Despacito

Despacito.

It means slowly. It has been my word of late. It is how I'm trying to see my world right now...slowly. I'm coming back to life in a big and fantastical way and I don't want to miss a thing.

I became aware of the sounds of traffic first, I knew it was morning. This morning. The 5th representing the 4th. I opened my eyes and waited for the fist to hit my gut and the hand on top of my head to push me under...it didn't come. Not this time.

I woke today with love in my heart and laughter on my lips, wrapped in such contentedness. Really. How amazing is that? Do you know? Do you get what a monumental thing that is for me?

These years since you left, since Evelyn left. They have been brutal, and honestly it still is. It still is...but I seem to have left the space I was locked in. The one where the air is so thin it hardly can find it's way to your lungs. Where looking out through my eyes was like looking up through the water when you sit on the bottom of a pool. You know what I mean? I wasn't seeing things in real time, life was moving around me way to fast and I was stuck in this damn space and it was killing me. Slowly. For real.

I think I've turned a corner. It was a process, I felt it happening and it scared me, but I allowed whatever was happening to happen. Getting back to work was the button that started the ignition. I slowly started feeling a shift and I was anxious to see what would come. Something major is happening I think. I feel like the world has slowed enough that it sees me now. I'm not in that invisible bubble I was inside of for so long. Life sees me. People see me and it's a good thing.

I am happy. I am so happy.

It's an odd space at the moment, Inside me is the shadow of the girl I left around the corner, it's standing just off to the side and behind. I'm looking forward but I see this shadow back there just waiting. Maybe it doesn't know it's ok to leave, maybe it isn't ok to leave. I don't know. I have been so many people that I just don't know where they go when they are done with me. I'm not sure if I feel sad to see this one go. The girl I have been since this day 4 years ago...God she was rough. She was a mess. It's painful to think just how fucked up she was. Too though, she carried me through. We did this together, her and I. I let her be whatever she needed to be at any given moment and I think that was good. We allowed anything and everything to wash over us, we'd shake it off and get the fuck back up. I did that. I freaking did that. I did that every damn day. Do you have any idea what that was like, what that felt like. Life is heavy, so very heavy and without gravity it is times infinity. But I've turned a corner, and it is good.

Life isn't the same. It will never be the same. I miss your face, I miss your voice, I miss your smell. I miss you David. I will always miss you and I will always cry for you but you are gone and I can only go forward. I think you orchestrated a meet, and it happened and it is good and I thank you and I love you. Yeah it is good.

Evelyn my friend, are you there? Can you hear me now?  (haha) I miss you and I worry for you. I pray you are at peace. There is still so much work to be done. I need to get right with what happened and I feel that time is nearing. Maybe some day soon. We'll see.  You are with me always Eve, not one single day goes by that you don't flit through my mind. I hope that you are okay. I hope that the most. Some day you will tell me all about it.

Today I was coming to where I last saw you two. I have felt drawn to come and look for you. But the rain, I can't come in the rain, I can't stand there in the rain and cold and look for you. I won't find you, and then I'll just be wet. Wet and cold...that ain't cool man!  I can't come today, maybe tomorrow.

I love you my David. God how I do. I hope you see all that is happening with me. I hope you are proud of the girl you see and I hope you never lose sight of me.  I love you Evelyn, yes I do.

I'm making my way guys...despacito.

They Are My Comfort

“You let time pass. That’s the cure. You survive the days. You float like a rabid ghost through the weeks. You cry and wallow and lament and scratch your way back up through the months. And then one day you find yourself alone on a bench in the sun and you close your eyes and lean your head back and you realize you’re okay.”

– Cheryl Strayed

Hi my love-

Three years today, it's a disgusting thought, but it's reality. I think back to this day then and I shake my head. I'm able to smile at some of the memories but I have yet to reach a place where remembering is only a good thing. I smile, I do, I even laugh...a lot. I think outwardly I have progressed well. I can dance and sing and laugh like always in spite of being broken on the inside. It's funny how that happens.

