A Natalie Observed

Tag: Loss

  • The Storyteller and Betty

    One year ago, you asked me to marry you. It was a surprise. We had talked about it, but we were going through so much last summer with your Autistic Burnout. That you had gone through the process of securing a ring or that you would ask when you did, shocked me. On July 23, 2024, clients canceled and I had free time. The afternoon was sunny and warm, so I wanted to walk Green Lake. I was trying to walk more, a ritual I return to when I am overwhelmed. And our life had been overwhelming. You were in a cycle we were just beginning to understand, the burn out pattern of sensory overwhelm, meltdown, dissociation, and laying in dark rooms with no sound. We were both so desperate to figure it out. I threw as much resource as I could at it, found the right psychiatrist and a therapist who specialized in Autism. I read and researched everything I could find. It felt like something in your brain was short-circuiting. So, on a suddenly free and beautiful summer afternoon, I wanted to take a walk. I wanted to experience life outside our apartment, outside the space that had become an overwhelmed and depressed representation of yours and my mental health breakdown. And then, on the walk, you asked me to marry you. And I was surprised.

    My parts are still confused on how to feel about all of this and they are yelling at me. My brain is in a constant argument about what happened to me. To you. To us.

    One Part tells the story of our engagement, of how we talked about getting married, about wanting kids. This Part loves to focus on how at the location of our first date, you told me “I don’t know what the rest of my life holds, but I do know I want it to be with you.” It was so honest, and I felt seen. Everything you said acknowledged an appreciation of what I was navigating while trying to support you. I was excited and proud of how we were learning to balance the complexity of our life together. This Part of me, The Storyteller, was and is so proud to say yes to you. I knew we were figuring it out, that the metaphorical structure of support being built was the right one and would be strong.

    And then a different Part of me says firmly and with her whole chest: “But I was not sure.” And then I change directions to the part of our engagement I am embarrassed and ashamed to feel. I focus on the things I knew were wrong with us. I remember how you yelled and called me names during your meltdown the weekend before and then again on Monday. How you threatened to kill yourself. How in the Fall a couple months later, I started finding bottles of vodka. This Part, lets call her Betty, kept tabs on how exhausted and overwhelmed I was, on my depleting and declining mental health. Betty is mad at The Storyteller. Betty is the one who knew I am struggling under the weight of your mental health and that I needed help. That I needed you to get more help. That I was drowning in a problem so massive I did not know how to talk about it. I did not tell my family about most of it. My friends and therapist knew flavors, but not the extent of what we were navigating.

    I knew what was happening clinically. These episodes only happened when you were in sensory overload which, I learned, is something that happens to many Autistic folks because their brains go through synaptic pruning at a rate on average 40% less than neurotypical people. What does this mean? Autistic folks feel the world more. Your sensory sensitivity coupled with PTSD from your extensive trauma history caused you to dissociate when having a Meltdown. The pattern was predictable: after running an errand, after tutoring, always in the late afternoon. You would meltdown into a fit of rage before realizing you needed to lay down and go to sleep. In the beginning, I would have to convince you to rest, that maybe it was time to turn the lights out, put ear plugs in, and turn on rain sounds. Eventually you learned to do this for yourself. But there were times, you could not do it at all. The Meltdown was too deep and your body too overwhelmed to manage it. Those times are when you were cruel and I would leave the house with Dottie. We agreed to my doing that. We talked about what to do and created a safety plan verbally we both agreed to. We had a safe word. My leaving signaled you crossed the line and needed to go to bed. And that is always what happened. Within thirty minutes to an hour, I could come home to you asleep. Once asleep, you would sleep until the next day, your body exhausted from the overwhelm. Sometimes you needed two or three days to recover. Then something else would trigger you. This was the pattern all of 2024. But in summer we figured out the Autism of it. And some of the things we tried were working. Progress was being made.

    We always talked about it the next day. I would fill you in on the gaps in your timeline. You would apologize and we would dissect what we learned for next time. There was always accountability from you and no two incidents were ever the same. But, I was exhausted. I am still exhausted. Even now, as I am writing this post, I grew tired remembering all of it and took a break. It was and still is so much. And yes, we were stuck in a what many people would quickly label as a Cycle of Abuse. The Storyteller really struggles with this assessment, the idea that what we were doing was unhealthy. That I did not deserve the way I was treated and lied to. That I deserved better. The Storyteller thinks I am smarter than to be in that love story, the one of delusion and harm. Betty is really not sure.

    The Storyteller feels like I am betraying you to wonder about it. Because I love you more than I can imagine I ever loved anyone. I saw all of your Parts. All of the ones who were suffering and trying to get a space. The Genius who wanted a witness. The Part who was articulate, witty, intelligent, and charming. All of your Parts wanted more for you. So did All of Mine. We felt like we met because even with things being so hard, we were in that love story. The love story where all our Parts are witnessed and loved without condition, even the ones we felt shame about. The love story where our astrological charts said our souls were supposed to meet. Our Storytellers loved the narrative. I said yes because I believed in you. I believed in me. I believed in us.

    Betty: But was the story real? Or were you stuck in a fantasy?

    Fuck off, Betty.

    I feel betrayed by how much you drank in secret because it led to you hurting me in so many ways. You bailed on healing every time you drank. You stopped being able to even try to get better, started drinking more and in secret. Your Meltdowns got more severe and meaner. When you drank, I felt scared of you and what you would do. It was never physical, but I was scared of what was happening and what could happen. I struggled under the weight of it all and Betty was getting louder. As the result the of cycle we were in, I became this person plagued with self-doubt in a deeper, more extraordinary way. I ping-ponged between Betty and The Storyteller. I could not talk about my doubt because I was so afraid of everyone telling me to leave you. Leaving you felt like giving up on The Storyteller. Whether I trust her or not, The Storyteller is a part of me who wants someone to love her. Who wants happily ever after. When we tell someone to leave their relationship before they are ready, when we tell them we do not approve or that we are disappointed in their choice to stay, we ignore the Part of the person who wants to stay. Who wants everything to be different. Who knows better and is afraid to confront knowing. Who knows it is not working and still loves them. Who is very good at seeing the potential of relationships and people because growing up in a home where conflict makes the body an unsafe place means you spend time dreaming more than you do learning how to love yourself.

