“Oh man babe, it’s been a long week” is what I originally wrote when I started this post, over a week ago…now it’s been over two weeks since I last checked in. Two long weeks of traveling, moving, traveling, moving, and now unpacking.
I am so glad I still got to go to Rochester for the 4th after Camille and I could no longer drive up, together. I was bummed that Keaton and Blake weren’t able to come but it was so nice to see Sarah and the rest of the family. It did start to wear on me on Sunday with the big party, but I just took some little breaks during the day to get away and it went ok.
When I said hi to Sarah’s sister-in-law, Anne, she immediately gave her condolences. She is the one with the son who we gave advice to last time we were there, about his dogs allergies. The dog is on apoquel and doing pretty well with the itching, it sounds like. That was probably our first consult after graduation, when we were newly-minted docs.
So Anne started talking to me about your departure and how being in healthcare she is more comfortable with talking about death and traumatic events and said she had encouraged everyone to mention it to me when they said hello- they were afraid of making me sad, seeing me cry- of course, I said yes please talk about you, I need you to be “in the room with me” so to speak and that it makes me uncomfortable when people DON’T mention you…you can’t be ignored. I explained they weren’t the ones that would be making me sad, I was already sad. Sad is my baseline. And although it may be that having ~15 people give me their condolences in succession in the span of a few hours felt a little uncomfortable for me, too, it was better than them not saying anything at all. I could talk about you all day, but I don’t think I am in enough shock, anymore, to not consider how that makes other people feel. I wish I was. I don’t want to burden people that feel uncomfortable, but on the other hand, if anyone feels uncomfortable with this situation it’s me, and I have to face it every second of every day. If I can do it all the time, they can do it for a few minutes. That doesn’t stop me from worrying about it, though.
The flight attendant just offered me biscoff cookies. We loved those- remember when we found them at the Fred Meyer in Oregon in like a bulk pack? They did not last long…I don’t get them now though, I think im all biscoff’d out.
There were some difficult parts of the holiday weekend- one of the Camerons was drunk and wanted to offer me some advice about coping. His wife lost her uncle to suicide so he had some experience with it. He was drunk, though, so he kept asking the same questions and talking in circles…it was a little funny but also a little triggering. He kept telling me that I CANT blame myself, that I CANT wonder about the what ifs, I just CANT think that way…babe, if one more person tells me I CANT do something surrounding losing you, I may have to punch them in the face. They tell me I can’t think this way but offer no way of stopping myself from doing so. If it’s so easy to stop, they should try it. I didn’t want to punch this person because I appreciated that he was trying to allow me space to grieve and talk but was just a little too sloshed to do so effectively. He’s a nice guy and he was doing his best. A lot of people think they need to offer me advice, though, and that is not what I want. Not from someone who doesn’t know what this is like. Not from someone who didn’t know you like I knew you, love you like I love you, or feel the devastation I am feeling since losing you. I just need people to listen to me grieve and be there. Offer love. That is my only expectation. I think that makes it easier for people, too. Less to worry about with saying the wrong thing by accident.
Then we were watching fireworks and Under The Bridge came on by Red Hot Chili Peppers. That’s one of “your” songs I listen to, now- it’s so aptly named and really hits on some important trauma from the night you died. “Sometimes I feel like I don’t have a partner…I don’t ever want to feel, like I did that day…” I had heard it earlier in the weekend on the boat and it went ok, but this time everyone around the fire started singing along and it was too much so I went inside.
The last thing that kind of gets me is when people tell me to take care of myself…what is this? I know they mean well, I know they do, but when I hear it it just makes me feel alone, like I used to be part of a team and now it’s just me. No one’s coming, there is no net, you are not there to catch me if I fall. But they probably just mean treat myself with grace, make sure I look after my needs and ask for help when I need it. This is rational thinking, that they mean to make sure I pay attention to my self-care. It’s hard to not hear the negative, though, even when people say something positive. I’m very sensitive to it, which I think is understandable.
I spoke to Nikki a couple weeks ago and we were talking about blame and negative thoughts and she works with a tech who will say “STOP BEING MEAN TO MY FRIEND” when he hears her getting down on herself. I freaking love that. She also called me strong, which I now take as a compliment, but also that I was teaching people how to grieve through my own grief. That got me. It was so comforting to hear, because if there is one thing I could ask for (sans you not jumping off a bridge) it would be a guidebook for this grief. It is a roommate I didn’t ask for who is too clingy, doesn’t respect boundaries, and takes up way too much of my attention, and I can’t break my lease. In leu of a guidebook for myself, I would hope to offer a guide for others who find themselves in the unfortunate position of navigating a traumatic and senseless loss like losing you.
