I feel restless. The past few days I’ve felt drawn out. Searching for something. I impulsively purchased a rug at Ross even. Weird. I’m not really much of a shopper.

Tonight, I remembered what S’s skin felt like under my finger tips. Pressed up to my cheek. This time I wasn’t sad, only grateful. For the memory of a sensation long past and yet accessible.

I’ve considered sex with new men but it’s not appealing. Ultimately, at least at this point, it would be a disappointment because it wouldn’t be him. I’ve never trusted any other man with my secret pleasures. I’ve enjoyed things with him that I couldn’t even discuss. I’m keeping all his secrets. He was so sexy. And so tragically flawed. 

I see that people wonder if I’ve forgotten the troubling things we went through together. I haven’t. But it’s my memory, and I dont see the value of dwelling on the dramatic preamble to the end. I loved the man. Im preserving the good he was for our son. What good could come of focusing on the shadow left from the wake of his addiction?

I feel different since this anniversary of his death. That trip really had an affect on me. I think it’s because of a sudden realization I had after I finished peaking.  I thought to myself, “I didnt do what I set out to do.” Which was listen to Monster and relive the moment I first told him I loved him. Then it hit me like a cool breeze. “This isn’t just about S. It’s about me. And it’s okay that this unplanned conversation happened because it made me happy.” I had a lot of meaningful insights that night. 

• S & I are seperate people
• I know who I am
• S is in this apartment with me always everywhere I am because what’s left of him resides in the memories of those who love him.
• I have friends; more than I actually count
• I can take care of myself but I still need people sometimes to be okay
• I’m a good person/mom/employee
• I’m not a victim. I’m a badass.
• I’m okay.
• S’s dads perspective of my realationship with S is completely irrelevant because he wasn’t in it. 

I miss you. This isn’t easy. This life dealing with the empty place you left in your absence. With the silent blame from your family and the sorrow creeping up on our son who is learning to understand that you’re really gone. He thinks a monster killed you in a cave. He’s not wrong so I haven’t corrected him.

Baby, what was going through your mind I’ll never know. But I can tell you that you’ve been in my heart and on my mind for months before you left this world. I ached to reach out but considered it selfish and foolish.

I stopped being angry long before your passage and it broke my heart to find out what you did. I may have sent you away kicking and screaming but that didn’t last. The thing in this world I regret most is that I never told you. When I think of you alone in that garage steeped in anger and misery… Ooh baby, I’m so sorry. I want to push all my sorrow and love out into the cosmos to wrap around you to warm you. I hope you can feel it. I can’t bare to think of you trapped in an eternity of empty revolutions.

I love you. All the crazy fucked up shit – I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough. I’m sorry I couldn’t see through all the drama. I’m sorry for going nuts and leaving you behind when Z was born. I’m sorry for being blind and selfish and cruel and hurt and cold.

I spend so much time trying to make up for the past in the hope that if you exist in any way at all that can be aware of it you’ll take some comfort in it. I miss your face and your eyes looking at me. Your arms closed around me. Your breath on my neck. Your smile.

Remember when we’d trip and I could always find my way back to reality just by looking at your handsome face. It was always clear. Except when the dmt took hold that one time. Your face was frightening. Smooth like a burn victim with a colorful tiny moving geometric sheen. It was ugly and dark. I’ve wondered on many occasions if it wasn’t a message, or a premonition.

I want to time travel back to you and hold you again. Sing lovesongs and fall into your heart all over again. If the only place you exist is in the past and I can find a thin place in time I’ll send my consciousness through the gap to see you again. Matter may not be able to travel in time but consciousness can. We did it once together. I even remarked on it. “Maybe we will visit this memory many times in our future together.” I even looked forward to it. A sign of the devotion we shared.

S. was my best friend before the shit hit the fan. He was my partner in crime and confidant. I knew when I met him I’d get into trouble because the two of us together would feed into each other’s chaos and mischief, but I couldn’t resist.