    One of the hardest parts of grieving you is you are not here to remind me of the Parts that felt good about us. The best part of loving you was feeling seen by you. And you are not here anymore to see me. Instead, I am alone with the experience of us to sort by myself. You are the only one that can answer my questions. Part of me wants to know why you asked to marry me when you did. Betty thinks it was manipulative. But the Storyteller is not sure. It is confusing. You died and our cycle broke. And as horrible as I felt within it, at least I knew what it was. This new place is a vast, empty dark hell. And I hate it here.

    I said yes to you because I loved you that much. And if love could be this unique and strong, we could get through anything.

    The Storyteller: You can even get through this.

    Betty: But I’m taking the reigns for the time being.  

    I think that is probably the way it is supposed to be, Betty a bit louder than the rest of my parts. And if the gift of us was I get to finally help Betty do that, The Storyteller thinks it was worth it.

  • 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.  

  • I am Angry Today

    I am angry today. I spent time on the phone with my medical insurance company because the ability to pay my bill online is disabled. “You’re account is not eligible for autopay.” That does not make sense. After an entire hour, they still have not fixed it. This is medical insurance I pay $590/month for that I have yet to even use because I am so mired in my Grief, adulting tasks like finding, calling and making doctor appointments are difficult. Medical insurance is a scam. I feel conflicted on principal that I pay for it because $590 could technically go to savings to pay for my medical bills out of pocket. But [insert life-altering illness, aging, and other unforeseen concerns here] could happen. So, I cannot just save the money. $590 fucking dollars a month it is. On a website that will not let me pay it.

    I am angry today. I sat with a client as they detailed what is absolutely, unmistakably domestic violence. This is not an unusual event. My job requires I sit with people as they navigate power in relationships. As they navigate the ridiculous system our society set up that says women must remain compliant to have their dreams come true. Ironically the same compliance that allows women’s rights to be taken away. A society that says men do not know better than anger and sex. That they cannot help it. It is enraging. Recently, on the Armchair Expert, Dax Sheppard explained to a guest being on safari and feeling afraid of a lion approaching him. Monica Padman, his cohost, quickly chimed in “that’s how women feel in every elevator they ever go in.” A-fucking-men, Monica. Amen. That is how I feel every time I am anywhere alone with a man I do not know. The fact part of my job is navigating a balance between advocating for a woman’s absolute agency and value while also not creating shame that could scare her away from a connection of stability outside the relationship (me)… it is just too much. Except it is not too much. I am here doing it, somehow making space for the imbalances and trying to right them. Because women need it. We need guardians looking out for us, whispering that we are enough, reminding us that boundaries exist… that he is crossing them.

    I am angry today. Before you died, you got stuck in fear of the election. You could not stop talking about what would happen when they got rid of Disability, Medicaid, and Medicare. The election was Tuesday, and I found you on our dining room floor on Friday. That week, I focused on the overwhelm of my job, on making space for everyone to process their anxiety about the election, their anxiety about the world. When I did see you, if you were awake and not passed out from what I now know was a lot of drinking, you were stuck on services being taken away. Psychosis? PTSD? I do not know. I will never know. “I’m never going to make it”, you kept saying. “He will destroy my ability to live”. In hindsight, the irony to your stuckness is layered. YOU destroyed your own ability to live, you did not give our government a chance to. I know you well enough to know that Part of you feels shame about how you died. Knowing your shame devastates me. Shame kept you drinking. Shame kept me thinking you would get better. Shame caused you to dysregulate and get angry for existing. Shame destroyed our dream of a life together. The second layer of irony is in watching a lot of your fears come true this week. I feel relief you are not seeing what is happening now, all the cuts to public programs. I feel relief because I know it must be nice to not have to care about this crap anymore. And, if I’m honest, instead of caring for you while you mismanage your emotions, I am sitting on my balcony in this 96-degree heat typing this anger, surrendering it to the universe. It is so hot, there is no difference between the temperature of the air and my skin. I only distinguish the two by the differing sensation of a slight breeze, Dottie’s licks, and a flutter of a gnat’s wings on my arm.

    I am angry today. I told my dad tonight that it is a privilege to be concerned with the problems of the world. It is a privilege to be able to leave your home, pay your bills, and find energy to staple yourself back together every day. A privilege to post online about children in Gaza and the bullshit in our country right now. I am angry at how many people will never understand this privilege and take it for granted. I now feel like I understand how much you understood the privilege of living. I wish I could have seen you in your loneliness while you were still here. I saw loneliness, but I did not know it. I know loneliness better now. It took your death to teach me. Irony again. Anger.  

    I am angry today. Last week, I talked to you out loud for the first time. I felt desperately sad as I lay in the bottom of my mud Grief hole looking 20 stories up to maybe see a glimpse of your outline. I asked you why you left me here. Why you did this to me. Between large gulping sobs, I asked you why you could not be here for me as the person who knows me best. Why you have not been talking to me. Why you are not in my dreams. As I spoke, my body convulsed, and my heart erupted in my chest. 166 bpm. I yelled out in pain, in physical pain from my loss of you. Dottie darted under the bed because the sounds scared her. In my breakups, I still feel the energy of where that person was in my life. People talk about feeling their loved ones after they die, of feeling connected to them. But with you, nothing. You died and left me here and I cannot feel you anymore. I feel totally abandoned by you. I do not know where to put that. The abandonment. When I see it, Part of me asks “How will anyone ever love all the mess you are now.” The question breaks me. I sob more. I would rather be alone forever than ever, ever do this kind of loss ever again. I was afraid when you first died of how your death would change me. And here I am, afraid of meaningful connection because it could lead to loss. What a very sad place to be.

