Hugo and I are leaving our apartment on Thursday, babe. I’ve started packing and Hugo is getting anxious. I have to pack up your desk with all the minis on it and I really don’t want to. I don’t like disturbing your desk and how it looked when you were still with us because it makes you feel closer to us. I really can’t believe you’re gone. This apartment is a big part of the life we had together, and to lose it is absolutely gutting. I keep reminding myself I won’t lose you, or what I have left of you, at least, because you’re in my heart. But I’ll never see you again, and with our apartment I could kind of trick myself into thinking I would.
Have I mentioned how much I don’t want to do this? Any of this?
I miss you so much. Tomorrow will be 11 weeks since you walked out the door. 11 weeks since I thought you were fucking taking out the trash. 11 weeks since you said goodbye. Why couldn’t you let me say goodbye? You could have sent that text and answered my reply and THEN jumped. Were you afraid you’d lose your nerve? I know there is a small percentage of a chance that you did all that, and then as you were looking down, you thought twice about jumping, but then you slipped. I know that’s not true, really, but there is a small chance, right? From everything I have read, I am almost certain you regretted it. I am almost certain you were scared. Babe…sometimes I wonder if my pain from thinking about how much pain you must have been in comes close to yours. It’s not a competition, but it would help me wrap my head around what you were thinking in your not-thinking-straight brain that led to all this.
My grief counselor seems to want me to embrace my anger with you. I told him I wasn’t angry at you, per say, but he challenged that and maybe he’s right. Maybe I just feel guilt that I am angry at you, because we never expressed anger with each other when you were alive. Never. But he’s right, you ended our relationship. You left your family. He tried to liken it to divorce, where there are questions that are never answered even when both people stay alive, but that’s a hard sell for me…divorced people don’t ask “BUT WHY DID HE KILL HIMSELF?” You took away our future together, our future family, everything. When I get into a self-blame spiral and I think about how vulnerable I was with you throughout our entire relationship, I wonder what made you think you couldn’t be as vulnerable with me? Was it me? If it couldn’t have been me, I wish you had said so and found someone to love who you could have been vulnerable with. I would rather you have left me than be dead…it’s just so hard to remember how much you loved me, sometimes. Every action before your last one would say you did, but it is really hard to see past the jumping off a bridge decision, babe. I even feel guilty as I write this- I never, ever want you to feel any pain or suffering. I failed you.
You failed me, too.
The counselor says you chose the easy way out. He never called it selfish, which I appreciate, but I agree with him. Feelings are hard, and you didn’t want to deal with them. So you didn’t. That’s all that stoic philosophy is really about- all that bullshit about taking your own life not being a big deal- I bet every stoic just couldn’t face their own feelings; thinking in the abstract to distract themselves from embracing what made them human, good or bad. Fuck them. Fuck Cato the Younger. You were so, so intelligent, Peter. What made you think they were on to something? Where did all your self-loathing come from? I certainly know where mine comes from.
I am watching the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills because that’s what one does when the person they love most offs themselves. Taylor Armstrong’s husband killed himself and I am finding it comforting to watch her deal with emotions I have onscreen. And I applaud her for talking about it so openly, with like, all of America. People don’t talk about suicide, enough. This pain is too big for one person. Your pain was too big for one person.
The bridge barrier resolution was adopted, babe. The next step is more wards passing similar resolutions, bringing it to the Mayor’s attention and the media’s. We will get this barrier built if it’s the last thing I do. People say they are impressed with my strength, but I am just looking for something that makes me feel better. Just a little better. I am happy that we will save lives so no one has to go through the pain that your family and I are going through, but it doesn’t bring you back. Nothing will bring you back. Why does life have to be so finite?
I was walking Hugo in the park, yesterday, and these two women had their dogs off-leash, which I didn’t realize until they came running up to Hugo. He was doing so well ignoring them before they got up in his face. Then I started running, but of course the dogs chased. So I stopped and ducked into the underbrush in the woods. Then one woman couldn’t catch her dog. Idiots. Hugo calmed down and I was waiting for them both to leave so we could move on, and the woman who did manage to catch her dog apologized. I ignored her. I was legit about to throw up. Then she apologized, again. Like, wtf do you want from me lady? I said there was a leash law- she knew but said it was too hard to resist playing ball with them. I said well this is why there’s a leash law. Like Jesus Christ. I should be allowed to bring my dog to a park that my taxes pay for, just like everyone else. She asked if we had Hugo since a puppy, and when I hear that, I assume people are really asking “has he always been dog-aggressive?” so I told her he had every opportunity for social success and that I’m a vet.
She said she always wished she had become a vet, and I said it was a terrible time to be one. “Why?” She asked. Oh babe, this lady did not know what she was getting into. I told her about the suicide rate and about you. Bet she didn’t expect that dose of reality when she left the house lol. Hope she leashes her dog, next time!
About to get lunch with Bernice. Seeing your family makes you feel closer…I’m so grateful that some of them are in DC.
I love you.