He was beautiful the way a man can be without losing a single ounce of his machismo. I was hooked on the sex then hooked on the love, then it all grew dark and mad when I got hooked on meth with him.

I have trouble remembering a big chunk of our relationship but it is still in there burned into the deep recesses of my subconscious identity.

I dreamed of S this morning. He was proposing some sort of plan he had but I can’t remember what it was. Something he wanted to us to do. Something pink? Something in the future that I was unsure of. I wanted to think about it again when the time came. It was a positive idea but I didn’t quite trust it. I wanted more time.

I remember his face and his blonde hair and I remember being in my bed. I remember that he was being hopeful and happy. I must have opened my eyes during my sleep because the light was the same when I woke up. He was superimposed. I could see the back of my dresser over my pillow and my bedroom door was open. It felt like he was really there, and then I looked and all of the sudden an old fashioned telephone handset was on my pillow. The shapely kind with a long handle between the two round ends for the speaker and microphone. The heavy kind with the thick spiral cord. It was dark colored.

The second I saw it I knew he was letting me know he was making a connection, it was a sign that he was calling me. I know how it sounds and if anyone told me the same thing I’d be skeptical but I really do believe it. I dream alot and I normally don’t see so many details. Not so vividly. Faces are usually out of focus or even abstracted by a sort of metamorphosis. I’ll know who the person is rather than see who they are and they can blend from being one person to another or look like one person and be another.

But when I dream of S it’s vivid and bright and clear in my mind and leaves a powerful impression. It feels poignant, meaningful, important and true.

I hate the idea of being looked at like a superstitious loon, but it feels like the truth, and I’m so grateful for these dreams. They give me hope.

Valentine’s Day is not on my radar. Weird, huh?

It’s historically been a disappointment. At times when I have been single it didn’t really bother me much. It’s always been more painful to endure while in a relationship than out of one. It seems like the holiday that makes me painfully aware of how disatisfying my relationships have been.

I can’t remember the last few Valentine’s Day’s with S. I remember being happy because S always tried really hard to make them perfect. With him trying so hard it didn’t really need to be perfect because I knew how much he loved me. Just the effort was all I needed.

If I go further back though, Valentine’s was always a huge letdown. Usually because it was so apparent my significant other had no idea what would make me happy, or worse; didn’t care.

For now though, I’m actually fine. I’m grateful for that. I feel at peace with S for now. I can just love his happy memories and be grateful for them.

He always bought me flowers. Big beautiful bouquets that I loved. He picked them out and had them wrapped in nice paper. He knew what I liked and was happy to give them to me. He was very romantic.

Our first Valentine’s day he brought expensive champagne and we stayed in and did Molly and had sex for hours. He was always so worried I wasn’t happy enough. I was just happy that he cared so much. All his worrying ended up being for nothing until he made it something by worrying. That sounds strange, but he eventually obsessed to the point of making his concerns a reality.

I miss him. My romantic handsome monster. His curly blonde hair and blue eyes. I love him. I’m grateful that I still love him after all this messy tragic trauma.

My grief is not like yours. I know this because you are not me and that’s all I need to know about you to determine that.

Do people who do not suffer prolonged, crippled by grief, feel less grief than those who do? Or is it only that they are stuffing it down creating a nuclear time bomb? What if they never crack, or blow or break? Are they heartless, or just emotionally better equipped than others?

I cry on trains in front of strangers at least once or twice a month. Used to be once or twice a week, before that once or twice a day.

I think of him less frequently and it hurts less when I do now. I hate this. It feels disrespectful, like I’m not suffering enough to honor him. It seems to be getting easier to glide along the surface of my mind without getting entangled with the reality of my emotions. Then after a while I start thinking, “Are these emotions actually real? Or am I convincing myself that I should feel this way?” Then I look at a picture of his handsome face and I just deteriorate into a sobbing mess.