    I am angry today. I got stuck on how to write this piece and have been avoiding writing as a result. Do I keep writing to you and keep you in the room? Or do I write about Jeffrey and remove you? Do I talk to Jeffery about talking to him out loud? Or write about talking to Jeffrey out loud? I do not know right now. One keeps you here with me. The other forces a reckoning I am really struggling to understand is even a possible reality in my life. Sometimes I feel like I will be stuck here forever. Stuck between living and dying.  

    I am angry today because I am so fucking devastated. By everything. Going through the loss of Jeffrey has really shown me how much unprocessed grief there is in our world. I wish we all had more space for our Grief, whatever version of it we are navigating, so mine would not feel so alone. No one ever talks about their Grief unless they have had a loss like mine. And very, very few people have. The lack of Grief in our conversations feels like a language we are missing as a society.

    Grief is embodied. I have to release it and work with it somatically. It lives in everything I am doing, in every outing, in every client session, in every meal. But I live in a society that avoids the body, and therefore avoids Grief, by staying in the mind, distracted by devices, loaded with substances, and removed from nature. Surviving trauma requires severing messages from the head to the body so the brain can make decisions to help a person stay alive. This severing allows a compounding ignorance of the Grief our bodies so desperately need to process in order to expand our understanding of the universe. We ignore the Grief and continue to falsely believe we can think our way through the feelings of isolation, anxiety, and disconnection. A vicious spiral downward. I see unprocessed Grief at the root of so many problems. It is everywhere. And we need to make more space for it. The world will feel tilted and uneven until we do. It is only in Grief, that we gain intimate understanding about the value of living. Of connecting. And we are missing it.

    I am angry today.

  • A Maelstrom Here, a Grief Meltdown There.

    I keep looking for the words to explain the fragility of all of this, but they elude me. I write something, I read it, I edit, I delete it.

    I resided myself to participating in the things I want to, even if I have to go alone. Somewhere inside of me, I know I need to leave my house. I am so bored. I am bored of having edibles and watching tv and reading. I am bored of talking to Dottie, of sending Marco Polos to humans who care about me far away, of feeling like this. I posted recently on r/Widowers about boredom and received the most traffic on a post I ever have. Boredom was not an aspect of Grief I would think to detail, but it’s there. An unofficial stage. We should add it.

    The air is thick which feels unique to Chico. At 7:53pm it is still ninety degrees, but it feels warmer because the air is applying pressure to my skin. Humidity 41%. Not as high as in the Southern United States, but high for Chico. We are also on the overcast side of sunny which makes ninety degrees feel softer. The street is quiet. It is a Monday. The students are gone. There is very little wind. And, as I mentioned, the air is thicker than we are used to. No one likes to be outside in thick air. Except me. I am sitting on the balcony while I type this so I can feel the air awaken the cells that alert me to the feeling of density. I have missed moisture and, while different than Seattle’s, this feels comforting. It is a feeling on the outside of me aiding in the distraction from the Maelstrom happening inside of me. I have not felt this disorganized since the weeks after Jeffrey died and I am scared of it. It is consuming. I cannot focus on what I am watching and keep having to rewind things. I cannot read a sentence without rereading it. I drove around my block twice yesterday on accident.

    I am trying to live my life outside this apartment, but it is really soul shattering to carry this Grief into spaces and pretend like it is not the entirety of what I am thinking about. I have little to contribute to conversations when meeting new people because the third question after “what is your name?” and “where do you live?” is some version of “what brought you to Chico?”. I am avoiding investment in conversations with strangers because I do not have the capacity to answer this question and hold space for the responses. Do I be honest and tell them my partner died? That answer yields so much variability in responses. It stops conversations. It creates a depth of connection and intimacy with a stranger that is too overwhelming. So, do I lie? Avoid the thing I cannot avoid? This period of my life is the most socially inept I have ever felt and there are very few chapters in my life that do not include a large insecurity of social ineptitude. I run through conversations in my mind, play out the various scenarios and imagine my responses. I imagine how I will feel with each potential answer and then I am so exhausted after casting the entire skit of possibilities, I do not want to leave the house. But I leave the house anyway. I want something, anything in my life to not be about Grief. I keep looking for it. But your absence is in every fucking thing I do. The thickness of this damn air is you.

    I cried on my way to Pride. I almost did not attend because I was tired and mired in feeling the loss of you. But I went because I need to live my life and find ways to cope with this. I will keep looking for relief until I exhaust all possible solutions. As I drove to Pride, I Marco Polo’d with my sister and admitted that I was struggling with going because you are not here. I needed someone to know. I am attending this event because you died, and I have to figure out how to live my life now without you. I really cannot adequately explain how absolutely fucked that is.

    Chico is small as towns go, so you have to look harder for queer joy than you do in Seattle. Chico Pride was everything I could want it to be. I was so happy to be amongst drag queens, leather daddies, trans joy, and queer love. I wanted to attend because I miss this community. While I identify as cisgender and heterosexual, the LGBT community has always felt like family. Plus, I was married to a woman even if I did not know she was a woman the whole time. There still is not a letter for those of us with that relationship experience. A gap in our language.

    I also attended Pride with two objectives: 1) to see if I could find volunteer information with a queer organization and 2) to see if there was a queer therapist collective and introduce myself. I give myself homework when I attend things alone. I have to talk to at least one person I do not know and introduce myself to at least one other person. Two points of contact. These tasks help me mark time and give me something outside of Grief to focus on. I found the therapists first, but I feel like I botched my introduction. I had not practiced what I would say to them and the dysregulation from crying in the car translated into an awkward answer to Question Three. Hopefully they forget I exist by January 2027. That is when I can finally licensed to practice with people in California. I’ll reintroduce myself as a cool potential colleague they should definitely know/work with… I digress. I also got contact information for volunteering, whenever I decide I can do that. I left Pride after an hour, after feeling the fourth drip of sweat fall from my thighs and onto the concrete. I am not acclimated to ninety-six degrees and direct sunlight. I completed my objectives. I was done. I needed to rest before Shakespeare in the Park. I needed to ground.

