A Natalie Observed

Tag: love

  • 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.

  • In the Shadow of Your Cypress

    I have been avoiding you. I do not want to write. I unpinned your text conversation so I do not see your face every time I open my messages. I removed the rotating photo widget on my home screen. I want to share pictures of Dottie on Instagram so you are not immediately visible in my feed. I started watching Southern Cham from the very beginning. I would rather watch overprivileged adults from Charleston fight with each other than be confronted with how much I do not want this to be my life. I am analyzing who has what personality disorder (most/many), who has a substance use disorder (most), who would have gone to FYRE festival (Craig and Shep), and who comes from families that owned slaves (several). I would rather waste my brain on reality tv than remember I cannot discern if I lost my way because of you, or if I have actually been lost my entire life.

    Losing you has allowed me to connect with a part of myself that I am confident has always been broken. There is a part of me who comfortably and whole-heartedly gaslights myself into believing things will improve. This part fights with another part of me who knows things absolutely will not. Sometimes I wonder if you died so I could finally admit that I really have no confidence in my ability to make decisions for myself, that I worry I wasted my life hoping I could have the fairytale despite never actually having the skills to obtain it. I keep trying to learn, to apply what I gained from last time, and yet I consistently return to the same pattern. I see it. I repeat it. I break. I try not to repeat it. I see it. I repeat it. I break. It is crazy-making.

    I know all the things to say to myself for comfort. Natalie, you did the best you could, and you are doing the best you can. You are getting help. You are smart. You are a good therapist. You have a big heart that believes what people say. You also struggle to understand when behavior does not match someone’s word becuase you were not taught that skill. It is okay it feels like attempting to learn a foreign language to learn how to discern a liar. You were gaslit and chaos created isolation and confusion. Mental illness and alcoholism were not your fault. Falling in love with someone who hurt you does not make you incompetent. It is okay to feel shame. This is all normal. You are normal.

    I talk to myself the way I would a client. I do not understand why my ability to have compassion for others is stunted when it comes to the compassion I have for myself. I say the things and even know the things, but I never believe them. Trauma is the splitting of an experience and sometimes, as a result, of identity and emotions. I know the dichotomy of what I am experiencing is trauma. But which trauma? My parents divorce? The boyfriend who became a heroin addict? The spouse who came out trans? The partner with a mental illness who lied about his alcoholism and then died? None of these situations were things I asked for. And yet Part of Me assesses that I am the common denominator. It is very hard to not feel like I am doing this (motions to life) all wrong. That I missed a turn somewhere. Sitting in that feeling, the one that feels responsible, shatters me.

    The mental gymnastics I am doing to get through every single moment of every single day are completely exhausting. I am so tired of feeling tired. Of wanting an escape but never finding one. Right now, I wish I could completely delete you so that I do not have to constantly talk myself into the narrative that believes my life will improve, that it will not always be this way. I want to plan my entire life so I know there is something to look forward to, but I am scared if I keep not thinking about you, you will haunt me. I feel haunted enough. I am stuck. Who wants to write and reflect when they are stuck. I am avoiding you.

    A few weeks ago, Dad and I went to watch the Oscar-nominated short films at The Pageant. You would have loved The Pageant. It is cash-only, no reservations, and just about as Chico an activity as you can get. You would love the weird, indie movies they show, the way the audience interacts with each other, the Godzilla mural, and that you always see one person you know. The second short film by an Iranian director brought me to tears. It depicted a couple who spotted a whale on the beach. She starts to take a bucket of water to try and save the whale, but he returns to the ship offshore, leaving her. We then alternate between her and him as he proceeds to go in and out of PTSD flashbacks from the Iranian war. We see her struggle to keep the whale healthy while worrying about him. You see him feel shame and embarrassment at not being able to help her. I felt like I was watching a movie about us, a story about two people so lost in his trauma, she almost drowned.

    Watching In the Shadow of the Cypress is the first time I experienced with what it felt like to be in a relationship with you since you died. I am so curious what you would have thought of it. I think you would have liked it as much as I did because it showed how I imagine things felt for you. I think you would have liked the artwork. I learned later it depicts a father/daughter, not a couple and I feel a bit silly for not realizing. Also, I cannot find it to watch online so I am confident I misremembered the plot. It won best Animated Short and I whole-heartedly agree with that choice, as magical as the other films were.

