A Natalie Observed

Tag: Alcoholic

  • Time Does Not Really Exist

    Last night I felt the familiar vibration in my body and I knew I need to sit with Grief. I doodled freely in my art journal. As I mindlessly scribbled whatever I felt like, I listened to music in my headphones. I made circles that eventually looked like balloons whose strings became a tree whose roots became a brain. After an hour, I looked at it and reflected on how the chaos of the page felt like my life: no clear picture, no clear color scheme. Just energy. Then lightning struck and I felt my body slip away from me, nothing underneath me and nothing attached to my neck. Weightlessness settled in as I floated above myself and saw me think. “We could have made this place beautiful”, followed by “I’ll keep trying.” The room fluttered out of view. I started sobbing, convulsive auditory wails exorcising themselves out of my body. I wanted to stay in the feeling forever. I felt catharsis as I touched a new layer of something I have not permitted to exist within my consciousness.

    As tears leaked out of my face, Kate Havnevik’s “Unlike Me” started playing.

    There are no guarantees in life
    Not for the present, nor for the future

    I told Jeffrey I was sorry for not being able to do more to keep him here. “I know I do not need to feel sorry”, I told him, “but I am”.


    All I know is that I’m here
    Don’t know for how long

    Part of me will always wonder if we were almost to the turning point where things got easier. What if there was another side to where we were? What if we got to have happily ever after?

    I love the way you live so intensely
    Enjoy every minute of life
    With space to swing your arms around
    Laughing loudly

    I always knew in my core things would not stay the way they were. What was happening was untenable for both of us. I tell clients something I know is infuriating but is true: We are always stuck until we are ready not to be. I just never knew it would turn out like this, that what would unstick me would be Jeffrey dying. A lump forms in my throat as I edit this post now thinking about it. Part of my feels guilt for not being stronger, for not knowing how to help him, for not realizing what was happening sooner to get us help. What if I could have saved him? What if I could be in a world where he did not die and we got to have everything we ever wanted?

    Unlike me, unlike me
    Do you think I’m strange?
    Unlike you, unlike you
    I am not pretending

    There is no time

    I need to be very, very clear: I do not need reassurance on this Part of me in any way. I do not want to hear “there’s nothing more you could have done” or whatever version is coming up for those reading this. I in no way believe there was more I could do. I do not feel responsible. In Self, I know everything unfolded as it needed to and my Soul will learn whatever she needs to from it. There are many things for me to carry in this life and responsibility for Jeffrey dying is not going to be one of them. I cannot change what happened.

    But Part of me resorts to wondering when she is so overwhelmed by new feelings. I do not want to pretend like this Part is not in the experience I have of losing Jeffrey. She’s difficult to ignore and sits on my chest, throws cannon balls at my throat, pours tears down my face, slows my heart rate, and steals my body from the room. This Part loved Jeffrey so much and wonders all the time what he thinks about the things happening in my life. Like, what would he think the odds are “Unlike Me” would come on the shuffled playlist while processing all of this?

    I waffle between these two stark differences in my experience of the grief. There is Part of me trying to heal the wounds formed when I lost myself with Jeffrey. This Part wants me to put away the photos, wants to remove any traces of him. Then there is the Part of me who misses him every day, wishes she could play Wolf Parade I’ll Believe in Anything to see if it brought as much joy to him when he found it as it did me. This Part wants to show Jeffrey my art journal and ask what he thinks about it, wants to know what memorial tattoo he would get of himself and what he thinks of this apartment I am in now.

    For both of these Parts to exist in my one body is disorienting. My panic attacks used to happen when either Part showed themselves to me at all. The magnitude of the love or the shame would disappear my body. Both feelings are so massive my body split how I feel about Jeffrey dying from the reality that he died. My healing journey requires my body to reach a capacity to hold both experiences at the same time. Last night, it felt like both of them met and shook hands. I floated above myself for only a moment before telling Jeffrey I missed him. I felt him sitting with me, a tunnel between where I am and wherever he is. Then I started writing this post to relieve the distress in my body, to navigate my way through the panic attack.

    I feel like I see the pathway of my healing even if I have no idea where it is going. I feel patient as I continue to make space to notice where I am, what my body needs, and what my capacity is to care for it. It is a surrender like nothing I experienced in my life before now and I am so grateful for it. The freedom to let go and have no idea where I am going is anomalous. I still feel like I am touching time, grounded in a present awareness and I never want to let go. I feel awed by this experience, as devastating as it is. Part of me will always wonder if we could have made it, while Part of me will always know we never could have. Or else we would have. Right?

    Kate Havnevik “Unlike Me”

    There are no guarantees in life
    Not for the present, nor for the future
    All I know is that I’m here
    Don’t know for how long

    I love the way you live so intensely
    Enjoy every minute of life
    With space to swing your arms around
    Laughing loudly

    Unlike me, unlike me
    Do you think I’m strange?
    Unlike you, unlike you
    I am not pretending


    There is no time
    There is no time
    Time doesn’t really exist

    The past, the present and the future
    Are all side by side, hand in hand
    You move and change, yet you go nowhere
    Everything stays the same (same)

    You stare at me and ask me questions
    Makes me nervous, mm
    This room, it keeps a constant tone
    While I’m on a rollercoaster

    Unlike me, unlike me
    Do you think I’m strange?
    Unlike you, unlike you
    I am not pretending

    There is no time
    There is no time
    There is no time
    Time doesn’t really exist

    There is no time
    There is no time
    There is no time
    Time doesn’t really exist

    Patching more life
    Patching more
    Patching more life
    Patching more

    Time

  • This Post Talks About Abuse

    We were kissing and I felt Jeffrey’s skin on my skin. I felt the bumpy texture of his freckles and moles, the braille of his scars along his hips and back. I felt what it felt like to feel completely present in my body next to him, to learn what it felt like to not be concerned about what was happening and escape my constant, fluttering uneasiness. Then Jeffrey starkly got up and left me on the sofa in a manner that shifted presence into worry. The energy moved and I did not see when or how. Jeffrey stomped into the bedroom belligerent, bumping into walls like a bowling ball against bumpers down the hallway. I could both see and hear Jeffrey rifling for a change of clothes while still sitting on the sofa. I could hear him foraging from his closet to the space under the dresser. Jeffrey was looking for the cane he made with his father, the one with wood he picked for the handle because he liked the chatoyance. I found myself in the doorway of the room where my office was in the apartment we shared. I did not walk there, so how was I there? I gave Jeffrey space as to not overwhelm him more than he clearly was. I asked what he was doing, why he was leaving. “Why don’t you come sit with me and we will have some quiet time? Or take a nap?” I said all the things I knew to say that might interrupt what was happening and, in his loudest and most abrasive octave, he yelled as he shoved his feet antagonistically into the Nike shoes I bought him, “Y’never unnerstand anythin’… you don’t, you just… you never do. Are you… are you an idiot??!” As he spoke, I noticed my whole body was solid, my torso bracing for whatever could happen next. It was never physical, but I was never sure. Psychosis meant we were not in the same room at the same time. A more fucked up Inception but no one knows the plot or who is stealing our dreams.