    On Sunday, I attended Bonfire Storytelling, and it destroyed me. On the heels of the day before, I woke up Sunday more mired in my aloneness. I wanted to tell you about Shakespeare in the Park and ask how old you thought the sycamore tree was behind the stage. I wanted to know if you noticed we were sitting under the Big Dipper. I wanted to know if you knew Shakespeare was clearly a feminist based on Beatrice’s Monologue in Act 4, Scene 1. I wanted to know if you felt like Chico was Stars Hallow. We never got to talk about that. But, you were not there on Sunday morning because exactly 7 months before Sunday, I found you on our dining room floor not breathing. You drank yourself to death. At Pride, a woman with resources for suicide awareness told me her husband completed suicide eleven years ago. I answered her “my partner died because of drinking seven months ago and while not the same…” she cut me off and informed me “it’s the same.” I did not and do not disagree although I did not love her telling me what happened to you when I am struggling with it.

    I can feel the Maelstrom in what I am writing. This story feels all over the place. There is not a flow to it. And I keep trying to fix that, but I cannot. This story is much like what is happening to me. A choppy series of events with the only common entity being my disoriented and traumatized brain trying to see it all and remember.

    While I sat amidst my Sunday Morning Maelstrom attempting to take inventory of which thing to pay attention to, I remembered I spent money on a ticket, that I promised myself to experience my life, that I would regret not going Bonfire. So I went. I cried in the car on the way there. I stood at the edge of the room for a while before deciding to get a glass of wine and find a place to sit. I paid for the wine with cash, not realizing one of the one dollar bills had a “In Trump We Trust” stamp before handing it to the bar tender and feeling like an idiot for having such a ridiculous bill at an event that could not be less interested or less protected by our president. I found an empty seat next to two chairs with fuscia Post-Its that said Marie and Anne. “I bet they are safe”, I said to myself, “those are safe-people names”. Two women with more experience than me took Anne and Marie’s seats. We introduced ourselves. Neither Anne or Marie got to Question Three. I was right. They were safe.

    Bonfire Storytelling is structured such that one storyteller represents each decade and tells a story on theme. For this month, a person in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and so on stood on stage to tell a Pride related story to Kiss and Tell. I cried listening to young, new love blossom, to the hopefulness of those who just got married after finding themselves and their person. To the joy of finding gender, sex, and sexuality when so many systems continue to tell them not to do so. I connected to what it felt like to feel hopefulness with you and I cried for everything we will never ever be. For the kids we will never ever have. For the questions I will never ever get to ask you. For all the stories you will never ever tell me. I masked the crying well, wiping tears from my eyes before they fell down my face. I splashed cold water on my face at intermission. I took breaths of fresh, ninety-five degree air.

    The final storyteller, Decade 60s, took us through the journey of his life. He described the men he met and was not ready for, the love he looked at, grabbed, and lost. Decade 60s lost his soul mate to AIDS. As he explained grief as being like wearing gloves for protection but missing the feeling of a cold door handle, I audibly lost my breath. Anne (or Marie?) gave me a tissue. It soaked up every tear as I listened to Decade 60s explain what it is like to feel what I am feeling. To feel emptiness and weight as you move about the world. To miss Before and resent After. Then, he explained the part I do not have experience with yet, the one I keep wondering about, and am scared of. He explained what it is like to find love again but still have a hole limiting the ability to truly experience lightness as you did Before. This was the part that broke me the most. This man was so much further along in his grief journey, but still so present with its atrocity. This [motions to the space around her] is really never going away. This is forever. You died. And I am never going to be in a life without you. In fact, if I do this right, I will live more of my life without you, than I did with you. I am not getting happily ever after. I am getting [motions all around her more frantically] this. His story ended and I took inventory of how many others were crying. Quite a few, but not in the way I was. They were crying in a fear of that loss, in an extrapolation, not in the reality of it’s tessellation. There is a very big difference.

    The musical guests, vocalist Andrew Kinley and pianist Vianna Boring, performed two songs for us to complete the show. The first song was Rise Up by Andra Day. And no, I cannot make this shit up. For those who do not know the lyrics to this song, I included them below. Listening to the liquid nature of Andrew’s voice as these words wrapped around me was once in a lifetime. I feel like all I need is hope, but I am struggling to find it. I am supposed to be rising up, and I am, but I do not feel lighter or better for it. I feel emptiness all the time, even while sitting in a  room full of people who probably know this feeling better than anyone. For as much as there is Queer Joy, there is Queer Grief. In some ways, the grief is what makes the joy so much more palpable.

    The final song was Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Again, I really cannot make this up. Where is the proverbial knife twisting inside my body? Why, or why, can’t I?

    I cried the entire drive home. I cried as I parked and sent Heather a Marco Polo of me crying, of how horrible I was feeling. I cried as I thought about how many people I will inevitably to have to help and guide to understand this feeling because I am learning a lesson at 36 most people my age will not learn until they are much older than we are now. I cried because this is so unfair.

    I got it together enough to walk Dottie around the block for her final outing. We took our time. She has become very leash reactive and does not seem to trust me while on a walk. I am really working on retraining with her because I know I can do better. And while I feel like an utter failure of a pet parent, I think I can be a good dog mom. As we rounded a corner toward the backside of the block, a rainbow hovered above Bidwell Park. Because the air was thick and the sun was setting, light beams refracted color. I laughed before I started crying again. I wondered if I was bleeding out from that proverbial knife. There was nothing about yesterday that would let me escape your loss. It was everywhere I went. As if I could forget about it. As if I have a choice in the matter.

    I am starting to understand more deeply why people become addicts. Anything but this constant barrage is starting to seem appealing. And when I imagine a lifetime of you not being here, I start to wonder what I am doing this for. Then I have the first edible I have had in a couple weeks, watch an episode of Love Island, and go to bed at 9pm to start over again the next day. Maybe tomorrow will be different.