So good weekend, overall, and important to push myself to go even when it’s hard. When I got back on Monday, I had to finish moving out of the apartment, which I was overly optimistic about doing in the short time I had left before leaving for Vermont on Wednesday.
Distraction is good but I do feel like it just pushes off the grief, which just piles up for me to deal with when I get back home. Instead of moving stuff, I cried for an hour or two on the floor of our apartment on Monday, looking at the cards people had sent me after you left. I just didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to leave our home and move to a place that wasn’t both of ours. But life doesn’t wait for when we’re ready.
I moved all day Tuesday, finally gave in and asked some friends to come over and help with cleaning which was a godsend because I never would have made my flight the next day if I had done it all, myself. Even with their help, I stayed up the entire night, cleaning and moving. It was so incredibly stressful and I felt bad that I wasn’t spending more time with Hugo before leaving for another 4 days. He was a pretty good boy, though. He did run out the door and down the hall to the first apartment we had in our building and sat at the door. I don’t know if he was looking for you or not but he really wanted to go in. I had to pick him up and carry him back to 131 (you know how much he hates being picked up). It was not cute and rather painful.
I realized during that time that I was trying to do “Old Chelsea” things in a “New Chelsea” space, like planning to pack in as much travel as I could once Hugo went to camp for two weeks. Grief had other plans, though. I was spreading myself too thin, I realized- my threshold for that is way lower, now. I think of it as honoring you, in a silly way, since you were more of a homebody <3
People offered to help with the move from the get-go but I just couldn’t do it. I knew it was going to be very personal and emotional and I didn’t want to break-down over and over again in front of everyone while trying to delegate tasks about what to take and what goes where. It felt intrusive to our space to have everyone in the apartment moving your stuff, our stuff. My stuff I couldn’t give less of a shit about. But that’s true for so many things after losing you.
On the way back from Vermont, I had a layover at Laguardia and it reminded me of when I was on my way to VT with the same layover- we had almost touched down in Laguardia and the pilot did like a beeline up in the air again, wicked fast and we were up in the clouds again. It was windy too so there was some turbulence and the plane was shaking. The pilot said nothing during this time- no one did. All of us passengers just looked around at each other, up at the cockpit, and out the windows, wide-eyed, wondering if this was a terrorist attack or plane malfunction or the pilot had a heart attack and was dead and splayed out over the control panel. We then did a pretty sharp turn and started heading down again, at which point I really thought for about ten minutes the plane was going to crash and I was going to die. I spent a few minutes looking out the window telling myself to make peace with this fact. That of course this was how I met my end, after just finding out I received my clearance before we had taken off from DCA. Oh yeah, I got my clearance, babe. How fucking bittersweet is that shit? Somewhere inside myself I am doing backflips, grinning ear to ear, and shedding tears of joy. You’re there with me, but I can’t find that place.
Now it’s been a week since Vermont, and I am sitting in Kristen’s apartment, which is now “my” apartment. No, no, that doesn’t sound right- can I keep calling it “our” apartment? You are still here with me, after all. When I reflect on this past week, I cannot for the life of me remember what I’ve been doing, but I know I did something, I know it. A lot of things, maybe. I think most of what I did was unpack while watching Real Housewives. I’ve gotten much better about sitting with my own thoughts but sometimes the intrusive ones just do like a sneak attack and the TV gets turned on, again.
Objectively, this apartment is really nice- it one of only two apts in this building with a true balcony…all the plants are out there, now, including the Elephant Ear you liked. That one can’t die- it’s thriving, outside, though, so I think it will be okay, even with the shock it went through with moving and being supplanted. So the apartment is a great space but it doesn’t feel like mine, maybe because I don’t want it to be mine. I didn’t want to leave our home- it makes it a little easier that that was our second apartment in the building, so at least I am still in “our” building. Maybe in time I will see it as a good thing. I remember the night I came home after finding you and the jogger and the police, and I couldn’t stand to be in our apt. I wasn’t sure if I could stand to be in DC. Or vet med. But as time went on, I didn’t want to leave. It’s all I have left of you, of us. Being alone in our old apartment, sitting on the couch, staring through the wall…sometimes I couldn’t help but feel like I was in a tomb of “us”.
I’ve definitely noticed a difference in my grief, these last two weeks. Moving made me feel so incredibly alone, especially with Hugo away at sleepaway training. He is doing so well, babe, you would be so proud (and so surprised, if we’re being honest…I certainly am lol). The trainer and I agree that he is most reactive with me because he is protective of me. I hope when he comes home, this Wednesday, he can have a successful transition and keep the new skills he’s learned. They are doing an hour training session with me when they drop him off, so I will be well-equipped to continue his progress, I hope.
