Yesterday, while at Walk Woof Wag, I checked the time to see it was 11:11am. On the 11-month anniversary of you being declared dead, I looked at the time you were declared. I have screenshot or photographed every single time I see 11:11am since you died. So far, I have been able to capture it 58 times. This means, I just happen to glance the time 58 times at 11:11. Like, what is that? Is my internal clock just oriented to that time? I feel like I must be looking for it. I have an album of the screenshots on my phone. I do not know the purpose of having these moments documented, but something about capturing the experiences where I remember you died feels important to me. The other day it occurred to me that I might not want to do this forever and probably need to identify a time when I stop tracking it. Will it become compulsive? I tend to navigate toward compulsive behaviors, a moth to structured and degenerative frame, but I catch myself doing it. I know the familiar feeling of shame as it leeches and unleashes on my body, causing horses to run inside my chest and wet cement to anchor my intestines. That feeling is when it is time to stop wearing the apple watch, to break the 110-day streak on Peloton, or end the diet. Balance, Natalie. There can be balance.

I was introduced to a Widow in the wild last weekend. She was near my age and also lost a partner to addiction. I trauma-dumped on her. Four beers, two cocktails, and a dance party later, I had no filter between my mountain of trauma and this woman. She received the energy of my great uncorking as I explained through disorganized, intoxicated, and triggered thoughts, how it felt to tell someone who understood how alone I feel all the time. Drunk me assumed she got it, which I feel embarrassed by now. After many apologies for how drunk I was and my haranguing this poor person who just met me, I hit the point when I drink too much where I know it’s time to go home. I called an Uber and left, a Natalie-Goodbye. I did manage to let people know I was leaving, but then, embarrassed, I could not let anyone walk me out. As I waited for the Uber, I watched a young, confident Latina college-aged student face-plant out of a pedicab. She did not lose her leopard print tube-top dress or scrape her 5” heels. She laughed and popped right back up. A queen in her own right.  I would not have survived going to college here, I thought.

The next day in my alcohol and emotional hangover, I zoomed in on what it felt like to realize just how alone I feel. I feel alone in my grief all the time and loneliness is this new assaulting aroma in the air. I am not sure if I got so used to loneliness that I could no longer feel it’s suffocating and icy fingers or have I never seen it as clearly before? A jacket of brisk, fall air wafted in through the windows and I sat in what it feels like to be this completely alone in my experience of you dying. Talking to that woman, even as drunk unfiltered me who would never normally open like that without a lot of consent first, shifted my view out to a higher altitude. I got to see from another dimension a glimpse of how alone I am. I feel like I felt for the first time the enormity of my sadness since you died. A drone’s view of the grief palace.

Now as I write this, I am both sitting in the corner of the sectional and also sitting above me watching warm tears slowly slide down my dehydrated face. I can feel the heat of the tears, so I know I am still here in the room. I jump between both views when I need a break from one or the other. Eleven months after you died, and I still struggle to fully integrate your death with the feelings of absolute despair about it. This lack of integration is so devastating. I am in 16 hours of therapy a month. I pay for it all on a credit card because I cannot afford it, but I do not know how else to help myself. I allocate 4 hours to verbally talking about what happened and continues to happen as I open new layers to my grief. I spend 4 hours in an art therapy group procesing in a collective the experience of grief by making art about it. I have 4 hours (2 sessions for 2 hours) of 1:1 grief art therapy because 4 in the group once a month was not enough. And I am now adding one hour a week of brain spotting to help with the panic attacks and overwhelm in my body. 16 whole hours trying to process what happened when you died and the fact that you are not here anymore. And it is still not enough and I would do more if I could. I do not want to keep jumping from reality to not reality. I am exhausted by it. And I am terrified I will always feel like this.

And here we are again. We found the trigger thought that prompts me to take deep breaths so I do not have a panic attack. It will not always feel like this, Natalie. I at least have to believe that it will not always feel like this. Or else, I am not really sure why I am doing this at all.

I am still not sure what to do for the 1-year milestone of your passing. November 8-12 is the horrible period of time from my finding you to you being declared dead on 11/11/24 at 11:11am. Also, October 27^th would have been our 5-year anniversary. That is a Monday. At first I wondered if work and my clients would help get me through these anniversaries, but I worried I’d need to cancel everyone and why not just take the time off? I think I need to take off from work. But what do I do with all those days? Do I make plans? Spend money to be distracted? Can I afford to do anything? What does one do for the first anniversary of their partner’s death? What does one do to mark the occasion that started the trauma they are still trying to understand and heal from? Do I go for a hike? Do I drive somewhere for the day? For the weekend? At one point I thought maybe I could visit Seattle, but then I realized the last time I was there was when you died. I had a panic attack as I thought about the fact Seattle is not possible. I miss Seattle so much, but I want Seattle to still be somewhere I love even though you died there. I want it to be the good of us, not the end of us.

Taking the time off is a loss of income over 4 days in just November, not planning for Thanksgiving and inevitable holiday slowdown. This has been a difficult financial year. I am down 20% to last year in my income and no longer have a two income home. I have to make financial decisions as well as decisions in the best interests of my clients. I know I will need the time off. Taking care of myself is in the best interest of my clients. I think my body deserves the time off. My body is so rigid as it is. My massage therapist kept reminding me to let her move me. Let me take care of you, she kept saying as I stiffly coiled my body in an attempt to hold in all the sadness one can experience in a lifetime. Sometimes I wonder if your sadness transferred into me. Part of me feels like I understand you better, understand the holes in your body where your mom used to live, caverns excavated and quarantined by the trauma of her sudden and unexpected loss. I hope you get to frolic in the sunshine with her now. I hope it is warm there.

A pet psychic at Walk, Woof, Wag told me Dottie was proud of me. That Dottie was sad you left, but glad she could be there for you. Dottie wants me to get out of the house more, she thinks we’re home too much. I’m trying, Dottie. I promise to keep trying to be better for you. The psychic told me you were there, that you were as surprised by your dying as I am. I do not know how much credence I give to all of this, but I do find comfort from it. I miss you so much. It is so nice, in the most distressing way, to remember that missing you also means I love you. The loving part is coming up more than it used to. Baby steps. (Thank you, Olivia Dean).