    Rise Up by Andra Day

    You’re broken down and tired
    Of living life on a merry go round
    And you can’t find the fighter
    But I see it in you so we gonna walk it out
    And move mountains
    We gonna walk it out
    And move mountains

    And I’ll rise up
    I’ll rise like the day
    I’ll rise up
    I’ll rise unafraid
    I’ll rise up
    And I’ll do it a thousand times again
    And I’ll rise up
    High like the waves
    I’ll rise up
    In spite of the ache
    I’ll rise up
    And I’ll do it a thousand times again

    For you
    For you
    For you
    For you

    When the silence isn’t quiet
    And it feels like it’s getting hard to breathe
    And I know you feel like dying
    But I promise we’ll take the world to its feet
    And move mountains
    Bring it to its feet
    And move mountains

    And I’ll rise up
    I’ll rise like the day
    I’ll rise up
    I’ll rise unafraid
    I’ll rise up
    And I’ll do it a thousand times again

    For you
    For you
    For you
    For you

    All we need, all we need is hope
    And for that we have each other
    And for that we have each other
    And we will rise
    We will rise
    We’ll rise, oh, oh
    We’ll rise

    I’ll rise up
    Rise like the day
    I’ll rise up
    In spite of the ache
    I will rise a thousand times again
    And we’ll rise up
    High like the waves
    We’ll rise up
    In spite of the ache
    We’ll rise up
    And we’ll do it a thousand times again

    For you
    For you
    For you
    For you

    Ah, ah, ah, ah

  • Presence

    I feel like I am looking into a kaleidoscope. Every turn I make I see new silhouettes, new refractions of color against the tiny mirrors. As time passes, the sun changes the shapes. Is that a rainbow or the feeling of you?

    I do not know how to write about this, the complexity and the layers to the experience leave me wanting more words to describe it. A dainty, brunette woman around my age wrapped her arm around my waist while at the Gang of Four show on Friday. She needed to move me from one place to another so she could reach her group at the front of the stage. I can feel it now, her hand sliding from my left hip across my back as she parted my dad and me so she could continue her journey. I watched her touch everyone in my line of sight the same way so I know I did not misconceive the feeling. Time slowed down. Why did she touch me like that? Do I still have my things? I felt for my purse. Still clasped. I do not know why anyone would steal from me at a show like this. Then, a memory of you touching my waist poured itself into my body like wet, heavy sand. People do not touch my waist without permission. No one has touched me like that since you did. I shattered.

    Outside the trains don't run on time
    He believes it's not coincidence

    Jon King reminds me why I am at this show, to see him and this band. To see the energy he has been bringing to vocalizing post-punk anthems since 1976. This is the first time my dad is seeing Gang of Four after listening to them contour his young adulthood. This is the first time I am seeing a concert like this with my dad, as an adult child hanging out with her adult dad. As an adult in my life without you. We are in San Francisco at the Chapel. Only 500 people are experiencing this tonight. I want to be here with them. But I am having a panic attack. Because a woman touched me around the waist and no one has touched me there since you did. No one touches my waist without permission.

    I got this demon on my back every day
    It’s the hope that will not fade

    Tears stream down my face and I close my eyes. I feel my heart reverberate in my chest as music folds around me like the fog this city is famous for. I feel both cold and warm. I feel my sore feet anchoring my body to the Earth. I flex them to give relief to their screaming. I feel my stiff legs wondering why I am still standing after a Peloton workout and 15,000 steps. My body can do amazing things. I am breathing. I count to four and inhale. I count to four and exhale. I hum the words I do not know and remember you cannot have a panic attack while singing. I do not know all the words the way I wish I did. I make up words.

    Blinkered, paralysed
Flat on my back
My ambitions come to nothing
What I wanted now just seems a waste of time
I can't make out what has gone wrong
I was good at what I did

    I cannot stop the tears streaming down my face and I wonder if I need to go outside. The cold air would feel so lovely. But people would see me. And I do not want to tell them why this is happening. Explaining your death to strangers is a gamble I do not have the bandwidth for. Why would she touch me there? No one has touched my waist since you did. No one touches my waist without permission. If I go outside, my dad will know something is wrong. It is not that I do not want him to know. I am not afraid to show him I am shattering, that the kaleidoscope is stuck in a rotation I cannot stop. But I do not want to ruin this once-in-a-lifetime experience for him. The members of this band are in their late-60s and early-70s. Two of the original members have already passed. This is their last tour. To see all of Entertainment! played in its entirety is a privilege. To be here in this city, at this venue, and with my dad is a gift. They say one of the quietest places on Earth is in the Hoh Rainforest in Washington State. They say when you are there you can hear the trees breathing. I am striving for that level of presence. I want to bathe in my own wonder of how my life got me here. I want to feel it all.

    I also do not want to ruin this once-in-a-lifetime experience for me. I battle on. I am so angry another woman did this to me. Girl Code died. And yet, I do not want to let her win. To let grief win. Because I want to hear the trees breath. I want to feel this music in my body and notice how the audience is the same age as my dad and wonder how long these grown men have worn that matching pair of perfectly crimson pants. I want to feel anything other than what I have felt for months. I want to remember what it is like to not feel consumed by your absence. Why did she touch me there? I am in a room full of people and in an experience entirely alone. No one has touched my waist since you died. No one touches my waist without permission. Keep singing, Natalie. You can’t have a panic attack when you’re singing.

    Look at me, ain't I fine
Brand new me, dig my mine
I parade myself

    The show wraps with an encore of Damaged Goods, played already in the first set, but again for us. A second bite of tiramisu. A replay of Sound of Music. A second chance we often miss in living. A second chance I am not getting with you.

