck it. Grief is here and she’s taking up too much room. I shot her a dirty look and went to brush my teeth.

Grief followed. She told me to use his toothbrush, so I did.

Grief said, it’s okay. Try to curl your hair. You’re allowed. I didn’t do a very good job.

Grief started to exhaust herself. She started talking to me about how ridiculous Sean was that one time he got that small zit on the side of his nose. She anticipates the two new zits that stress has brought in for me. So by the time I got to putting on some makeup, I just dotted on some concealer and skipped the mascara.

Grief watched me put no my biking clothes and made me pause. She said wait. I need to imagine him seeing you. So, I walk to the bathroom and survey myself. I run my hands over my ribs, and cup the undersides of my breasts. I purse my lips to the side and tilt my head as well, surveying myself, and then catch myself, but Grief beats me to it, “goat face.” She yells and laughs. That is what Sean called that face. My check out myself face. He’d say, “you just goated so hard.” Grief and I both swallow laughing tears.

Then I pack my lunch and Grief hands me things from the fridge—the pre-boiled eggs I have to buy now because he used to cook my breakfast, the yogurt because I have no cooked food, the banana because he always told me it helped with muscle recovery, the trail mix he bought that’s about to run out, and the water bottle that I stole from him but that he didn’t even mind me stealing. Grief gives me each of these little leftover pieces of him to eat for the day.

Grief hands me my keys to the garage. The keys with the keychain of him riding his dirtbike.

Hi again grief.

Grief saddles up over the bike with me. She wraps her arms around me as I begin to peddle the bike he so carefully researched and bought for me. She sighs with each revolution of the wheel, because the bike fits my small frame perfectly. She cries a bit in my ear as I ride up the big hill that he used to have to ride up every time he left my old apartment. She shakes her head at the way he used to fly through stop signs, while I pause. She feels the wind in her hair as we push hard on the last block and gets frustrated when I struggle to put his U-lock between the wheel and the frame. He made it look so easy.

Grief scampers after me into the bathroom, eyeing me as I put on the black skirt and shirt I wore on our last date. I put the shrug over it that I wore to his funeral. I’m wearing all black again, she notices. I protest that it’s a classic look. She raises and eyebrow that says, “the high today is 98.” Whatever. I’m wearing my cowboy boots. But she reminds me of that fight I had where I said something cruel about previous lovers and these boots that he’d loved before that comment. She reminds me that I’m a fucking terrible person.

She climbs into my backpack for the trek into the office. She wishes me luck on the cubicle gauntlet I have to walk to get to the kitchen. Gives me a thumbs up that I can smile at people and say good morning to the person making their coffee that I’ll inevitably run into so I can put my yogurt in the fridge.

She waits for me to return and sinks into my desk chair with me. Unlocking my computer. And seeing the day unfold. I’ve been up for an hour and 15 minutes. And grief hasn’t left me once.

She sits in my lap and twirls my hair during my webinar. She plays with the stapler until I shoot her a look while I respond to emails. She rolls her eyes when I quote a bad Adam Sandler movie. She taps her foot impatiently for lunch to come and then looks bewildered by its boring monotony. She wants to text him too to tell him that her banana was too mushy and that we forgot to get half and half at the store.

Grief follows me to my meeting and doodles his name while I get an update on our current project and glares at anyone who considers taking a seat next to me. She hurries me out so that I don’t have to hear my coworker talk about her engagement party.

She plods with me out to my bike. Exhilarated to be off but with a seemingly unending succession of minutes until a reasonable person could try to go to sleep. So we head to the gym and wish he was waiting for us there. Already doing his bicep curls and smiling at me in the mirror as I come up behind him to give him a quick kiss before heading into the locker room. She looks for him as I walk out of my abs class and sighs with me as I remember. She sneers at the couple who are on bikes next to each other and catching up on their day.

She comes home with me to our empty apartment and looks in the fridge. Grief tells me I can’t try to cook yet. You can try again tomorrow she says and pulls out the brie and crackers, tells me to hurry to turn on the TV. The silence is crushing her too. We sit next to each other on the couch, saying nothing, doing nothing, trying so hard to be nothing. It doesn’t work.

We shower. And she rubs his soap lovingly over each lonely corner of my body. She wraps me in our towel and helps me take the pillows from the bed. She suggests I sleep on the couch again tonight. Reminds me of the dreams she’ll send me if I curl up next to his ghost. I turn out the lights and Grief kisses my forehead. It burns but at least I’m not alone.