I remember you getting all choked up and teary with pride listening to Like Eating Glass...song 4. I just rubbed your forearm and smiled. Even that is gone now...

I remember Evelyn hanging out a window laughing at us because we kept walking right past her when we first arrived. And I remember all her Neck friends kept saying "You have no idea how excited she is that you two are here".  Ugh...shaking my head.

There is so much more that I remember but I can't do it right now, I can feel myself getting pulled down and I just can't right now. I'm so tired of being in that place. It's not a good place, my breathing changes, I feel my heart beating in my throat and hear a ringing in my ears. It's too hard to be there just now. One day I will be able to only smile there, but not now.

What is it like where you are? Do you spend time with Evelyn? Do you miss us? I always wonder these things. I wonder if you two are friends where you are...do you protect and take care of her.  Does she help you too?  The not knowing is hard. The not knowing if you guys are okay. The need to console you and put my arms around you two because of what you experienced...it's crazy. The whole thing is, really. For you two, when it was over it was over. For me and others, it will never really be over. How unfair. How totally and completely un-friggin-fair. Deep sigh.

I just wanted you to know, I'm...okay. Not good, but I am okay. I have put my face to the sun many times and find great peace outdoors. The trees, the birds, the wind, and the scents and the sounds, they are my comfort.

I love you David...still. Don't ever lose sight of me love, please. I will always need you to find me.

I love you Evelyn...always.

Tell Me

I figured if, at any time in this experience, I was able to laugh, smile, feel joy, that eventually those moments would knit themselves together and create a new ground for me to walk on. That the 'new ground' would become the base for me to build a new life upon. 

That is what I figured, but I don't think it has happened that way.  I don't feel it. I'm not living, merely existing.

I still cry going to and from get-togethers, I still shake my head to dislodge the visions, I still struggle with the fact that it even happened...the accident. And worst of all, I honestly don't feel I have truly, fully accepted and mourned the deaths of you and Evelyn. Especially Evelyn. And me, looking my own death in the face, and then not. That what happened really, in all it's horrificness, happened. That what I saw and survived really actually happened. It is still a very real fear that if I 'go there' I will never come back.

I've wondered about my visions, about why they won't stop. And the sounds, the tremendous roar of the ocean, the screams, the wind, and the sputtering and choking...it's all too much. And yet I am thankful that I no longer smell it, because for many months after, I saw, heard and smelled that day.  What I've wondered is, are these sights and sounds in some ways like hands pulling me back to the beginning, insisting that I go frame by frame...moment by moment through it all again in order for it to become absorbed as it should be. I've wondered, but I'm not willing.  Do you think I should?

There are days I think my brain will surely explode with all that is going on in there. I hold my temples often thinking 'how do I make it stop'?  I'm not one for a 'quick fix' pill for anything in life, but I believe if there was one to make the brain train stop, I would swallow it happily.

Do you see me David? I know you probably don't recognize me but I thought maybe the heartstrings let you know it's me.  That under all this rubble the heart that loves you and misses you and longs for you is still there beating it's song meant only for you.

Come find me love, find me once again and tell me what to do.

Tell me how to keep going...

As Forward As I Can Go

Well, I have walked for one week inside this new year.  It's 2016, if you didn't know.  Another calendar year without you in it, 365 more days spent with the cold chill in the space you used to occupy. It's sad. So sad. 

I was lying in bed waiting for sleep to take me, I had my eyes closed of course, waiting for the frenetic spin of my mind to wind down and rest in peace and there it was...the last picture taken of you, seconds before you fell into your goodbye. WHY...I popped my eyes open and really focused into the darkness and said to no one "My God, you are really gone."  As sad and as lonely that I can be sometimes, it really doesn't compute that this is real. I know it sounds strange, I'm the one who lives it...it's strange, but even after all this time, which is a lot, but isn't, it doesn't fully sit in my soul that you are really dead. That day really happened.  Evelyn is dead too. It is in moments like this that I know what it is to feel your heart stop beating and your lungs squeeze shut. It's not a good feeling, because, well, I can feel it and I count until death gets me or everything winks back to life.  And if you think I can sleep after that crap you are wrong!