I’m so confused by my lack of trust in my own perception of my emotions that I easily get turned upside down. My emotions are just a fucking mystery to me half the time. It’s a defense mechanism, I guess. Either that or I’m a fucking sociopath. Sociopathy seems unlikely, but I don’t have the words to express myself here.

I’m not ever going to be beautiful or thin again. Those days have past. I might become less fat or more attractive but that’s a far cry from the way things once were, before I had a kid and stretched my body into a chubby mom shape.

I was only skinny once and that was because I was so crazed and depressed I literally starved myself until my spine was visible. Even then I had a big butt.

I don’t really mind that no one notices me anymore, or that I’m shaped like a snowman. But sometimes I think that I might never be held again and that makes me sad.

I know I could still get laid if I wanted to but that’s not really what I’m looking for. The thing I really want is something I can never have. Because he’s gone.

Halloween was difficult. Thanksgiving won’t be sooooo bad but Christmas is coming. Christmas is going to fucking kill me again, worse than Halloween.

おやすみなさい。

I’m miserable today. I feel myself getting mean and petty inside. This grief is not subsiding but I keep tricking myself into believing it has. I haven’t responded to your parents about taking Z for a day and I don’t want to. I fantasize about telling your dad that you hated him and that I hate him, but I won’t. I hope. I don’t want to succumb to the shittiness I feel inside. I imagine him calling because Barb is upset and wants to see Z and me telling him that’s not my problem. I haven’t decided what is best for Z in this matter and until then I will just bide my time and keep from doing anything rash.

I dreamed of you last night for the 2nd time. The first was a week or two ago. Then I dreamed we were arguing and you were about to storm off. I think we were on the light rail and the station at the same time. You were furious at me for something and I couldn’t quite see you. There were people in the way and you were halfway out the trains door. Then a man who looked like a drug addict bolted towards me like he was going to barrel me over. He was skinny and white with a dirty blonde crew cut and a meth face. He was wearing a puffy jacket. He was in a rage, but you stopped him. He had a knife and he was going to kill me but you stopped him and he stabbed you and killed you instead. I stood there in shock knowing you were dead laying there in s pile of blood in a big coat. I could barely see you. All I could think was that you did love me and that you died to save me.

Last night was different. I dreamed I was following you around because you were on the brink of death and I was desperate to be with you when you died. I wanted to lay with you and hold you. I could smell the death on you but I didn’t care. We were at this camper or old trailer. There were people there for your death but I was only barely aware of them. Johanna from my work was talking to you and you asked her to lay with you but I gave her a look that told her she better get the fuck away from you and she said she couldn’t. Then I said I’d lay with you. At one point you were standing in the doorway of the white trailer facing out. I was out in the yard like 12 feet away and there was tall shaggy green grass and a fence and weeds in the yard. You were wearing a light t shirt and jeans.  It was early in the morning before the sun came up and it was cloudy. You fell rigidly, flat onto your face into the wet grass. I ran to you and turned you over to see if you were alive. You were weak and I could smell the death on you. You were pale and could barely open your eyes or speak. I asked you if you were dying and you said yes. I held you close and asked you to please stay with me. I asked you to try really hard not to die. You said ok. Somehow I got you in the trailer and was going to lay with you. I was scraping charcoal from a can to save you. You seemed to be feeling better. I started to hope you’d live.

There aren’t enough pictures of you in existence. There isn’t enough of you period. You should be here fighting to see Z and proving that you can get better. I may have hurt you but I thought I was giving you tough love and I needed a break from you to heal. I accept that I fucked up but you fucked up more.

It’s not a contest. I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I’m not mad at you, I’m just miserable.

It’s almost our anniversary. I miss your kind love eyes. I miss your strong warm rough hands. I miss your arms holding me. Fuck it, I even miss your stupid crazy bullshit. I’d take that over this. I miss you so much. I’m going to lose my mind.