    Jeffrey threw open our front door and slammed it shut behind him. I heard his key stumble to find the lock followed by the hall door clatter shut behind him. I started to wonder about what to do next. Do I follow him? Does he have his phone? It is not my job to babysit him, but is he safe in this headspace to be out in the world? What does this mean? What if he gets hurt or someone hurts him? What state will he be in when he gets back? Will he be drunk? Would he come back still angry at the ghosts in his soul? I sat on the sofa again.

    Just as I felt the texture of the woven, olive-green material, I woke up. It was 1:29am. “I am in Chico,” I thought, “I have to wake up for therapy in Sacramento soon. Jeffrey is dead.” I slept a few more hours, dreamless. My alarm went off at 5am and I got ready to take Dottie and me to therapy in Sacramento. I go to therapy in person whenever I can. It is a 90-minute drive and the time in the car is helpful for the unwinding I need to do after I process my new hellscape I still struggle to logic. And now I have this super-fun trauma dream to discuss on top of feeling overwhelmed by people wanting me to feel hopeful again, and the one-year anniversary of moving to Chico.

    I told my therapist that I felt my body remember what it felt like to be there in the seconds after Jeffrey left. I felt the relief of his energy not being in the room, that he could not yell at me or get injured while I watched him refuse help. I explained the absolute dread about what would happen when he came back. I have rarely dreamt of Jeffrey since he died. Only two other times. Once, right after he died, I dreamt about a bike ride we planned together and I woke up in a panic attack because I missed him. The second time was the first night in the hotel room when we moved me from Seattle. I dreamt Jeffrey was angry at me for not saving all of his things. I woke up in a panic attack I hid from my parents who slept in the same room. And now this. A dream that encapsulated what feels so confusing about grieving him.

    In psychosis, Jeffrey blamed everyone else for the miswiring in his body, his brain, and his soul. I always knew the words spewed at me, laced with the venom of a lifetime of self-loathing, were not about me. It always felt like what he yelled at me he was yelling at himself. I always knew and still know it was not my fault.

    I told myself over and over again he could not help it. He was not in his grounded mind to have any agency in what was taking place. He almost never remembered what happened or how. He always apologized and we always made plans for what to do next time. I explained to my therapist I feel like I still do not understand about what was happening between us. And she softly, gently asked me the thing: “What if he was mentally ill, could not help it, loved you, AND was abusive?” Something in my body relaxed when she said it. What if all of these things are true at the same time and I do not have to know which one is right? What if?

    I feel embarrassed I let this happen to me. I feel deep shame. I taught clients about abusive relationships while entrenched in my own. A hypocrite defined. I know all the things to say to myself to help complicate my own judgement. Abuse happens to everyone and does not discriminate. You had unmet needs that were fulfilled in your relationship with Jeffrey and it is okay to have filled them. He really did try to do better for you. He really did love you. This is not your fault. You are still a good person. But none of these things change what is true. I both loved Jeffrey and was abused by him.

    I feel like a traitor when I talk about the shadowy parts of us. How do I grieve someone I loved so deeply and who hurt me this much? I have asked myself this question every day for fifteen months. Because today is fifteen months since Jeffrey died. I told my therapist I wish I could ask Jeffrey what he thought about us. I wish I could know how he thinks of it now that his soul is theoretically unburdened by everything Jeffrey navigated while he was alive. Would he see it the way I do now? The way I did then? Does he feel bad about it? Does he feel like I betrayed him by talking about it with people? Am I betraying him by writing about it?  Part of me still misses the part of our cycle that reassured me we were still on the same side of something. It was us against his mental illness, right? The thing we did the next morning after he rested and was himself again, when I got to tell him how his behavior hurt me brought us together. He listened, validated, and apologized. That is the thing about abusive cycles: the two people in the cycle are often the only two people who know about it. Our pattern of Jeffrey exploding and then reconciliation afterward allowed both of us to foolishly believed we solved it after every incident, but we never did. It never stopped, even the week he died. It is as they say: you cannot see the forest through the trees when the trees are all falling on you. I have yet to meet anyone who can.  

    Today, I talked a client through how normal it is to know someone does not intend to hurt them, but to be hurt by them. How normal it is to not know how to make sense of what is abusive behavior by someone they love and care for. I reassured my client of the thing I always needed to hear: I was not crazy. It was real. I asked them a version of what my therapist asked me: what if they do not mean to hurt you, and it still hurts?

    The burden of knowing exactly what to say to people because I have also heard these things is heavy.

    I hope I win the lottery soon.

  • Unattractive Gray Box

    Last Friday, a friend posted about the time and date for a community member’s Hero Walk and I had a panic attack. I remembered what it felt like to be posting the same updates for people in my life about your Hero Walk and immediately without warning left my body. I watched myself at the Hero Walk. I watched myself in the room with you. I watched what it looked like to watch me post about the Hero Walk online, to be the people who learned you died. Just as quickly as I left my body, I came back, gasping for air, standing up from the sofa and trying to get to the kitchen sink so I could splash cold water on my face. I grabbed an ice cube. Earlier this month, I saw a doctor and received medication to help with panic attacks, but I have never taken medicine like this before. I was nervous in my panic to try it without someone being around. What if my body does not like it? What if the panic gets worse? I laid in bed at 7pm and turned on Law and Order SVU. I am rewatching old episodes because they do not require much focus. It is interesting to notice how much Stabler bothers me now. His macho, patriarchal ideas of how to be a man are grating. The panic subsided as I watched season five attempt to explain why conversion therapy is wrong.  I was asleep by 9pm and slept until 7am the following morning.

    On Saturday, I sorted all of my mementos into new boxes I purchased for whenever I was ready to sort them. I found a card written by my best friend in second grade thanking her for the Sky Dancer I gifted her. I looked at photos of people whose names I cannot remember, found evidence of my past relationships, of my sister’s past relationships. Of my father’s and my mother’s past relationships. I found birthday cards from my father’s mother who I only remember in images. I read all of the carefully dated and filled cards from Grammy and reminded of all the evidence of her past relationships. I sorted napkin drawings and love letters and poems and and took photos of the things to send people from my past. Here we are, I was telling them. Here is the evidence of who you are in my life. I kept these things to remember you, to remember how you made me feel, to remember the complexity and delicacy of loving and being loved by so many people.

    On Saturday, I also touched all of your shirts. In sorting the mementos, I pulled out the things that are you. You cannot mix into the other boxes. You require your own. A few months ago, I bought an unattractive gray storage container so I could consolidate all of you into one place. I was in the storage aisle at Target for a long time deciding on a container. How do you select the container that fits all of you in it? What color represents the things you no longer need because you died?