You died David. Are you okay with that? You walked through that door and left this life behind you. Are you as sad as me? Do you sit in the space next to me even though I can't see you?  Are you there now? Where are you...are you alright? Do you see Evelyn? Is she okay? The need to know these things swallows me whole.  I want to know if you two are okay and what you have to say about that day.  I mean, seriously, we couldn't have been having more fun and then SLAM, you guys were gone. What a cruel twist by the universe.

I cry so much, and I wonder if I will ever stop. Not long sobbing fits, but tears will stream down my face on most days at some point between Up and Down. The car and music is a HUGE trigger, I pretty much know I will cry sometime before the trip is over, whether to run errands or go to a friends house...I will cry.  It's great!  NOT!

I've pretty much determined those dreams I had were about moving on, I mean come on, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out, I just needed to blink and clear my eyes and I saw it.  But the thing is, I have moved on, I've gone as far forward as I can while sitting still.  There is nowhere for me to go. I know this is real, I know this really happened, I know you died and are never coming back, I know life as I knew it ended, I know my reality has been seriously altered and that I have to create a new one. I do, I know this, but where would you like me to go? Maybe that is the part I need your help with. That is the hard part now, starting from scratch a whole new life, dreaming new dreams, learning who I am now and going from there. Maybe that is where I struggle. The little piece of the old me that fights to stay present in a world that I just don't fit in anymore.  I don't know where I belong. The urge to run away is so strong. I want to pack what little I will need and go someplace new and figure myself out. I can't though, I have children to be near for, parents to care for. So I stay in a life I don't belong to anymore, a place I don't fit. 

I've gone as forward as I can go while sitting still.

How Interesting Is That

I wonder what it means when I sit down to write and there are no words in my head to write.  I've got nothing! I'm staring out the window waiting for words to just pour out. And waiting. And waiting. And waiting

Oh, there are words. It's not like there's dust and cobwebs taking up space in my brain, at least I don't think there is.  It's just that if I wrote what comes to mind it would look like this.

David. David. David. Evelyn. Evelyn. David. Dead. Gone. Cry. Cry. Pain. Cry. Tired. Broken. Cry. Tired. David. Evelyn etc. etc. etc.

So you see, how interesting is that?  Not very.  In fact it is kind of pathetic and sad.  Welcome to my world.

It's been 2 1/2 years today.  I don't know how that is even possible...it just happened. Didn't it? It is the most indescribable phenomenon. If I stop and think and count it adds up to what I just said, 2 1/2 years. But just in general, every day time, it was only last month. AT THE VERY MOST.  And each day is just a replay of that one day. It used to overwhelm me and stop me in my tracks. I spent the first year and a half learning how to breathe again because from the moment I climbed out of that 'well' it was different.  My body no longer did it automatically.  I still struggle with that, the breathing thing, from time to time, but I would say I've gotten back to 85/90 percent. 

I still cry just about every time I am in the car.  No idea why, it comes on so suddenly and my heart breaks all over again. There is no escape. Ever.

My scars are real. I see them when I look in a mirror, It's like a road map is looking back at me. I wonder ALL THE TIME what David would think of this me. He used to love me so much and think I was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. I look at my reflection and think he wouldn't know me or want me. It's okay, it is what it is.

Anyway...that's all I've got.

Hello My Love

It has become cold, having just left summer and entered fall.  Leaves haven't started turning just yet, at least not many have.  Today it is pouring.  Well, actually the past 4 days it has poured water onto the ground. We needed it though.

It all started with the coolest sky I have ever seen...the full super moon solar eclipse.  Did you see it?  I wondered. Do you still see what I see? I remember when I used to travel and you would be here, we talked of how even though we were far apart all we had to do was look up and know that we each were seeing the exact same picture.  Somehow it made the distance seem not so big.  Silly, I guess, but comforting.

