When I cry, Dottie jumps into my lap and lays her chest on mine, her paws at the exact points where I imagine my lungs process oxygen and release carbon dioxide. This causes me to catch my breath, the pressure of her paws activating my Vagus nerve as tears fall on her tongue. It is never very long before my sobs stop. Dottie then moves off of me to sit guarding me diligently from a different angle of the room. I wish I could convey to Dottie how much it means to me that she is here dealing with me. Let this stand as an official note of my gratitude, not that she will ever know it.

I canceled my workday on Tuesday because I could not stop crying. Before logging in for my own therapy, tears fell down my face. I knew at some point I would need to cancel work to cry, so I guess I have done that now. I described to my therapist how it felt to pack up mine and our life in five days. I explained how the sun was out for the entire trip until the last day. I expressed an incredible and inadequate amount of gratitude for my mom and Phil helping me. Then I sobbed as I described how stupid I felt finding the first, the second, the fifth, and the tenth bottle of vodka hidden in my home. Ten found in my home since the day you died. Ten. As I sit writing this in a new apartment in a new state, I still feel like I will find them and noticed I brace for impact when I open a drawer. I hope that stops.

Yesterday, I had a massage with the masseuse who also does Reiki. She described feeling a lot of confusion as she focused on my heart chakra. “Yes, that’s about right” I muttered choking back tears. I am so confused. I feel like our relationship was not real. I can tell myself all the logic of why you hid so much alcohol in our home, of why you concealed it from me, from yourself, but I still feel like an idiot. While you lay unconscious in the hospital room, I told your family I thought things were getting better, but now I know just how much they were not. A bottle of vodka hit me in the face as your father and I pulled your clothes out of the closet to sort them. A bottle was hidden behind the recipe books. In a backpack. In a jacket. Under the bed. In a hat. In another hat. In the sock drawer. Your bedside table. Between couch cushions. I feel crazy. When was all of this happening while I lived and worked from our home?

I am jealous of those who lose their loved ones, and they get to be angry because they died. Because the illness won. Because… insert any reason not related to killing yourself through alcohol overdose into the blank space here: _________________________. I hate myself for feeling jealous or admitting it. Loss is profound, unique, devastating, and breathtaking for everyone. I know that. I keep wondering if you even loved me or was I the gullible optimist who provided somewhere safe to stay? Would we ever have created our own family? Gotten married? Found happily ever after? I do not see how any of that would be possible with the secrets you kept and my senseless naivety. You died, and now I wonder these things. What would it be like to not have to wonder? I will never know. You will never ever be here to again reassure me the way you used to. Instead, I sit here with Dottie on my chest, trying to remember how to breath so I can mitigate another panic attack.

I set aside your clothes I thought would make an interesting quilt. Your dad helped me go through your closet and told me stories about the memories he had with you in the clothes he knew. The bike race here. The camping trip there. A shirt from your mom’s race. A New Orleans Saints t-shirt. A Loyola sweatshirt. Shirts with bright bold patterns like you liked. Shirts I bought you. Shirts you kept that did not fit. They are sitting in a box marked “KLEENEX, SHEETS, ETC”. I am too angry and devastated to consider making something in your honor yet. I trust that this feeling will evolve, but right now, it is smothering me and I hate you for it.

To quote Middle Kids song “Bend”:

I am one bend away from a break

I am one step away from the precipice of crazy

I am holding all the pieces in place

But maybe you’ve got to break me to see what I’m made of