Apparently, it’s been 9 months since my last post. Right now, Z and I are in lockdown from a global pandemic. We’ve been here just about 3 months. School is closed. We’re both losing it from the isolation.

I thought being a single parent was hard before but now I’m supposed to work full time and also teach Zänd from home when I get done with work. It’s not great. I’m definitely not going to get the teacher or parent of the year award.

I hate teaching him, mainly because he hates sitting still and learning boring shit. We’re both so stressed out there are days we skip “school” entirely.

Being “on” as a parent non-stop all day while also working from home is draining. I’m not up for this. I’m tired. I don’t want people to die but I’m worried about my family’s mental health.

Everything starts to fade after a time. Life goes on and we get wrapped up in all the day to day chaos. Life gets easier after it gets more difficult because we get used to it. Things hurt less, then they hurt more, then they hurt less again.

It’s coming up on four years since S slipped away into the void. 8 days out. The anniversary of his death. In years past I’ve anticipated it for months in advance and felt the weight of it looming up in the distance before eventually descending like a wave crashing into rocks on a shore.

I’ve been aware of it this year, peeking around the corners of my awareness like a shy and melancholy child. I can feel it tiptoeing closer and S is in my thoughts often.

It seems to sneak in nowadays — less like a wave crashing and more like a sudden crack of thunder startling me to tears. It’s usually a movie scene where a well-developed character experiences a poignant moment of grief and loss that I identify with. In seconds I feel my heart breaking all over again.

Maybe it will remind me of the moment his dad told me he was gone and the panic that set in, that immediate disbelief that caused me to search my brain for a way to fix it — to make it not true. The hysterical rejection of reality.

Maybe it will be a love story with so many parallels into our life together that I remember what it was like to be loved by him. Not just a memory though. I feel it again. The way he looked at me, the way we looked at each other.

Maybe the actor will look like him, move like him, talk like him. Whatever it is, some memory will trigger my tucked away emotions to rush up into my throat and burst into tears.

The strangest part is how satisfying those moments are. The grief, the loss, the heartache — when they finally rush out, no matter how violently, I feel a sense of relief. I imagine if volcanoes were sentient it’s how they’d feel after erupting.

Anyway, if you’re still out there somewhere, listening — I haven’t forgotten you baby. My heart is still wrapped up in yours, and “the part of me that’s you will never die.”

I’ve finally gotten to the point where I think my anxiety and weirdness have reached levels I’m not really comfortable with. I lost my job in January and I can’t seem to find a job. This, of course, makes me feel like a complete failure.

I had a job interview yesterday for a company and position I want so badly that I can’t stop obsessing over my answers. I couldn’t sleep last night, I was barely able to take a nap today and I feel like I’m trapped in my own head. Because none of my answers were what I can consider good enough. My mom and my friends are telling me I’m over-analyzing it, but I used to interview applicants, and I know that I didn’t answer those questions as well as I should have. I think the worst part is that I know I could do the job really well, and I know what the answers should have been, but I can’t seem to get them out in an interview setting because I’m so nervous and try to answer so quickly that I’m just not articulating myself.

So I spent half the day today desperately trying to let go of the job, even though I haven’t been rejected… Yet. I suddenly burst into tears on 3 separate occasions today, and called my mom from the bus stop to bawl about it for 15 minutes.

I think the part that is hardest is that I can’t trust myself. I can’t tell if I’m over-analyzing or if I’m just being brutally honest with myself. I’m leaning toward brutally honest, with a dash of emotionally unstable.

And let’s not even get started on how difficult it is to be any kind of parent when facing all this defeat. I’ve lost my job, I’m gaining, weight, embarrassing myself in public and when my 6 year old wants my attention I’m too wrecked to engage in a positive way. I’m tearing myself apart over that too. How could I resist? I feel like a complete failure and I don’t know how to fix myself.

I have moments when I just want to give up. I mean, I wouldn’t even know how to give up but I want to so badly. I just want everything to go away and leave me alone. I just want there to be silence and nothing. At least for a few days.

I hate it when I’m like this. It’s so counter-productive and weak and gross. I just don’t know how to make it better.

It’s been over 3 years since S passed. Not quite 3 years since his dad gave me a portable hard drive with my old mac’s dashed out brains stored inside. I haven’t opened it except to peek and see what is there. Until now.

I’ve spent the last 3 nights watching secret silent movies that weren’t silent when they were filmed. Sound profiles are damaged I guess. I’ve been trying to figure out how to repair them, but I can’t ask for help because they are just about the most private things I have ever owned on this earth.

I see his face, I see him smiling at me, I see us loving each other, but I’m greedy to hear his voice. The way I feel right now, it’s a good thing I waited this long. It would have ripped me asunder to watch them before now.

Funny thing is as much as they turn me on, they kind of make me want to never have sex again. It was something special, what we had. You’ll have to take my word for it. Watching these movies, it’s obvious. The degree of comfort we had, and the level of debauchery we soared into are a testament to how in tune we were.

Over half the footage is us talking to each other because we forgot the camera was on.  That’s why I feel a little sick about the sound being gone. I want to hear his voice bantering with me. It’s been three years, and on the surface I’m basically fine when I’m walking around every day. I can tell people my husband passed away without crying and mostly feeling awkward that it makes them feel awkward.

But right now, all I can think is I lost him and I want him back. I don’t care about all the bullshit, and the pain, the drama or the crap. I’d take him back just the way he was when he chose to take his life without hesitation. And I’d call him up and tell him I love him and bawl my fucking eyes out to beg him to come and see his boy and me and even if he spewed bile at me I’d be grateful just to hear the sound of his voice.