    Before Saturday, you were scattered all over where I live now. I would open my bedroom closet to grab a sweater and see the Panda bear with your heartbeat recorded on it be the ICU nurse. The panda sat atop the quilt the organ donation family coordinator stamped your hand onto. I had a container in the hall closet of random artifacts we found while mom and Phil packed to move me from Washington to California in January. Your shirts were in a moving box in the office closet. I needed to organize these things so i can choose when I look at the remnants of you. I also wanted to see what I had been avoiding looking at. What does all of you fitting into a box look like? I do not know what to do with everything I have left. Your wallet? You do not need those credit cards anymore, but I am not ready to let go of it all. What if I regret giving them away? So all of you lives in an unattractive gray box all together in my office.

    After consolidation, you are now in the photo of us on my dresser from when we sailed on your dad’s boat over 4th of July. We listened to fireworks echo across the islands and felt the power of the explosions in our bodies. You are in your deodorant I still cannot throw away in the bathroom cabinet above the toilet. You are in the urn your father made for me, the one with wood from your cane and remnants of the tree in front of the family home you grew up in. The urn has circular cuts on the sides. Your father explained them as portholes, as if you are looking out from inside a ship. We cried as he talked me through what your urn is, cried as I scooped your ashes into the jar that sits within the urn. Ashes got onto the kitchen counter and I wiped them up with a Clorox wipe. You are in the photo-booth pictures from your fortieth birthday celebration that sits next to the tiny pocket-sized penguin Jena gave me when you died on my desk. You are in the half of the neon MuirWood sign that I still have in the office closet. And you now you are in the unattractive gray box.

    It occurs to me that someday all of these things, these remnants of you, will all be and only be in the unattractive gray box. The shirts I am keeping might not ever become a quilt because I am stuck on finding someone who I can trust to help me make it. I am scared of your shirts getting ruined and not having them anymore. I smelled them as I refolded them and put them in the box. They smell like Downy and dust. Your smell is not there anymore. How many times will I move the shirts before I do not want to move them anymore? If I ever date, how do I explain your photo on the dresser? I suspect that eventually the photo on the dresser will not feel appropriate there anymore. I want to believe whoever is next will understand the remnants of you I have in my home, but it feels extraordinary to imagine such a person could exist.

    On the day I consolidated all of your things into the unattractive gray box, I also reorganized my entire office, removed the trash, worked out, and took a bath. I did not eat until 5pm. It was not until 8pm when I was surprised by a panic attack while walking Dottie that I realized I had not been in my body all day. I journeyed to another place in my mind to organize your things, to touch all the memories of my life. I am scared I will always flip between feeling everything and feeling nothing. I walked outside in the cold for thirty minutes, audibly crying. Your welcome, Meriam Park, I hope it was a good show.

    I gave up on New Years Resolutions a long time ago. I do not like the pressure of failing at something when my life has thrown so many curves that limited the execution of a goal. I do like settling into a Word if it appears to me, although, I do not put pressure on myself to find it. In 2025, my word was “surrender”. I knew I needed to surrender to the experience I am having of grieving you. I knew I did not need to resist my feelings of losing you, of having lost myself in my relationship with you. I sit here today trying to grapple with what it means to have made it through this year, but I do not have the words. I think I am still too in it to see what it all means. As I considered what my word should be for 2026, the only one that comes to mind is “acceptance”, but even that does not feel quite right. Maybe I am still in the hangover of surrender. Maybe I keep surrendering until a better idea appears.

    One of my new favorite podcasts is called Shameless, “the pop culture podcast for smart people who love dumb stuff.” In 2025, one of the hosts, Michelle, had her first child and also lost her mother to brain cancer. In Shameless’s New Years episode released today (recorded in the future of Melbourne time), Michelle reflected on her difficult year, on losing her mother, and on not trusting setting intention for the 2026 because loss had changed her view on predictable safety. Michelle’s 2025 word was Presence and two weeks later she learned her mother had brain cancer. I really, really related to Michelle’s fear. I am scared to set any intention that goes beyond meeting myself where I am because any other expectation feels wrought with potential heartbreak. If there is any lesson in 2025, it is that I can get myself through anything, I am a good advocate for my survival, and nothing will every hurt as much as losing someone you love. Sometimes meeting yourself where you are is all you can muster. And that’s okay.

  • A Wishing Flower

    In the past two weeks, I spent dozens of hours switching between old episodes of Housewives of Potomac and podcasts which analyze each episode. I would rather immerse myself in the carefully constructed drama of wealthy narcissists than examine whatever it is I feel whenever I remember the new layers of grief I felt this week. I am in a feeling that takes my breath away and the familiarity worries me because I know where it leads. I do not like this pathway. How was I just in a reality where this was not present? I had the giggles on Thanksgiving for the first time since I can remember and now I am here? It feels like it will always be this way, grief showing up like a nosy neighbor, a confrontation by all the weight of losing you.

    On Tuesday, a colleague brought a case involving a young widow client to our consultation group. As she processed, I could feel all Parts of me show up at once. The Widow. The Therapist. The Griever. The Colleague. The Trauma Survivor. The One who wants to feel anything but all of this. As The Widow began discussing what this client might be feeling based on my own experience, The Therapist saw looks on my colleagues faces, looks of people who got a peak into the enormous complexity of my grief. The Colleague realized parts of this last year people do not know, the parts The Griever has not written. The Widow spent a lot of time this year wondering if you tried to die, if you completed suicide. The Widow, The Griever, and the Therapist saw a look on one colleague’s face that made me question if my peers realized the hole The Griever keeps trying to crawl out of. The client is in month two of their new hell. In my January of this year. Without knowing them, The Widower knows where this client is and it is very dark there. It is unfeeling and numb. It is one hour at a time. It is surviving.

    While I can make space for the parts of the client story that were so different, for the unique ways different bodies process traumatic loss, The Young Widow knows a version of a story most people, including my colleagues, will hopefully never know. This complexity is alone. The Therapist, the Trauma Survivor, and the Widow know clinical intervention for this client is only to make space until the client’s body shows signs it needs more support. Their body will know because the body always knows. It will panic, become depressed, anxious, and show signs of distress. Until then, the therapist should create safe attachment, make space, and validate. There is no therapy in the first year of traumatic loss. There is only containment and, as needed, education on why the body is reacting the way it does with interventions to help support the reaction. The Colleague and Therapist felt deeply aware of how triggered I must have looked to my peers. I cannot do anything about what they saw. What they saw was raw and honest. This is who I am now, the amalgamation of all these fucked up Parts. They are wounded and they have knowledge. The One who wants to feel anything but all of this cannot process it all. It is too much. I am kaleidoscopic.

    When I close my eyes, I see trying to heal from this grief as attempting to reconstruct a wishing flower. I can feel the texture of the dandelion seed, that soft, delicate prickle. The breeze is Time taking each seed away from me. I will never have all the seeds back. If grief has a timeline, I feel like I am in the few seconds after opening my eyes having made the wish. I did not wish for this. The panic of the task at hand and how long it will take overwhelms me. It is a nightmare. It took me a year to get here and every seed I manage to capture is another painful piece. There is still so much work to do. I am surviving.