    Sometimes I'm thinking that I love you
But I know it's only lust
The change will do you good
I always knew it would
You know the change will do you good

    This is when I have the thought I scribbled down in the Notes app of my phone: Is “total presence” the blessing of your death? I feel so acutely aware the moments of my life are passing by, that I am doing what I need to do to survive them. I feel robbed of my hope for Gang of Four because a woman I do not know touched my waist without permission. I am angry another woman did this to me. I know, I know she was probably high on something where touching feels appealing. Yet, even with that generous interpretation of her behavior, she should not have touched me without permission. She robbed me of my first time letting someone touch my waist since you died on my own terms. She took something important from me I can never get back. I do not know how to make that make sense. The kaleidoscope keeps changing the shapes of your shadow, of your light. Is that a rainbow or the feeling of you?

    I experienced every second of that show as best I could. I stayed in it. Present. I saw a couple grow closer together as they bobbed their heads in unison. I observed the blonde in front of me get looser with each refill of her wine. I saw Hugo Burnham’s smirky grin as he banged on his drums despite breaking his leg and cancelling a show a few days earlier. I got to see my dad the way he probably was before and even just after I was born, a once upon a time 20-something wondering with awe how he got here. My dad also tries to listen to the trees breath. We are the same that way. What a beautiful life indeed.

  • Grief Palace Expansion Pack

    Six months have passed since I found you on our dining room floor. Six months without you. Six months of waking up at 2am to lay awake for a while, to eventually turn on Friends when I cannot fall asleep, to eventually switch it to How I Met Your Mother when I catch the episode of Friends I have not seen a while. I cannot believe it has only been six months and that it is already six months. It is six months since I found you on our floor, and so much of my life still does not feel real.

    I cannot believe you are not here. Everything I do, every single thing, reminds me that you are missing. I walk Dottie on roads you have never been on. I eat at restaurants you will never try the food at. I have days I cannot come to the living room and vent about. I go on walks through the canyon with my dad and I cannot show you the flowers or how picturesque Dottie looks in contrast to the scenery. I look for accessible entrances and parking spaces you do not need access to. I find books I want you to read. You are everywhere, a suffocating experience I cannot fathom when juxtaposed to what is the reality is: you are nowhere at all. I do not understand how you went from physical space to omnipresent, as ubiquitous as the air touching my skin.

    Last week, I ordered a coffee at Daycamp and your name popped up when my payment approved. Apparently, your name, not mine, is on the loyalty account attached to the particular card I use for treats. Thank you, Jeffrey. The words appeared on the screen. The Grief Goblin grabbed my stomach while punching me in the sternum. I lost my breath. Thank you, Jeffrey. I remember when I took you to DayCamp during your inaugural visit to Chico so we could celebrate your birthday. I wanted you to see where I grew up, to meet my family, and to get a sense of whether relocating here was a possibility for us. We needed a coffee to fuel. I told you that you would like the avocado toast. You did. I told you I could see us moving here. You responded with letting me know all the education programs you had found to potentially enroll in, the doctors that could support your care, and the neighborhood in which you would not mind living. You were excited. I have not been back to Daycamp since your name appeared on the screen. I cannot unsee your name at the place I treat myself to overpriced Chai Lattes made with delicious Chico chai in a perfectly balanced spice-to-oat milk ratio.  Thank you, Jeffrey.

    I talked about feeling you in the last post, that I felt the warmth and adoration of you, but then the feeling disappeared. I have not been the same since. I sense a vortex opening around me and I can feel that I am on the precipice of a new phase of this journey. Since I felt you, I feel a loneliness that was not palpable before, a new wing of the Grief Palace. I feel beholden to it, vigilantly examining the invader of my body. I also feel longing. Longing for joy, for reprieve, for anything to distract me from this. I do not remember the last time I laughed without abandon in the intimate companionship of the friends who really know me. I miss the intimacy of existing without explanation, of being in physical space with someone and not having to talk about anything intelligent while also being able to discuss everything important. Missing you reminds me of how much I miss my friends, of how much I miss my life, of how much I miss not feeling like this. And I never get a break from it.

    I even miss you in my dreams. Never during. Only when I wake up and I realize you were not in them. The elaborate world built by my brain during sleep did not include you in it. Another reminder you are not here. I do not get you in my dream life or my real life. Only in this mental prison while I am awake and aware and present in the suffering of it. I imagine I am a set of Matryoshka dolls attempting to organize themselves but continuously knocked onto the floor. I just want to put them in order again so I can see them all at once, but alas, this next wave is toppling me over. I am no stronger than untethered seaweed on the shore looking for anchor.

    I am going to sleep now. Six months without you and I want to wake up when this is over. Joke is on me. You’re not here tomorrow either.

    Dottie with her toungue out because the world needs more of Dottie:

  • Grief Goblins

    Tonight I finished the third season of Lincoln Lawyer. We started it when you were alive, finished the first episode but did not get further. I really enjoy this show and I so enjoyed hypothesizing the scenarios for the ending with you. I know the cases will all come together, that the cast of characters and a pug will figure out how to get the innocent person saved. But I never know how the saving will unfold and am always pleasantly surprised.

    As another intense cliff hanger ended the season, I felt the strongest urge to know what you thought about it. My brain imagined asking you. Tears started to form in my eyes as I felt the missing of you, the intense empty space where you used to sit on our couch. Then, at the exact moment I registered how much I missed you, I also felt a feeling that caused my heart to heat up and I knew immediately what it was. I felt the feeling of love and the glow of adoration for you. I have not felt that feeling in so long, I think I forgot about it. It was… everything. The brightest, softest and briefest light. I tried to sit in the feeling but as brilliant as it felt, it faded, the grief goblin taking his fill.

    Registering the warmth, I started crying in deep sobs disturbing enough for Dottie to come lay on my chest and start incessantly licking my face. She somehow knows the distraction will help me to catch my breath, to start focusing on breathing. I do what I do when she does this and start counting breaths in and out, keeping rhythm while I pet her so I can attempt to relax both of us. It works.

