Do you ever get a little bit tired of life,
like you’re not really happy but you don’t wanna die?
Like you’re hanging by a thread,
just tryin’ to survive, cuz you gotta survive?
Jenny came to visit, the other night, babe. You never met her- I met her in Thailand years and years ago but she’s from Ohio. She’s who I got my white tattoo with…you can barely see it, now.
I did a lot of reflection with her, talking about you and how my support circle has changed so dramatically, and I realized that nothing anyone says to me is the right thing because I am operating from a place of expecting people to hurt me. But everyone is just operating from their own state of consciousness. Essentially, doing their best.
That must be incredibly hard to be around, sometimes. I realize now that I must be incredibly hard to be around, sometimes.
The last few nights, especially, have been so hard, babe. I can feel myself pushing back against accepting you’re gone. That you killed yourself. I am back to kicking and screaming through this- I really don’t want to do this. I really want you to be here. I really want us to still be here. I wish there was some way to make this pain go away; to have made your pain go away.
I brought Hugo to Friendship today and we saw Dr. Ropski. We are going back to positive reinforcement after our little side tour into negative methods. Seeing her, again, for the first time since you died, brought me a feeling of relief- that she had met you and talked to you and knew you, even just in the context of bringing Hugo for his appts, but also that she is a vet, and it felt comforting to be in her presence, with one of our “tribe.” We also saw Dr. Spencer on IM and they are pretty sure he has masticatory myositis…I really hope he get’s his muscle back after we start steroids.
Sometimes I feel so productive for hours and I am able to work through the grief but then it like stops me in my tracks, later in the day, where I just can’t do it, anymore.
I really still cannot believe you are not here. I was walking Hugo, this morning, and we walked by our old apartment- there is a new family in there. Seeing that added another piece of finality to you being gone. As if if it had stayed vacant we could have someday gone back there; returned to our life together. It felt intrusive, like these new neighbors were stomping all over what was our home, trampling through the memories we made there, writing over our story. If I could have I would have frozen that apartment in time, and kept it as a shrine to you, to us, to the future we should have had, together.
I can still hear you, see you next to me, feel your hair in between my fingers, your face in my hands. I walk by alone what we used to walk by, together, and sometimes it stops me in my tracks. I stand there and stare at the front door of our old apartment, the hallway we turned down to get to our apartment before our last apartment, the corner I stood at on the night you left, when I was trying to decide where to look for you next. I see you at the other end of the dog park from Hugo and me, waiting for him to reach you to play tug of war. I see you on the couch watching TV, next to me. I see you sleeping beside me with your mouth open and that small, light snore you would sometimes let out. I see you in the kitchen in front of your cast iron skillet. I still haven’t cleaned it. I sit in your desk chair and try to feel something from the fact that you used to sit there. I stare down 27th st and wonder which side of the road you walked down to get to the bridge. I think about how I should start reading again and how much time you spent reading and regret never reading books together. I remember picking up the ceramic piece I had painted the week before, and not telling you about it right away when I put it on the kitchen counter after getting home, wanting instead for you to notice it and remark on the fact that I had finally gotten the spoon rest I had been saying we needed for so long. That was the day you died, and you never got to see it.
The grief counselors kep saying your mind only lets in as much pain and sadness as you can handle. But I don’t feel like I can handle any of this. I need to see some scientific evidence about your brain operating as a bouncer for grief.
God, I miss you.