    After that consultation group where all my Parts came, I had seven client sessions. By the end of Tuesday, I was exhausted, inhuman. As I ate dinner on the couch, I let my mind wander and began to sink into the reality the consultation group even happened. I am a person with all these parts. I opened my phone and another clip from When Harry Met Sally came up, the infamous diner scene. We watched When Harry Met Sally on our New Years Eves together. You were shocked when I told you I had not seen it. My memory tells me you loved the movie because of your mother, because it was her favorite. I feel apprehensive about my remembering around this detail and worry I am dishonoring your mother and your loved ones by disclosing it. For me, the movie is you. It is surreal to have the tragic death of a Hollywood celebrity trigger the capturing of a new seed of my loss of you. I put my phone down. I watched more adult women fight with each other. I went to bed. Tomorrow we will start again.

  • 11:11

    11:11

    One year ago, I arrived at the hospital for rounds anticipating guidance on removing your life support. The medical team informed us the day before tests confirmed you were not responsive. Your brain did not register any of the pain you definitely should have been in. I already knew. I knew when the neurosurgeon named Natalia told me on November 9th to keep hope up, to talk to you and play music. She told me we never know what kind of healing the brain can do and while I knew she was right, I knew you were not coming back. You did not have it in you to heal from this. We did not know how long you did not have oxygen when I started CPR. She introduced herself as Natalia when I arrived at your room. I remember because I tried to address her by title, as Doctor, but she corrected me. “I’m Natalia”. She’s the only name I remember from that week because her name was close to mine. She asked if she could hug me before leaving. I said yes and she gave me a strong, sturdy, caring hug. I played Reggae Saturday on KEXP because you loved Reggae Saturday. That’s what we would have listened to. I held your hand. I told you I loved you and that it was okay to move forward. I am realizing now you were the first of two people I have told this year it was okay to move beyond this life to whatever is next. The second was Grammy.

    After Natalia hugged me and left, I sat in the room listening to Reggae Saturday with you alone for a couple hours before others arrived. I do not remember who came or when. I know your sister was there and your brother. Your dad and his partner. My parents were making separate journeys from Chico. I had not slept while staying at Adam and Randy’s. I lay awake and cried, in shock. I got to your hospital room by 6:30am. Dottie was staying with Adam and Randy because I could not leave her alone. I sat on the sofa in your room and focused on breathing. Inhale, 1-2-3-4. Hold, 1-2-3-4. Exhale, 1-2-3-4. Even today when I have box breath like that to help my body settle, I remember sitting in that room on the pleather sofa that was easy to clean. I remember looking at lifeless you and out the window at the oranges and yellows of fall. I remember the beeping as they tried to thin your blood. The machine did not work and the nurse was so kind as she overly explained that “this happens sometimes”.

    I was hugged by your neurosurgeon on November 9th. On November 10th, we learned your brain was unresponsive. That you felt no pain. My mom and I walked to your room and a doctor asked to speak with me in a quiet room down the hall. I knew she was going to tell me you were not responsive and actively thought “remember this hallway Natalie, it’s going to change you.” I remember the wall of professional photos of the medical team. I wondered who the interior designer was of a hospital and how did they get that job. As the doctor told me, a conversation I cannot remember, a woman walked in on her phone seemingly unaware I was learning you died. That woman was probably stuck in her own nightmare. Not getting the hint from the palpable despair in the space, the doctor who told me you were brain dead asked her to leave. The woman startled, apologizing for intruding. My mom held me as I wept. We went home. There was nothing left to do. I told Facebook you were not going to wake up and the first of many panic attacks gripped me. Sitting on our sofa in our home, I lost my breath and hyperventilated as I attempted to touch the reality of you dying. The same reality I still struggle to touch. The energy of trauma is other-worldly and powerful. No wonder it splits us.

    On November 11th, I arrived at the hospital a little late for morning rounds. My parents were with me, and I think I asked them to stay in the family waiting area until I knew what was happening, although I cannot remember. I did not want to crowd your room and we were only allowed so many people. The medical team stood lining the hallway and I parted the members of your family blocking the entrance to your room so I could set down my water bottle and jacket. Was it raining outside? Or was it sunny? I think it was gray? So many details I cannot remember. I squeezed your hand and told you hello. Your eyes were half open, the sparkle no longer adorning the cerulean anymore. There was a thin layer of white crust under your eye lashes as your eyes attempted to keep moisture in them. I grabbed a tissue and wiped it away. I tucked your hair behind your ears. I joined your family in the doorway to your room and tried to understand what the medical team was talking about. They gave updates about your nutrition and fluid intake.

    I think it was on the 11th, although I cannot remember exactly what happened and when, that your sister said the quiet part out loud on behalf of all of us: why are we gathering to discuss your nutrition and fluid levels when your brain died? I did not understand what we were doing at Morning Rounds and was so grateful when your sister interrupted their updates to ask. We arrived on the 11th expecting to be talked through pulling you off life-support, but here we were getting updates on your nutrition. Your sister knew you would not want to be laying there like this. We all knew you were not supposed to be suffering any more than you already had. It was not what you or any of us wanted. I did not hear the reasons and went back to your bedside. Someone told me we were supposed to meet with a team at 10am. Everyone dispersed for a walk, a cry, tea, or coffee. I do not remember where I went.

    On the 11th, at 10am, your father, his partner, your brother, your sister, myself, my mother, and my father all sat in the room where I learned you died just the day before. Across from us, two women introduced themselves before quietly and kindly discussing next steps. They asked us to talk about who you were to us. I do not remember much of the conversation. Eventually, they explained organ donation and how it works and I realized they were preparing us for a conversation I had not anticipated. You were an organ donor, and your body had not completely died yet. Just your brain. And, amidst all of this, we could help you help other people. Several of us indicated approval of the idea. It was unquestionably what you wanted. The donor coordinator asked your dad one final time if she had permission to move forward. He made eye contact with me and I nodded (or did I say something?) and he looked to the coordinator and confidently said “it feels like a no brainer. Let’s move forward”. Here we all were in a situation where you were brain dead, having opted to be an organ donor. It was a literal no-brainer. The air in the room hung heavy as everyone quickly assessed if we should start crying over this remark or start laughing. I started laughing, tears filling my eyes. You would have thought it was funny. We looked at the time, and it was 11:11am. So, on the 11th day of the 11th month at 11:11am a group of us defined a day meant for Veterans and Hope as something else entirely. We formalized your time of death.