    There. I did it. I faced the reality of you dying again. I am going to go back to avoiding you now and watch who does not get married on Love is Blind. I have been in the shadow of your cypress long enough.

  • Party Tricks and a Birthday

    My latest party trick is having a panic attack when I am surprised by the sound of sirens or see a gurney. I have you to thank for that. Last week, I was in the nail salon when a patron lost consciousness and hit their head. I did not see what happened but heard the thud of an untethered head hit the floor. Fifteen minutes later, an ambulance came. No sirens alerted me to anything going on, so it was business as usual for me as the technician buffed and shined my destroyed nail beds. Then I watched them roll the gurney in and I felt my chest tighten as images of you on a gurney flashed into my mind. Do I take my backpack with me? When do I call your dad? Who is going to clean up all the medical supplies strewn all over our apartment? Your vomit is still on the floor by the dining room chair where I found you. They said they got a heartbeat, which is good, right? The image of the banana bag hanging from the hook in our living room ceiling flashed in my brain as I watched two EMTs help a young woman onto the gurney. Tears welled, pooled, and fell down my face.  I just need to make it through this appointment. Box breath, Natalie. You cannot hyperventilate and have a visible panic attack in public. Is this really happening? Fuck. I did not know I would have PTSD flashbacks like this.  I called my mom afterwards because I needed someone to know I had a panic attack when a woman needed medical attention at the nail salon.

    The next day, I explained to my dad what happened over lunch at Burger’s and Brews. We sat outside as the temperature hovered around 64 degrees Fahrenheit making Spring feel touchable. Not five minutes after I explained the panic attack, do I hear the sound of sirens coming from behind me. Chest tightened, heart raced, tears poured out of my eyes. The image of me talking to the ambulance driver as I sat in the front seat about how strange this all was. People really do pull over when the lights and sounds are on. I have always wondered. I said that to the ambulance driver and explained to him that I am a therapist, that I understand what I am going through would come back to haunt me. Dad held my hand as I closed my eyes and tried to catch my breath. Picture the box, Natalie. Out, …2…3…4… Hold, … 2… 3… 4… Inhale… 2… 3… 4… and so on. I think it lasted five minutes. Part of me feels validated that my dad witnessed it. I am not being dramatic or making my situation worse through a story. I hear sirens from behind me and have a panic attack. That happened. It happened a couple weeks ago while on a walk with mom and was happening again at lunch. I have data to validate an experience. I am not crazy.

    Tomorrow you would have turned 42. 42. I always felt a tremendous responsibility and honor in making your birthdays a big deal. We took trips or had nice dinners because I think it mattered that you knew how much I loved that you were born. That you came into my life. That you existed. And then there is this year, the first time I mark your birthday after you died. I do not know what to do. It feels too soon to have composed some poetic idea for how to mark the day.  I researched beach vacations because we loved the beach together and I would love to have an experience of my anxiety melting into the rhythm of ocean waves. I pondered Disneyland because you would have wanted me to experience that kind of adrenaline joy. Financially none of that made sense. I cannot afford the time off given the six weeks I have missed since you died. I ordered a carrot cake from Mim’s Bakery. I Googled “what to put on a dead person’s cake” because I do not know what to say. Heather suggested a quote from your favorite author, so I looked up Gabriel García Márquez quotes as I know he was one of your favorites. There is always something left to love. I feel like a fraud because I have not read the book. I am terrified of discovering it has some meaning that is not what I am making of it. Also, only having the wherewithal for a cake feels substandard. This is not representative of how I feel about you, but then again, nothing right now feels adequate. You are having panic attacks multiple days in a row, Natalie. A Cake is enough. He would have loved a cake.

    That said, for you there is always something left to love. Even in the darkest moments of this experience, there is something left. Parts of you are here with me still as I wrestle with how to be a human in the wake of your absence. I know it is because of you I will learn the depths of what I am capable. What a gift you were and are to me. For all the complications of this story, at least that piece I know is real and true. I am not crazy. You existed and mattered. 42 years later and you still matter a great deal. I wish you were here so I could tell you all this, but you are not because you died. Tomorrow is your birthday, and we are not going to dinner or having a celebration because you died.

    What the fuck?