    Lately during my Peloton workouts, I start sobbing on the bike, mid-workout. I cannot really figure out why, although I know it makes sense that it is happening. The crying is never at the same time, during the same style workout, or triggered by something said. I’ll be climbing some hill, out of breath, sweaty, and trying to beat the fastest person even though I never do, and an overwhelming feeling of sadness consumes me. And, no, I am not describing a feeling that believes “this is so good I am crying”. My crying is a feeling whispering in a mothering voice, “this life has been so incredibly difficult for you. And that part, the part of it being so difficult is really, really sad.” I find this entire experience confusing. Why while working out, during my endorphins capture, is my body releasing the darkest of feelings? I cannot even work out without Grief saying hello? Really?

    I told my therapist today I have a very strong instinct to feel this experience I am having, that I do not want to biohack my grief. There are so many somatic therapies that could and probably eventually will help me heal the trauma living within me. But part of me just knows I need to feel all of this, to study its impact on me, to learn what my body can do to heal itself and help me through this. Sometimes I feel like that is positive side of losing you, even though that feels incredibly horrible to say. Is there a positive side of any of this? If there is, it is that I am getting to know myself in a way I never would have without you dying. It is humbling, to say the very least. I told my therapist it is ironically the least anxious I have ever felt. Go fucking figure.

  • Five Seconds

    I keep trying to remember the details of what happened when I found you on the dining room floor, but I cannot remember it all and it is frustrating. I walked in, I found you on the floor. I called emergency services. I told them you were not breathing, my name, and my address. The first person transferred me to another person. I told the new person you were not breathing, my name, and my address. It seemed like a waste of time to repeat myself, but there was no time to question it. The person on the phone talked me through how to do CPR and counted with me as I pressed as hard as I could on your chest. I remember them telling me to speed up a bit and I followed their guidance. I remember hearing the sirens. I remember Dottie’s scared, shaky body under the dining table. I remember the man standing with me in the kitchen documenting every action taken on a laptop. I remember all of our furniture strewn about the apartment, part of the coffee table in the kitchen and another part behind the couch. I remember the dining table shoved against a wall. I remember one paramedic opening our windows to let in the cool November air.  I remember them hanging an IV bag from the hook in the middle of our ceiling. The hook was used for a blanket fort, I explained to everyone in the room who could hear me because for some reason I felt I needed to explain a hook in the middle of the ceiling. Cringe.

    I remember your vomit still on the floor where I found you. I remember them calling out to each other as each round of CPR and electric stimulation to your heart completed. I remember questions about what I knew about your circumstances. I remember listing out all your medications and health conditions, your age, and family history. I remember telling them the things I knew about the timeline, that you had been depressed and anxious with the election, that you were drinking more. I remember telling them sincerely I was not aware of any drinking other than the half-empty pint bottle on our dining table when I found you. That the amount of alcohol I found did not make sense for what I was seeing. I did not know then how many bottles I would find around our home when I moved. I did not know you lied to me as much as you did.

    I remember texting my mom, dad, Heather, and Randy that I found you not breathing. I remember one paramedic yelling down to someone in one of the two fire trucks that they had recovered a heartbeat, that they needed a gurney. I remember my mom calling as I told a different paramedic which medications you were taking, that I was sure you took them because I checked the pill sorter and Friday Morning was gone. I remember sending my mom to voicemail and texting her that I could not talk. I remember seeing Scott, our apartment manager, standing in the hallway and him mouthing to me “is everything okay?”. I remember telling him things were not okay. I remember a paramedic telling me they would need to take you to the emergency room, that I could ride in the ambulance. I remember debating whether I needed to grab my backpack or not and deciding to take it with me.

    I remember so many things. So many. But I do not remember how emergency services got inside our home. Did I let them in? If I let them in, that means I stopped CPR on you. Would that have happened? Did I stop trying to save you to let other people try to save you? Did I leave the door unlocked? It does not shut without the deadbolt, and I cannot imagine a habit I formed after eight years of locking that door did not happen on this day. But then again, I do not remember letting anyone in. So maybe I intuitively left it unlocked. Maybe they let themselves in through magic EMTness? I do not remember the seconds after I stopped CPR and someone took over. I remember them bringing you from the dining room to the living room, but not how they got to you. It bothers me. I wake up in the middle of the night and think about it. How did the emergency response team get inside? It could not be more than five seconds of time. Five seconds that continue to haunt me alongside everything else.

    Recently during a session with a client, they processed how nice it was to sleep separately from their partner. As they detailed the deepness of their sleep, the ability to read instead of watch television, I asked questions to help them develop more insight into the benefits of sleeping solo. Then, with the sharpness of a shard of glass, a flashback of you reaching across the bed to touch my shoulder as I tossed and turned interrupted my focus. The heat of tears filled my eyes. I pinched my arm with my fingernails, attempting to refocus on my client. I took deep, intentional, counting breaths. I could not feel the depth of how much I missed you while in session with a client. I could not start crying. I am a therapist, and this moment with my client was not in any way about me. I recovered, and nothing gave away my human, grieving, unideal moment. I did not miss a beat in my questions, in my reflections, in my mirroring. But it happened. I felt you right there in the room with me. And I missed you. I missed us. The way we knew the other was not sleeping well. The way we reassured each other we were not alone by touching the shoulder. A comfort in the night. I miss it.

    My last touch with you is touch you were not alive for. I do not know how to rectify that with my present reality. I run through what happened in an attempt to grasp it, like capturing pathetic fireflies in a jar, but my jar has holes. I keep hoping your death will settle in so I can feel anything else, but then I get stuck in five seconds I cannot remember about the last time we touched. They are five seconds I may never remember and it feels unfair. I want a rewind and replay option. Instead, I sit here as a cool breeze brings relief to warm temperatures to which I am not yet acclimated, wearing a Sierra Nevada t-shirt you got me from a delivery driver while at The Duchess. How am I here, and you are this entity that only exists in my memory? My memory minus five seconds. It is maddening.

  • Yet.