    Today, I woke up at 5am and could not fall back to sleep. I cried as I remembered where I was one year ago and what it felt like to not know what would happen to you. I tried to exercise but quit one-third of the way through because I could not stop crying while on the bike. I canceled the massage I scheduled because I poorly planned it to take place at 10:45am and I knew I could not stop crying or relax as 11:11am passed on the clock today. I am sitting in my dry, but sweat drenched clothes, wearing the KEXP “You are not alone” shirt your dad got you and your Eddie Bower printed fleece pullover we bought that one time at U-Village. I carved into a candle my mom gave me yesterday. The candle was made by a shaman to burn on 11/11, the angel number, the number of hope and remembrance. My mom had been saving it for herself for years, always out of town on the day or not able to get to it. She handed it to me last night after I made Grammy’s cookies for her memorial on Friday. “I realized you could use it more than me”. I carved the words “love”, “healing”, “wholeness”, “alignment”, “rest”, “peace” and “laughter” on one side. I carved your name on the other. I am going to sit here and watch it burn in between episodes of whatever I end up watching. Because today marks one year since you died and I do not know what else to do but try and remember and focus on what’s to come. David Kessler once said “Anxiety” is the Present and the Future while “Grief” is the Present and the Past. I’m firmly in Grief today. It is a relief to be here.

  • Are you here with me?

    Are you here with me?

    Grief took me walking again. We walked on the South Rim Trail named for Annie Bidwell. Grief led me and Dottie through grass the color of butter and underneath trees still dotted with the leaves confused by a 45-degree morning and an 80-degree afternoon. I imagined the leaves asking if they should be dying or thriving, but that is probably projecting. We stopped at Bear Hole and sat down as cyclists gathered themselves to finish their ride. Bear Hole looked different from the South side of the canyon. Smaller. I wondered if that is because of the slope of the canyon or because there was no fog shrouding the sky, just us and the autumnal sun. Probably both or something else completely. You would know the answer.

    As I walked, I wondered out loud if you were walking with me and tears fell down my face as I registered profound anxiety at not knowing the answer. A runner gave me a look of pity as she passed me. Well… are you? Are you here with me? Does my wondering increase the possibility of you walking alongside me? I mean, we think therefore we are… right?

    If Grief takes me on walks, Depression keeps adding weight to the ball shackled to my ankles. I cannot tell where Grief ends and Depression begins. They run alongside each other taking turns punching me in the stomach. Since Grammy died, I am back in the wing of the Grief Palace I cannot map as it hides from me in total darkness, no distinction amidst the shadows. It is not suicidal here, but it is dark. I have been in this part of the Palace before, and I do not like it here. It comes with dreams of children dying, people chasing me, and torture. I dreamt two nights ago that I lived in the world where the acceptable punishment for a child stealing food was nailing a cabinet door to their head until the nails fell out. Dark.

    My body feels like it is straddling the precipice of panic and I am spending more time managing my stress with focused, mindful breathing, through exercise, and through dissociation. I want to drink and have more weed because I want to feel anything else but this fire in my chest, pain in my hips, and the knot in my stomach. I want relief from overwhelming dread. I do not drink and have more weed because I know it will not actually make me feel better and my mostly sober brain feels judgement over “doing the right thing”. I feel like I will always live in this wing of the Grief Palace and the Part of me who knows I will escape this place is so fatigued from trying to rationalize and remember for everyone else. Today, I watched Twisters and understood the moment a background character let go of what was keeping them from being blown away. I may not be in the middle of a tornado, but I am exhausted. How much longer do I need to hold on?

    I found you on our dining room floor 359 days ago. I somehow managed to get myself through 359 days of you not being here. And now I have to get through the next two weeks.

    I keep repeating the plan to myself, so I know I have one. You will get through this, Natalie. You know how.. You’re already doing it.

    Important Dates:

    • Saturday, November 8th will be one year since I found you on the floor of our dining room, did CPR, rode in an ambulance, and my life changed.
    • Monday, November 10th will be one year since the neurosurgeon confirmed your brain was not feeling pain.
    • Tuesday, November 11th will be one year since they declared you and we gave your body to organ donation.
    • Thursday, November 13th I have therapy in Sacramento. Hailey and Tootie get into town.
    • Friday, November 14th is Grammy’s funeral.
    • Sunday, November 16th will be one year since your Hero Walk.

    I am off from work from the 7th until the 16th because I cannot imagine having to hold other people when I can barely hold myself. I did not make plans for any specific days because I do not know what my body will need as it remembers learning you died. My only idea for an activity is to sort and organize mementos and the things that belonged to you. I figure this will help me honor you, keep me busy, and give me space to remember the parts of us I want to. The parts of you I love so much. I also plan to go for walks with Dottie if the weather allows it. And to sleep.

    I want to ask someone to wake me up when this is all over.

    But it never will be.

    Shut up, Betty.

  • The Wisdom of Ruth Anne Cline

    I took today off because I did not know what I would need. I still do not know. After drinking a cup of coffee, catching up on Marco Polos, and watching an episode of Dawson’s Creek, I felt like I would crawl out of my skin. I thought about running errands, but going to the grocery store is something I would do for Future Me. And today is not for Future Me. Today is for Past and Present Me, for Grief. Instead of filling my gas tank, I walked in Upper Park for almost three hours with Dottie. We walked from the parking lot to the end of Yahi Trail and back up Middle Trail. We were mostly alone aside from a jogger, a cyclist, the man who cleans the portable toilets, and a dog walker with a blind dog. The cloud cover hung low and I could not see the top of the canyon. The creek was silty from the recent rainfall. Leaves were finally succumbing to cooler temperatures and dashes of crimson and gold and chocolate accentuate the oak and sycamore trees. Birds rang the alarm as we entered their territories. A breeze whispered. Dottie smelled everything and kept alert to any sound behind us. I listened to a podcast and kept walking. One foot in front of the other. I’ll know when I’m done and it’s time to turn back. One podcast ended and I turned on another. I could have walked forever except eventually the spiderwebs got thicker than I wanted. We turned around. As we walked out of the canyon, blue skies framed the landscape. There is a metaphor there somewhere, but I do not have the creative bandwidth to know how to better articulate it.

    My grandmother, my mom’s mother, died on Wednesday evening. On Tuesday, my mom called me while I was throwing a tennis ball for Dottie at the dog park that is too small for meaningful acceleration but will do the job. It was 3:29pm. I never heard my mom sound like that before and I knew she was not in her body. She has 24-48 hours. Edita was with her, a close friend. I’m glad she was not alone. I knew I needed to get Dottie home and immediately go visit Grammy. My mom was not in town attempting to visit my sister, my nieces and nephews, and friends before completing a training in Texas. That psychic said my mom would not be in town when Grammy died. I knew I needed to be there with my uncles while my mom and Phil figured out getting her back. I put Dottie in the house and drove to be with them. I hugged them and witnessed them reassure their mother it was okay to go, that Jesus would hold her. That her siblings and mother were waiting. Tears lurked in all of their eyes. The last time I saw one of them cry we were at breakfast after his house burned down in the Camp Fire. Flashback. I hung back when they left so I could have a moment with her alone. I told her I was proud to know her. That mom was coming. That Hailey wanted to thank her for being a safe place when we did not know we needed it. That I wish she could help me understand what I am navigating with losing you. That I love her.

