If this year in particular has been able to teach me anything it is this: sometimes there is no why, there only is. Today, the lesson to take in is that I don’t have to know all the answers, I truly don’t, I only have to be able to rely on the help that is offered and know that it is offered truly and without strings.
I was thinking this as I was driving to work this morning, stressing about all things and the Lesson of Brian, that sometimes there is no why flooded my brain as the road wound through the reservoir climbing to the bridge, tears streaming as I saw my favorite mountains across the water, a beret of soft clouds snuggling their peaks. “I want to go there, I want to go there” I said out loud. “I don’t know where that is but I want to go.” A warmth came over me, and a raven flew up from beneath the left side of the bridge to accompany me all the way to the other side. Lifting high and higher. I see you. Nevermore alone.
Tag: forward ever forward
among the wildflowers
I am imagining your beautiful skull
clean and white and gleaming in another forest
as beautiful as when it was covered by your skin
soft and creased and lips puckering to welcome mine
I am imagining the creatures that are feasting on you, much as I clung to the words we shared, the love we shared, surrounding you and enclosing you as you surrounded and enclosed me
You have given yourself to the world as you have yourself to me, completely and unabashedly.
You are the most unselfish person. The only way to continue is to follow your lead.
twenty-nine days.
I woke up in your bed this morning, a Thursday
four weeks after I was supposed to.
how has it been 4 weeks already.
It’s like you’re just away somewhere
just out of reach, but not really
I can feel you here, everywhere here
I know you know
I know you are here
I can feel you enveloping me, keeping me safe.
I can hear you say,
“look at you!” your voice sparkling as much as your eyes
your presence is as thick as your mustache.
You have given me such gifts.
sometimes I feel like I just haven’t seen you in a bit and that we will have a date soon and then
i haven’t seen you in a bit and I haven’t heard your voice in a bit and I haven’t touched your face in a bit
The last thing I did was stroke the back of your head which was fuzzy and soft and you may or may not have shaved it for our date that evening
(how long does hair grow after you die)
((i am not going to google that))
but you were dead long before I found you.
I know what the official time of death is. It isn’t real; it isn’t true.
The feel of your peach fuzz hair on the palm of my hand, the cold firmness of your back.
I knew it would be cold before I touched you.
For our date that night, I was going to bring you some of my fresh harvest, my medicine that you helped with, that I had just begun curing but was still quite spectacular already.
I sent you photos of them every day, I’m sure you didn’t see much difference in them but comparing side by side you could. I made sure not to send too many because I know that is overloading.
You helped me raise the lights, saw how I talked to the plants, witnessed me taking care of them.
I have so many things to share with you that are now silenced. Except here.
I can’t send you pictures of my face to show you that I’m thinking of you. I don’t get to see your face when I do. I don’t get to see how many millikittens you’ve assigned it. All I can do is extrapolate.
I know that you felt my love for you until the very nanosecond you died. I know that you were conscious of that. I know you have no doubt that I loved you up until the very moment your body shut down and your energy dispersed because I can still feel it. I know that for a fact. That is not anything I will ever doubt. And I know you never doubted my love for you as I never doubted your love for me. There was never a second to question.
I am so sorry that people broke your heart. It hurts me to know that there are people who caused you so much pain. Pain you shared with me, somehow I was able to put aside my own and take yours in. Pain I had struggled under, showed you how to handle; pain you witnessed me defeating, pain that feels easier to avoid now.
I am grateful for your years of unending patience and soft lovingkindness and truly listening to me, comprehending me. For this allowed me to not feel bitten those last few weeks and instead ease into our dates because they were our time and no one else’s. Ours.
You have given me such gifts.
comfort.
Sitting in your chair, reading your newspaper, using your lighter, waiting for the wash
I can see you puttering around this place
even if nearly all of what we did here was talk and eat and love and sleep.
Delighting in the chairside lamp that with a touch(!)
turns on and warm and warmer
just as your touch turns on and warm and warmer
I can see your face peeking around the corner from the kitchen, looking at me with raised eyebrows and pursed lips.
The love on your face, the sheer delight is unending.
I can see you picking up each of these things, finding a stopping place in your book and putting a bookmark there.
All of these things that came before me and now no more discussion to be had.
So I will find you myself.
I have forever.
2833
Last night I had a better night’s sleep than I have in I don’t know how long. Maybe years. Maybe ever.
There are still so many things to improve about my situation and yet I am better off now in so many ways than I ever have been.
The things that I don’t have in comparison to the things that I do have are far outweighed.
I know who is on my side, who is in my corner, and I know I don’t have to truck with anyone who isn’t.
I know that my strangeness isn’t something to be tolerated and dealt with but something to be seen and witnessed, and made room for.
I know that being here in this space in this time with these people is magic. I only wish that you could see how they love me and how I love them.
I think it would make you happy to see me finally stand up for myself in a way that doesn’t diminish anyone.
I think that perhaps I have evolved into the truly magical girl you met. Whatever you saw, whoever she was, I think she is me now.