    I do not want to write still. I am depressed. Trying to maintain any sort of existence feels heavy and burdensome. I know writing, finding time to reflect on what I am going through, is the right thing to do. It would help me navigate this. But I am struggling to want to sit and touch what this feels like. I want it to go away, for the weighted blanket to dissolve into wispy, floaty air. The weather is warmer lately, high sixties, seventies and a hint of eighties. We are all shedding layers to allow our skin to absorb the warmth of the sun between wafts of the cool breeze. Spring and Autumn are when the residents of Sacramento Valley take advantage of pleasurable heat. Heat that you plant and harvest your gardens in. Heat that allows families to gather for brisket on the barrel in the backyard. Heat mostly absent from wildfire unless it is not. Not the heat of July and August, the heat that brings children out to experiment with cooking eggs on cement or a brownie in a coffee mug. And yet, with the warmth happening now, I do not feel the recharging of the sun. I feel rigidity in my entire body as I try to carry myself through every day without having a complete mental breakdown. I am tired. I am sleeping more. I do not feel creative. I am struggling to win the “why am I doing this?” battle. I am depressed.

    I cannot even recount with significant detail the number of events this past week that contributed to my inward spiral. I am not sure if it is the fact you were honored by Washington State for your organ donation and I was not there. If it was the Seattle apartment charging me $5,131.67 for breaking our lease because you died and I could not live there anymore? Or was it the lingering reality that this was not where I thought I would be in my life? Or it is very high odds I will not have a family the way I thought I would? Or is it that today marks five months without you?

    I miss you terribly and every single thing that happens in my life, good or bad, reminds me that you are not here. How do I capture that feeling? The weight of loss. The layers of this grief, a grief that has lived in my body for so many years before you died and has decided now is the time for me to deal with it. I am somewhere between concrete and the soil. How do you write about that? How do you explain it to people? I spend my days thinking about it, telling myself to write it down so I can work it out, but then ultimately not being able to do anything. To write about what is happening, is to confront losing you. And it still feels impossible to comprehend.

    Thinking about how to talk about this horrible, excruciating feeling makes my heart rate jump 128 beats per minute and gives me a stomachache. It makes being in my body feel dreadful. I started working out every day because I need to feel anything else in my body. I need to feel it do something else but feel this pain. It is the closest I think I have ever understood what you talked about when you described missing riding your bike before your spinal injury. It feels like a sadistic takeover that makes my clothes seem inside out and full of static. This feeling, the feeling of Anguish, is foreign. I hope no one ever has to feel it like this. If I could devise a world without it, right now I would. It certainly is not worth it. 

    Part of me, somewhere deep, deep down inside, chimes in when I get to this place, when I get to the place where it certainly is not worth it. This Part chimes in with a small, barely audible “yet”. Then, without hesitation, I restate the phrase with yet added in. “It certainly is not worth it… yet.”. I do not know what that Part is or how I got so lucky to have her. I am definitely waking up and going through this for her. She needs me to see what “yet” is. I am very anxious to know.

  • In the Mud

    My therapy has turned into trying to make sense of the fact that our relationship was an abusive one. Abuse is black or white, yes or no, binary. You do not feel binary to me. I see nuance in the shape of us, in the color changes of our shadows. I held on so tightly to the idea that things were not as bad as they were because I loved you and our version of the future. We drew a life for us that was so magical and alluring and clung to it. We hid in the fantasy because the world of us was too toxic to confront. The image of us burrowing into a mud hole keeps coming up for me. We might be buried and unable to move, but we can still see the sun, right? You drank to not feel the cold, damp, discomfort of the mud. I did what I have always done since childhood. I overanalyzed and stayed in my brain so I did not have to feel what was in my body. When I do this severance, Depression enters my soul. You could see Depression in how messy the house was, in how behind I was on laundry, in my use of weed to avoid the body even more. I was embarrassed to have my parents see it, to see how poorly I was doing. But I needed them when you died. They had to come in. I finally could let someone else in to see I was that broken. I was embarrassed and also relieved. I needed someone else to know.

    I recently had a client-related reason to review the criteria for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and as I read the criteria aloud, I realized you checked every single box. I feel stupid for not seeing it until after you died. I feel stupid for ignoring the signs of the abuse. I feel stupid for wanting the story to be different, for not wanting to be the person who was stuck in a cycle with you. I feel stupid. Admitting our relationship was abusive means admitting that I am the fool who was educated enough to know she was being abused as it was happening, but stayed anyway. Hoped for better despite all the logic. I stayed and would have continued to stay because I loved you and wanted to believe in the version of reality where things were not what they were, but you died. That reality never happened and now it never will. One thing that is the same now as it was before you died: I will never know if you would have gotten better, if the therapy would have worked, if you would have healed and stopped drinking. I wanted that for you. For us. You deserved it. You deserved to live a life out of the mud. But I was the only one who believed that and it takes two people to know things can be different for change to occur.

    I am trying to find support groups for people like me, people who realized they were in an abusive relationship and need other people like them to talk to about it, but it’s been difficult. Small towns have smaller resources. Part of me regrets moving because the things I need for healing absolutely are in Seattle. There was recently a support group that met in person in Seattle for Young Widows. Hi! I know of several grief support groups and retreats in Seattle and I even know the people who run them. Yes, please! I know in Seattle I could find the domestic violence support groups for women like me. I am lonely in this. I am lonely trying to make sense of what my life is now, in my despair that I have to be here trying to heal from not only your loss, but your rapture.

    Because I am lonely, I thought about volunteering with kids, with the humans who can still be saved from the harm adults cause. On a preliminary search, several organizations came up who help children with disabilities get outside. I thought of you. I thought of your work with Richie, of the amazing heart you have for kids who, like you, needed someone to see them. We could have had an amazing life here in Chico if you had healed. If you could come out of the mud with me. You had so much to give and gave whatever you could. The worst of you made the best lessons for all of us. The best of you made the most beautiful and long-lasting impressions. I still see you everywhere and feel warmth. Even in the mud we were warm and there was love. Nothing and everything is black or white about that. It’s both.