    My mom did make it back on Wednesday morning. She wanted to go directly to the place my grandmother was cared for. I met her and Phil there. I knew it would be difficult for Phil. We were in the week that Phil lived exactly one year ago. He lost his mother, Marie, the lady who loved yellow, on the 25th last year. My parents were going to face losing their mothers the same week one year apart. Eventually Phil left and my mother and I spent Wednesday afternoon with my grandmother. There is poetry there somehow. My mom’s brothers came in and out as time allowed. Eventually needing a break and to wrap up some work things, my mom wanted to go home. We watched a Leanne Morgan sketch on Netflix and I remember watching the same one while in a hotel room driving from Seattle to Chico the week you died. Leanne Morgan is funny and I will not let my sadness and trauma over you taint that. After watching, my mom and I went back one last time. We were tired, but there was not a good reason not to see my grandmother. I kissed her forehead before we left one last time. It’s okay, you got this, I said to her. We knew this was coming. Dementia was there for ten years and cancer most recently. We read the text on Thursday morning. My grandmother passed on Wednesday evening after we left. God keep her. I’m not even religious, but God keep her.

    I do not know how to place these two griefs in the same universe, let alone in my body. As I watched the body of my grandmother labor to keep breathing so we could all say goodbye, I kept thinking about how much this was the way death is supposed to be. This is the loss we prepare for. The loss we expect because of age, because brains cannot function forever, because bodies eventually get cancer. And your death, your loss, is not the way death is supposed to be. People are not supposed to die at 41 because of alcohol used to medicate their mental illness. We were supposed to grow old together, or at least reach five years old. Today, we would have been five years. What am I supposed to do with that?

    I have wanted to ask my grandmother so many questions since you died. How did she recover when Lloyd passed away? Lloyd was a soul connection unlike many of the others. My grandmother and Lloyd were so in love. Hailey and I could feel it as kids. There was this radiant kindness to him that saturated the way we grew up. It matched Grammy’s in a delicate way, still holding the strength and subtle beauty of gossamer. What did that feel like to her? To have him one moment, then not the next? Did they talk about it together? How did he reassure her about life after him? Or did he? I came back from the class trip from Washington DC and I knew immediately by the look on my mom’s face something was wrong. Lloyd passed away while I was touring this country’s ode to patriotism. My mom, sister, and I lived with Lloyd and my Grammy after my parent’s separation and eventual divorce. I watched what happened to Lloyd and felt it, even if I was across the country when he graduated to the next experience. But I was in junior high, too young to know what that could feel like for his partner. For her. And I wonder all the time now.

    A year ago, you guided me through the butterflies at Pacific Science Center. We turned four years old. It was a day that made me feel hopeful, that reminded me of the good parts of us. The parts of us who were curious and wanted to know things. That wanted experiences. That knew we could be so much more than the life we were living. You opened a part of me that let you lead me through the butterflies even though I dislike the idea of their wings brushing my skin. We talked about what we wanted for our wedding, the idea of eloping in Muir Woods for all the obvious reasons. Even with everything going wrong, I trusted you completely. I knew we would navigate it together.

    I knew I would need today off work as I try and grapple with what it means that we could have been five today. We could have been living in this apartment I am in now, together. We could be going to family dinners on Friday, together. To the California coast on weekend trips. Walking Dottie in the park. But you died. In twelve days will be the anniversary of when I found you on our dining room floor. We were four and then we were nothing. It took my family years to get used to the idea of my grammy dying. Will it be the same way with you?

    I have been so terrified of the ways in which losing you will alter who I am. Will I ever trust anyone again? Will I always be afraid they are lying to me about their alcohol use and die? I keep telling myself I would rather be alone than settle for less than I deserve, but did losing you unreasonably raise the bar? I am working so hard to heal. And then my Grammy died. And I do not know how to hold both things at once. I feel like I am in a snow globe trying to decide which flakes to notice. There is glitter everywhere. My attention is fragmented.

    On Saturday, I completed an already scheduled Grief Art Therapy session because I knew I would need time to understand what it means that we will never turn five. I processed what it means to be in two different griefs, to not understand them as both being part of my life and how I am supposed to function. I was so in my head. My mom named on Sunday morning that her feelings need to be processed privately, not in front of others. I instantly understood something I have always felt: there is not always space for our feelings all together, the energy of our feelings together is too overwhelming. No wonder I had not cried while staying with my mother. There was somehow not space. Not on purpose. But how does one process this loss? After Grief Art Therapy, I raced back to my mom’s because her brothers were coming over to reminisce about their mother and help me write the obituary. My mom had signed me up for the obituary which makes sense. I am the writer. I had to write my Grammy’s obituary the same week we would have turned five. What is that?

    It is one of the most distinct privileges of my life to sit at my parent’s dining table with my mom and her four brothers as they remembered who their mother was, how she made them who they all are. I am upset I did not record the conversation for us all to remember. Not one of my grandmother’s children has the same experience of her. There is two decades age difference between them. My grandmother was fifteen years old when she became pregnant with the oldest, and thirty when she birthed my mother. All five of them have individual experiences of anger at my grandmother for abandonment, for the ways she did not always perfect motherhood. And those experiences are incredibly valid. Yet, all of them told stories of her kindness, of her generosity, of her quirkiness. All of them articulated how she impacted them, taught them to not judge others, to hold the complexity of multiple stories, to have Faith. For all the flaws, for all the ways she might have hurt them because we all eventually learn our mothers are humans dealing with the weight of human problems, she modeled always loving them. And they all see and feel that love. There really was nothing my grandmother was prouder of than her children. As I sat documenting and witnessing all of them tell their individual experiences of her, and add more kindling to the story-fire, I felt so aware of how proud she would be of her legacy: these five humans and the love they continue to show everyone else was her gift to all of us and to everyone who knows us. To me. And to you. It is because of my grandmother that I eventually met you. She taught me the generosity, and the love needed to hold the storyteller in us that wanted to grow past four years old. I feel I suddenly understand the answers to all the questions I wanted to ask her. It is her values that allow me to know I will survive losing you. It took losing her to learn that. Because if she could survive all that she did and still have these beautiful children, my family, to show for it, then I can survive losing you. Grammy taught me Love leads everything. And loving you is something I will always be proud of. It’s what she would have wanted.

    When I got back from the park, I made myself breakfast and then committed to being a blob all day. Except to write this, today is for feeling sad about the fact we will never turn five. Tomorrow can be for everything else.

    Grief for Grammy
    Grief for You

  • Is That All There Is?