Just typing that out my heart feels like it want’s to leap out of my chest and go find him. If he’s out there somewhere, I hope he can feel this outpouring of sorrow. I hope it comforts him to know how much I ache when I give myself space to remember him. Genuinely. I would offer up just about anything to give him some comfort.

I just want to cover my face, close my eyes and cry. My cheeks feel too warm and my eyelids and soul feel heavy. I am feeling defeated and prone to exaggerated exclamations of my own inferiority. I want to spout vague sad poetry and feel beautiful in my sorrow. Instead I’m going to just roll over and go to bed. That’s the adult thing to do.

I’m at peace with S because he went out of his way to give it to me.

I’m in a mood. Maybe you know it. It’s the one where you’re compelled to create something but you have no idea what. There’s a blank weight looming that wants to worm it’s way out, but — no holes. No windows to see what it is, and no outlets to free it.

Something about S though.

It’s interesting to realize how unusual I feel is really not unusual at all. It’s just not discussed.

I’m at acrossroads deciding to be relieved or disappointed. What does that say about me?

What matters more? Who we are right now or who we’ve been most?

 

It used to be that I’d rarely dream of him. Each cherished moment a treasure to behold.

Not much has changed other than the frequency. A different dream of him every night. So vivid I wake up exhausted. Sometimes he’s even someone else. Disguised but still deliciously obvious.

Store Dream

We were at a store. Maybe Ross or Walgreens. It was bright and there was a shopping cart filled with rolls of paper or maybe giant tubes of saran wrap. The tubes were sticking up out of the cart blocking my view. I sensed our kids were near but out of sight. He came into view around the paper tubes and his long blonde hair was tied back. He was smiling. Maybe looking at our son. I wanted to get closer. Get his attention. I was excited to see him. Thrilled. Then I woke up.

Sex Dream

I dreamed I was laying in my bed on my back with my knees pulled up. Dim early morning light trickling past the curtains. His legs curled up behind my legs, pumping into me furiously from sideways underneath. Pleasure coursing through me in waves. I was full with him and ecstatic. I looked over and saw his eyes. Black from cheek to brow. Alarmed, I awoke. Disturbed and frightened by it but desperately disappointed to be awake and without him again. Fearful that I’d been fucking his demon and loving every shiveringly satisfying second of it.

Movie Dream

I was in an office. A spy or agent of some sort. Pretending to be a cop but actually stealing several tiny vials of something from the cops. It was exciting to take the package and reveal my true nature. Laughing in my heart. He was there after. I was to deliver the vials to him. He was sexy as fuck but a stranger. I wanted to fuck him. He was a prostitute. I took him. Climbed onto his lap. Pushed his back to the floor. He opened a vial and rubbed black drops into the soft tissue beneath my eyes. The pleasure was rich and deep and instant. Like smoking meth with a cock already throbbing inside. It was then I knew it was him. His cock. His drugs. His pleasure penetrating my skull as I reeled back. We melted together in a trip orgasm reaching so deep inside and extending so far into each other that there was no him. No me. Just fuck and drug and my clit ringing out into the sky.

Phone Call Dream

I needed him to pick up the phone. Just the phone. Looking at it ring. Anxiety rattling out of my eyes into the phone. Pick up. Pick up. I need you. Where are you. Please don’t be mad anymore. Sobbing for hours at this dial tone. I know he’s there but he won’t answer because I fucked up. Our son needs to see you. More sobbing for hours all night. The kind of sobs where your throat aches because you sound like a dying elk in the woods. I don’t even think that part was a dream. This dream, unlike the others, insufferably endless. But he finally answers.

Just like always he came to my aid. To soothe me his fingers on my clit through the phone. I relax into him.

My son wakes me and I beg him to let me sleep because I want to keep dreaming of his daddy.

​Listen to Heathens by twenty one pilots on Napster: http://www.napster.com/track/Tra.231039680

S. would’ve liked this song. I put on his hoodie yesterday and it felt good for a while like he was with me.

I tried going on some dates and even had sex. It was fucking terrible. I don’t really regret it but it sure just made me wish I could crawl into S’s arms and get fucked proper. I doubt I’ll ever find what I had with him and for now I think my terrible sex just made being alone easier by putting things into perspective. I’m not that lusty anyway. I just miss cuddling and being loved.

Oh well. Miss you sir. Wish you were alive and well. (clean)

I feel like I can’t win as a parent. Like this system has been rigged to ensure my failure. We’re kind of damaged and the odds are stacked against us.

I’m pretty sure my kids preschool hates him because he’s a stubborn little shit who figured out really quick that he can play them. But it’s so much more than that because he is sad and needy and he misses his daddy and is afraid of losing his mommy.

I love him so much but sometimes I feel like just giving up. Like I’m doomed to fail anyway so maybe it’s ok to just lay down and just stop existing. Of course I know better. If I stop existing he’ll just shatter.

Life is complicated. I’m not really smart enough to untangle this knot we’ve been woven into. I just want my broken family to heal and feel some happiness and order and success.

…get out of the kitchen.

My world is better when it’s small. If there are too many foreign contaminates I’m hugely affected. I don’t know if I’m an empath or just nuerotic but I’m sensitive to attention and I get overwhelmed when it goes sour. 

It’s too bad really, because I was really enjoying the idea of being part of a community. I guess I’m not “thick skinned” enough to participate.

To be honest I really want to put love out but I’m disgusted by a huge cross section of the population.

This makes me sad and lonely.