I no longer feel as if I am trying to live up to the expectations of a dead man. I think I finally understand that you really did only want the best for me and saw the best in me. You truly were my biggest fan, and the frustration that you felt in my unreadiness only ever was suffused by your joy a few times in our lives. A few times that were such incredible examples of your joy that it made all of the rest difficult to bear and understand. I can see, from this side now, what it must have looked like and how you knew I was smarter than that. But I wasn’t, I couldn’t be yet. It had nothing to do with smarts. Just a traumatized body’s unwillingness to let go of the familiar for the possible.
I don’t know what is coming next for me, only what I hope for. And I do hope for things: for more peace, for more stability, for more safety and calm.
I miss you, Gary, 2833 days gone. I don’t miss the wondering if I am okay. I don’t miss the not knowing that you loved me; if you loved me. I don’t miss being afraid to ask for what I desperately needed for fear of ridicule and rejection. I don’t miss the contempt and derision. I don’t miss knowing that others saw our terribleness.
I know that the people who love me, love me. I don’t have to guess. I won’t ever have to again.
been waiting such a long time part 2. four years later.
I know how close I have been to the end. I know how very very close I have come and if it weren’t for the fact that I was frozen in place and could do nothing other than think about the fact that if I could think myself dead I would, and then shied away from even thinking that because what if I was magical? What if I could just make that happen?
I know how close I have been. I know what the maw looks like. I have seen its gnashing teeth and its grasping claws. I have heard its seductive whisper.
And in the spaces and in between, I have seen glimpses, flashes of what could be, what can be, what is.
What is, now.
For now.
I live my life this way.
גם זה יעבור גם זו לטובה
“This too shall pass and it is all for the good.”
The only thing constant is change.
This is how I am able to survive the furthest of downs, knowing that there will always be an up.
No guarantee of how far or how fast or for how long but there will always be an up.
Four years ago today I had a psychotic break.
Four years ago today was a day of insanity
of despair so wretched, so deep.
An aloneness in this universe. Alone among others. Alone in joyful company.
Today,
today.
Today I feel the love of my community.
I feel the love of near-strangers I share my story with.
I watch their faces, see the hair rise on their skin,
hear them “yes please!” to “can I give you a hug?”
I see fascination and wonderment and joy and it really feels real.
I can feel it to my bones.
It permeates me.
I am living, proof.
I feel it as flowers feel the sun.
I am shining.
no longer a day of infamy 7 december 2023
On what would have been our 17th wedding anniversary
(but can’t be)
I am happy.
On the eve of what would have been
in what was our favorite place
(is my favorite place)
I sat with a man
A man I felt a similar excitement about
a careful curiousness
now, impulse tempered by time.
Wanting more than anything to believe the words coming out of his mouth. I see his face, I kiss his mouth. I think I can believe them.
I believe him.
To life!
737a 4 may, 2023
The things that I would say
The things that I would say to you if I had your ear again
I mean of course how much I love you and fucking Christ I miss you but also
How much I miss massaging your hands the way you like
That yes please write my Etsy descriptions for me so that I don’t have to and
I am so sorry that I said no when you offered. What was I thinking??
I wasn’t.
If you thought I was scattered before
It’s like pistachio shells on the pavement now.
The ravens are noisy overhead, more so than usual
as I sit outside in the grey.
If I were someone who saw signs in things
I would definitely feel that you are close.
But I don’t, so what do I do?
Push past, through.
Know the next immediate steps for today.
Focus on coming home.
13 January 2023/2018
2023
Each year that I read this (and it is now five) I am struck by how close to the initial feeling I still have, how it is now my core, how those first four months of aftermath set the tone for my moving forward.
The sentiment is the same.
I wish you could see.
I couldn’t be this person if you had survived, I wouldn’t be. I wouldn’t have to be.
I wonder if you knew the electricity and wonderment and sheer delight others know to be my truth; I have to believe we had that, too, once upon a time.
How good was my best back then? How close to this could you possibly have seen back then? I guess it must have been something because we met and fell in love and you told me so eleven days later.
I wish I could talk to that girl that I was that person who was running on full-blown mania 100% of the time. I have so much to tell her.
2018
Gary, my love.
Four months ago today you left this Earth.
There is not a day that goes by that I don’t miss you, that I don’t think about you, that I don’t have something to share with you.
I’ve grown stronger, and softer, and wiser. I’ve grown in ways you would expect, be proud of. Become even more resilient, because I’ve had to. You always had my back even when neither of us knew it. Even when it was too difficult to say so, to share so.
I’ve met people who you would like, who you would love, and I’ve told them so. I’ve made changes; some small, some not-so. Evolved, mostly. Become, more. The way The Velveteen Rabbit Became.
Anyone I let into This Widow’s Life has to measure up to your memory, is judged against your bar, and a very high bar it is indeed. I can reach it on tiptoe, in bare feet. You remain the smartest man I’ve ever met. The most difficult partner I’ve ever had. The most worth-it partner. You had to be, we had to be, for me to not give up, for us to not give up. And we never did.
I tolerate less, and more. Funny, that. I’m not afraid to speak my mind, stand firm, hold my ground. I give no quarter; this far and no further.
Those I have let in, those few, I think they know, I think they realize what a gift it is. You did. Even though it wasn’t until the very very end. So bittersweet; but I am not bitter.
I love you, more.
Always,
Glitter 💜💜
The Salty Widow 