    Yesterday was 10 months since we decided to donate your organs and officially moved into the space of you being dead. It was also the day I realized I had not thought about it. Around 4:12pm I was walking from one end of my mom and Phil’s home to the other and a voice inside me said “oh wow, you were just now not thinking about him being dead”. It was different than “I forgot he died”. There was no trauma or re-remembering of the moments that filled my life ten months ago. Instead, it was a flutter of noticing, the wings of a memory touching my skin. A whisper that did not knock me over. Whispers knock me over so frequently now, it was nice to notice one that left me with my feet still on the ground.

    I have had few more of these moments the past three weeks. I found a video of you making dinner, lip-synching to Whitney Houston’s rendition of I Will Always Love You. I kind of remember the night, but not really. I know I probably made you do that for me on camera because I found it funny and endearing and wanted to capture it so I would remember. I also probably paused the song so I could film it at the right moment. I remember wanting to remember us and how we felt that day, remember the warmth of being madly and exquisitely enamored with you. I wanted to feel the moment of us being on the same page and in the same room with too many groceries on the counter as you layered whatever is in the leftover containers into a casserole dish. I shared the video on my stories because I love it so much. Because I love you.

    After posting, I got texts and direct messages from more than a few people asking if I was okay. I found the outreach confusing. Did I say or do something to cause worry? I felt and still feel a bit baffled by it. To be clear, I am so grateful people check in. My confusion is in no way a discouragement from doing so. My point is I had another moment recently where a memory of you was not immediately coupled with the dread of feeling the loss of you. The checkins tell me the video feels heavier to others than it did to me. A difficult part of what I am navigating since you died is the fact most people do not understand what I am experiencing in any way. I have grandparents who have not experienced the death of their partner. I am the first person in my family, and in my parents generation to have this happen to them. My aunts and uncles still have their wives and husbands and life partners. I am the first of my friends to have a loss like this. Most of us don’t have our partner die before we are “old enough”. Definitely not when we are 36 and 41. This short fucked up stick is all mine.

    When I focus on the Part of me that misses my Whitney Houston moments with you, I can feel the heat of my throat bearing the responsibility of managing a tidal wave, a useless levee about to let the water destroy my precariously constructed Grief Palace. I do not want to feel restriction when I look at you lip-syncing that you will always love me. Because that moment is the joy of us. I have so few of those to see. There are not enough recordings of us at the moments when things felt good. These moments reassure me I did not make it all up. If there was ever any advice I could dispense, it would be to record the innocuous things with those you love. Get a minute of video here and there and then put your phone away and stay present with them. I did this as much as I could with you, but it will never be enough when I was supposed to have a lifetime.

    I am feeling an integration happen, grief folding into my day to day as I find other ways to fill my time that do not include a screen. I finally have mental capacity to do more than watch tv all day. I read a book and started another. I got my library card so I can save money on buying books I will not read more than once. There are small glimmers of hopefulness floating around me and I feel like I have bandwidth to see them. They are fragile glimmers, iridescent little bubbles floating in the wind and bursting at the softest touch. I told Heather last week I was nervous about experiencing this shift because the last time I looked toward the future, a wave of grief destroyed any sense of stability. I lost myself into a depression I do not like and loathe to welcome back. You death makes me scared to trust Hope. Some days I am pretty sure the destruction of Hope is probably the worst part of your dying. Right now, I make it through every single day attempting to convince myself that Peggy Lee was wrong. This cannot be all there is. So, I catalog the small whispers that do not knock me over. I try to watch the bubbles as they float along the cliff. I need as many of these moments as I can get.

    I am operating in a world that is only one day at a time, and more often a few hours at a time. I am struggling to plan for any more than today and maybe tomorrow unless someone else has made the plan for me. Tell me a date and time, and I will be there. My ability to be creative and follow through is limited which makes me a poor social companion. Relationships are two-way streets and there is roadwork on my side. Sometimes I can get around the construction, but most of the time I am stuck in traffic. I feel like I am constantly tricking myself to get things done, something that has been a thread in my entire life, but not in the way it is now. Before you died I ate without thinking about it. Now I eat because it is time to eat. Meals are big factor in how I pass time. I get to lunch and am thankful I made it to halfway through the day. At dinner, I actively have gratitude I can go to sleep soon and pass more of this horrible After without you by sleeping.

    All of that said, I am proud of me. I cook myself dinner more than I do not. I remain mostly sober. I pay my bills on time. I ask for help when I cannot pay my bills on time. I attend all of my client sessions and am accountable in my job. I attend weekly supervision to make sure I do not lose sight of my grief as it impacts my clients. I attend weekly therapy. In July, I joined an art therapy group with other therapists once a month. I am starting art therapy biweekly to have more space for someone to witness what I am going through. I stay in contact with my small group of people most days and remain responsive. The level at which I am functioning astounds me and, when I think about it, I feel validated in how exhausted I am. Then I remember I am exhausted of being exhausted. Then I tell someone in the rotation about feeling totally frustrated with my life and completely depressed. Then I watch tv or drink wine and puzzle or have an edible. You died ten months ago and my body still has not repaired from all the ways my brain broke when I found you not breathing on our dining room floor. But I make myself dinner more than I do not. And I started to notice that I do not always think about you dying. At least there is that.

    August 26, 2022

  • A Brick Wall

    I am overflowing and suffocating. I have felt so stuck, so unable to write. The depression is palpable, the negative bitterness spilling over from what I now see is the deep, crimson and leaded impression of pure rage. I wish I were touching the heat of a brick wall. I could dismantle the structure, feel dirt under my nails and my nails break off as I carved out the chalky and dry mortar to finally throw the bricks. I fantasize about doing this destruction often, of hearing the sound of my Rage as it reverberates off of every horrible, intrusive, and debilitating betrayal I have experienced in my life. It sounds like the heaviest xylophone falling the longest distance. An echo into forever. There is not enough cardio or weightlifting for this. Not enough words. Not enough paint. Not enough weed or alcohol. Not enough walks with Dottie or days by the pool. I am trying to climb the brick wall and the heat is singeing off my flesh, peeling away layers of my hope for the healing here. I can see parts of me stuck to the wall, remnants of my skin left to wither and die unsupported. I go places to get coffee or lunch and wonder: Can everyone here feel my seething? Rage.

    Your father wrote a poem about your mother, about his connection to her even since her passing. It was beautiful because your father is a brilliant writer and understands how to articulate longing. I read the poem and, as if reaching through time to put your hand on my shoulder, I felt you. I felt your grief. I felt the way you avoided talking about the loss of your mother. I saw you in her picture and instantly felt every piece of sadness you carried without being able to express it. And I felt your rage. For a vibrant, brief moment, my rage had someone else’s to sit next to. My rage found company. I feel rage thinking about it now. I finally understand this piece of you and you are not here to hold my hand and witness me. You died and I lost my witness. We are two shadows locked in aspects of time some fantasy novel tried to solve before. But love is still not enough in this memoir. I am exhausted having to keep learning this lesson. You died because you drank yourself to death and I cannot write you love poems. The words that come forward are so full of rage. I am scared the Rage will and is changing who I am. It’s like looking at Pandora’s Box and I know I have to open it. What will happen if someone actually sees who I become when I let the Rage come out? Will they still love me? Will I always be the parentified child who is too afraid to trust that people around me can hold all of me? Rage.