When I got home from VT on the 9th, I sat down in this apartment and realized it was the first time I was truly alone since you left us. It was night time and you know that is always worse, but I am proud of myself because I reached out to some fellowship friends and we went to have dinner. It’s getting harder to reach out to people- I know when I went into District for the first time after you died, Teich said he wasn’t worried about me at that moment, he was worried about me a month from then, when the support waned as people started getting caught up in their own lives, again, and the texts and calls became fewer and farther between. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I get it. I have my reality and everyone else has theirs- they are living at a faster pace than I am, and I’m not even trying to catch up. Sometimes, I’m even trying to walk backwards, I’d say. But I won’t say it doesn’t hurt when I don’t hear from my brothers for almost two weeks…I could easily remedy that by then reaching out to them, but I don’t have the energy to ask for the support I need all the time, so it then becomes me isolating myself, feeling shitty about it, and slowly building a layer of protection around my inner child where I come to terms with feeling completely alone even with so many people “in my life.” Damn, that sounds victim-y. Yuck.
It’s not for nothing, though- those people who I had lost touch with over the years, who reached back out and were around for the first month or so and are now slowly (or not so slowly) fading back out of my life…they exist. But I prepped myself for that when they came back in, really. Cuz that’s what some people do- they come for the crisis and only the crisis, whether it’s really for me or it’s actually for themselves, when I am in no position to turn away additional support. I mean, what’s better? Losing someone once or them coming back in when you really need it, but then losing them, again?
On the day we were leaving VT, we were getting ready to go to the airport when I looked in the mirror and I realized the monstera necklace you gave me was not around my neck and freaked out…Denise and I had gotten massages the evening before, and I thought I was being smart by putting the necklace in my robe pocket and not on the counter when I had to take it off…but then I was so relaxed after that when Denise threw it in the laundry at the spa for me, I forgot that it was even in there. So I ran to the spa and proceeded to look through the pockets of at least 200 robes lol. Halfway through I started breaking down and told the staff why it was so important to me. They called down to laundry and we asked everyone in the spa to check their robe pockets. Denise’s mom even “doused” for it- she said it was in a bedsheet, but we will never know what it was in because when the youth from Laundry came in and had the necklace in his hand, I didn’t think to ask. All I could do was thank him and hug him. A hug he very reluctantly accepted (he literally ducked my hug, babe, but I was so determined I ducked with him lol).
So it all turned out okay. We even still had enough time to have a quick coffee with Adam before Denise dropped me off at the airport. It was a new experience to see a cousin of yours in warm weather, when we usually only saw them at Christmas. Also new because you used to be alive when we saw them…I am really glad the timing worked out and we were still able to meet up, though.
The grief has been very different in the last two weeks- I am trying to figure out if this is how grief feels when you are busy (mostly distracted and feeling relatively okay with random slaps across the face when you are triggered and some choked back sobs as you keep doing whatever task you were trying to accomplish) or if this is how grief feels when you are numb…I am really worried about being numb, every since the grief counselor said most people are for the first year. Like, this is me numb? How much more could I possibly feel before I can’t hack it? I’m probably just an exception to the “numb in the first year” rule. Fingers crossed.
Your 3 month was last Wednesday and it sucked. Every Wednesday just feeling like a countdown to the moment it all began. Luckily, I was able to get out to the courtyard with a friend and chat through the worst parts of the night- kept me from looking at the clock, too much.
It’s difficult to live in this neighborhood, especially when I walk home from the metro. I purposefully avoid the street I know you walked down to get to the bridge, but I have to pass it, and out of all of the things surrounding me that remind me of your departure that night, that one really guts me. Probably because it is one of the closest to when you actually jumped, so it guts me like the bridge guts me.
I had this really nice conversation with your mom, the other day, and she said you must have been in a trance in your last 24 hours, and I think she’s right. I think you just did a downward spiral that you didn’t have the tools to get out of, and it got the best of you. I mean, that’s what I think, this week. My theories are always changing. She got me a beautiful art piece made of sea glass from the Cape- it’s a sunflower 🙂 Remember when we were there, last summer, and we went into that store the day before we left? I almost got a sea glass piece but managed to restrain myself…how did she know it would already have a special place in my heart?
Kristen is coming to pick me up to go to a Korean spa she has day passes for, in an hour, so I’ll say goodbye. I’ve been really needing to write this but with everything going on it took longer than I would have wanted. I’ve missed it, and I miss you.