I watched for this red moon for hours thinking of the last super moon and how we kept running to the windows to see it and take pictures.  And I recalled the nights we sat on the back porch of our first apartment, all snuggled up under blankets, candles all around. We would stare into the sky talking of how vastly different it was from an Ozark sky.  You would point out the satellite skimming across every so many minutes and I wondered why I NEVER knew of it before you. You taught me that.  And of course, all of this made me miss you terribly once again.  Looking up has a way of making you feel tiny and insignificant.

I've been sick this week, seems I picked up something at Kate's on Sunday. Sitting with her I noticed I was getting more and more stuffed up, I was hoping it was just from a burning candle, but it stayed with me and by Monday night I was down for the count.  Didn't sleep a wink with a screaming raw throat, finally fell asleep around 5am and proceeded to stay asleep for 22 hours. Scared the crap out of me when I woke up two days later.  It made a world of difference though, I'm not tip top but I'm upright and awake!  

Last night I laid here on the couch thinking how crummy I felt and how hungry I was and how I SO did not want to get up and find and cook something but I'm alone, this is my life and this is how it is.  I have no one to look out for me or after me and no one to help me when I need it. There is no one to make me feel safe in this world anymore, you took that away when you left...you took many things with you when you left.  So many things.

I didn't want to get married, do you remember?  I mentioned it during one of our MANY phone conversations before we were ever face to face. I had been through such physical, mental and emotional hell during my 10 years in the Ozarks and I had erected such a fortress around my heart and soul. I had fought so hard for some kind of normal and happy with my two little babies and it worked. I learned to push all feelings and emotions down deep so that all that would show was happy and strong and thriving. My kids needed that from me. I made a good life for us far removed from society, we were happy, we were great in fact, at least as far as the children were concerned. In me though there was a whole world of missing going on. A whole big wide world. 

And then came you.

With one phone conversation you turned my little well built life upside down. In one hour you had managed to crack a brick in the walls I had built. That world of missing, I could hear it in your voice and it brought me to my knees because it reminded me of wanting. Nine months after that first phone call, knowing I didn't want to get married, you asked me anyway. You said 'I lost you once, I can't let that happen ever again'. How could I say no...three months later we were husband and wife. I finally knew what it was to feel safe, to feel cherished, to feel like I had one person in this whole entire world that would be by my side through great moments in life and the tragedies that come too. I felt so so safe knowing that you would be with me in those hard times and I wouldn't have to face them alone. I never dreamed the first tragedy to come for me would be your death and Evelyn's death.  My girlfriend died and you were not there for me to turn to, to help get me through. You couldn't hold me while I cried from the pain.  My husband died and she was not there to offer her always comforting words. To come running without being asked.  All of this happened seven weeks shy of our third year of marriage.  You made me take my walls down, my safety barrier, and then you left me alone.  I no longer feel safe or secure.  I don't even have the kids to distract me...they are grown.  I am on my own now learning to deal with the good the bad and the ugly all by myself. I haven't fully dealt with your death, I have mostly pushed it down deep inside.  And Evelyn, Heh, I almost can't even bear to begin that journey.  Dear God, how could I. If I can't sit in the reality of you drowning before my eyes how the hell am I supposed to sit in it with her.  As for my own near miss, ugh, that is a whole other issue.  And being the only survivor...forget about it.  I know I have only been grieving the loss of you, your absence from me and our life.  I haven't even begun to put into perspective the events of that day.  I'm not sure I will ever be strong enough for that.

Do you think I miss you love? Pouring these stupid thoughts out here like I can put a stamp on it and mail it to you. I suppose just thinking the thoughts gets them to you.  Who really knows.  I love you David, still, always.  You must know that in a head full of 10 words 7 of them are about you, right? Okay then...signing off.

Peace to you

P/S -  Please put your arms around Evelyn and hold her and hug her hard for me.  Tell her I love her so much and I miss her laugh and her face. Tell her I am so sorry we came to see her that day...we never should have gone.