    I sobbed by the pool as I realized what you must have felt with the loss of your mother. I also sobbed as I simultaneously confronted the jealousy I have of those who can write such poems. I cannot write that poem for you. Not right now. I’m mired in fear that I might never trust anyone again. I am terrified I will be alone forever because not only do I not trust anyone, I do not trust myself. I never have and you did not help me learn how. There is history here. I picked a marriage that failed because the person did not know who they were when they married me. Before that I dated a drug addict in active heroin addiction during our relationship, a fact I did not learn until a decade later. And now you, an addict so steeped in their mental health trauma that you drank yourself to death. You said all the beautiful and correct things I needed to hear so I felt loved and trusted and adored. I wanted to believe your words, but the words of an addict leave an impression and a blank page, disappearing ink. This new version of me is exponentially more skeptical because I did not listen to myself with you. Again. Rage.  

    I was telling Randy about the Rage, about finding Rage while doing art therapy in my grief support group and about how I feel like I cannot show it to anyone. Randy then told me about the quiet his brain feels since taking an ADHD med. His description of the quiet reminded me of how it was when you started Adderall. It took forever to get the care, but you finally got prescribed last summer after being diagnosed AuDHD. The med made you so clear and you regulated your emotions with ease. You did not drink in secret. There you are, I thought. It felt like I finally had a clear picture of you, of the version of you I created my future with. As I remembered that feeling, I connected to the part of me, the Storyteller, who still feels madly in love with the man I knew was inside you. The man of my dreams. The man who was calm, intelligent, and thoughtful. The man who knew and had pain, but understood how to manage it. Who encouraged me and cheered me on. Who planned their life with me. Who wanted children with me. I feel grateful for this part, for the part of me who reminds me why I stayed. We told a beautiful story together. Until you could not get a renewed prescription because the pharmacies were out of stock. Until you died from the drinking attempting to quiet your overflowing mind. Rage.

    If my life were on film, I envision a 5 second clip that shows every warm feeling of us followed by a sprawling image of a deep, dark, cavernous Pit filled with Despair. It’s a horror movie. Aubrey Plaza is right, grief is like trying to navigate The Gorge. How can both versions of us, the good and the bad, exist in my relationship to you? I keep trying to see the depth of the gap, but there is no amount of squinting to make this clearer. I feel crazy when I try to see it all. It is with this thought I remind myself of what I tell clients all the time: “if you’re wondering if you’re crazy, the relationship is probably crazy.” Therapist Me is right.

    Rage.

  • Manifesting

    Tonight, while walking Dottie, I remembered the sensation when the air felt like the exact temperature of my skin that I wrote about last entry. This feeling is how I imagine the feeling of “total neutrality” to feel. It is so comforting. The air is thick, giving slightest awareness of a density as I breath it. The sky is a dull, faded blue except the emboldened neon and citrus sunset magnified by a layer of smoke from a fire in another county. If I think about the smoke layer, I feel claustrophobic. What if we suffocate? I began to go down that rabbit hole and quickly distracted myself by encouraging Dottie to follow me inside. She followed and got a treat. We’ve made progress.

    I had a wonderful day. I felt joy. I woke up in a good mood and felt accomplished in my workout. I added dumbbells to my fitness routine and while I cannot complete all exercises or use the recommended weights they do, I am at least committing to trying the whole time. And I’m learning the form.

    I met with a woman who invited me to join a grief support art therapy group just for therapists! You guys! This is the best and most exciting thing I can think of happening to me right now! I am so thrilled to finally have a space with other people who know Grief, will have the skills to hold mine AND create art about it. I felt so seen and understood. Is this what hope feels like?

    I felt really “on” with my clients. I cannot explain what went well or what happened because my job is private. I did collaborate with another therapist on a shared client. We aligned on our conceptualization of the case and that felt really good. In summary, I can see the impact I have on clients and the feedback I am receiving is positive. In a job with a constant evaluation of what did or did not go well and what to do next and questions about whether I am thinking of everything I should be and how do I know what to do next and who can help me figure out that new thing I do not know and did I do everything I can to keep everyone as safe and alive as I know how to… getting confirmation that your clients see change and are accomplishing their goals is such a gift. I do not take it for granted.  

    I helped my friends navigate a problem that I could help them with because of my training. And that felt really, really good. I think the thing I am realizing is that I am growing more confident in my skillset. I still do not know and will never know everything. But I am learning to trust my thinking. The quieting of my skeptical analyst is really, really peaceful. Anxiety is a little bitch – to all of those constantly questioning, I see you.

    I got myself a television for the bedroom so I can fall asleep to a tv and not to my iPad in the bed. This is a privileged, first-world luxury. I feel ridiculous for how much absolute joy it brought me to lay on my bed and feel what it’s like to lay on my back facing forward instead of on my side. What a fucking gift.

    My 37th birthday is tomorrow, and I have been dreading it. My birthday is the 8 month anniversary since they declared you dead, since we said they could take your organs. That is what you wanted. Every first event without you is so painful. I have been stuck in the terrible fear that I would feel too sad to actually enjoy celebrating a day where I am reminded in so many layers that you are not here anymore. I am still terrified I will get stuck in this pain, that I will have to surrender to it, that I will not get to celebrate. This is the PTSD. The fear of never having joy again. That’s why today felt so special. The fear was largely absent.

    Finally, while watching Love Island, I felt a feeling that immediately reminded me of what it felt like to have you sitting next to me, hand in my hand as we watched a show together. I could feel the weight of your body sitting next to mine, the warmth and bumpiness of your dry skin. The starchy nature of the button-up shirt you were wearing. I felt what it felt like when you smiled at me or when I caught you watching me. That feeling of pure admiration I loved and love so much, the admiration I felt directly back. I recognized the feeling and started sobbing in a longing that could not be contained or silent. Dottie tried to lick my face out of crying, but I pushed her off me. I wanted to stay in that feeling of loss. It felt so deep within me, a cavern I had not seen before. I tried to look, to follow it down. How far does it go? If I keep following the pathway, will I fall in? Can I get back? What if I suffocate? 

    Dottie jumped back up as I started to hyperventilate. This time I let her. I kept sobbing as her paws lay on my chest, petting her so she would get reassurance that I was okay. Stroking her gives me a version of a right-to-left brain connection. Pet EMDR.

    As my body relaxed and sobs slowed, I felt a wave of relief. Or was that serotonin rebalancing? Regardless, a connection was made between the feeling of relief and the feeling of how sad I am that I lost you. Feeling the despair, looking down the cavern, also allowed me to feel you. It was incredible and intoxicating. I feel bewildered by it. I am a cliché as I quite literally wonder how love could also feel like this.

    Can my birthday be that terrible when this is is my mind the night before?

    She manifests that it is not.