The wind

I awoke this morning to the wind – restless and whirling. It whipped around the trees making them bounce unnaturally. It angrily ripped through the wind-chimes hanging on the deck that were given to us when we moved in together – their peaceful song now a tormented tango of tangles. I've been feeling you in nature – bears, foxes, rainbows, sunlight, butterflies, and the gentle wind. But why is nature angry today? We were never once angry with one another, not even a single time. We can't start now, my love.

I am going to Steamboat Springs today with my dad and three friends I went to prep school with. The four of us make up over ten percent of our 8th grade class. They are the old friends, the ones who come out of the woodwork to rally love and support. They all know you too, because you and I went to the same prep school, even though we didn't date until much later, and you were five-years older than I.

I think of you as a senior in high school, a very cool guy, even though you claimed you weren't. Me, a confused 8th grader, focusing on first-kisses and school dances and playing footsie with a cute boy at Assembly. You, soaking up art classes, playing bass, and singing lead vocals in a band called Endangered Feces at our school variety shows known as Coffeeshop. Me, overly concerned about my appearance. I was at a very high-tuition school but on an academic scholarship; all the kids in my class arrived, modeling the latest Abercrombie & Fitch khakis and flannels while I wore the J.C. Penny knockoffs. You, numbing your depression with a weed habit; sneaking out to the parking lot for a joint or a cigarette. You, looking for love in ways you weren't receiving it, unbeknownst to the fact that it was indeed embracing you always. You just wanted to fit in. Me, busted at Abercrombie & Fitch for shoplifting a pair of pants when I was supposed to be at ballet class. The noise of the security alarm still makes my heart skip a beat to this day. I just wanted to fit in.

You, always the jokester, heard that you could wear anything for your high school senior picture, so you decided that you'd shoot yours wearing nothing! Armed with a Tom-drum, you stood nude outside the school commons in front of the gazebo, your long hair pulled back into a ponytail making your ears look awkwardly large, eyes twinkling, you suspended the Tom in front of your privates. Mr. C, who's in-session class were witnesses to the photo shoot, cranked open his window and called out, "Ted, you're flattering yourself! All you need is a bongo!" You, unfazed (and knowing he was actually incorrect) grinned through your eyes as the camera clicked. A month later, the 8th grade me traded my photo for a copy of your photo. Maybe you didn't know, but they were being passed around the school like secret-underground Playboy magazines. I still have that photo, tattered in my wallet, it often falls out when I pull out my debit card or ID and I blush as I realize I'm holding the kiddie-porn version of the grown man I love, now a ghost.

You graduated, making your way to Oregon. And I continued at the school for another 4 years through high school: dancing, cheer-leading, high-jumping, sneaking into coat closets to make out with boys at school, sneaking out my window to go to a party, or sneaking boys into my window... always trying to be cooler than I thought I was and often acting pretty slutty. When I told you that, years later, you smiled and rolled your eyes, citing 'sexual liberation' as a better word. You admired me as a woman, even the teenage-version you never knew. Despite moving to Austin for college, I continued to generally date people from our school. Later, when we started dating, I told you that I always knew I was supposed to end up with someone from there, I just had to keep searching until I figured out who. It was you. I imagined the alumni newsletter arriving with news of our impending marriage:  

"Ted Welles of '98 and Samantha Lipman of '02 are engaged to be married. They reside in Boulder, Colorado in a castle in the sky with their dog: Kira, cat: Beats, and roommate: Kevin. Their love is so off the charts that even our AP Statistics class can't chart it. When here at school, Mr. C favored Ted, but despised Sami; in fact, once he made her cry in front of the whole library. Sami always RSVPs them for alumni events, but they never show up because Ted doesn't actually want to go. Ted helped clean and organize the AV closet by the vendies: a true gentleman. Four-years later, Sami snuck in there to give a hand-job. They both were in Mrs. B's advisee and have dreams about the grammar they learned from her: Ted's are about being impeccably perfect and Sami's are about when she can break the rules. Maybe they'll get married in front of the Smead Building, in between the trees that smell like cum. We wish them a lifetime of love, happiness, Oxford commas, and financial contributions."

As the wind smacked the siding of our house this morning, it took me a long time to get out of bed. Every time I closed my eyes, trying to get a few more moments of rest, flashbacks from that terrible night would pop into my mind. I sighed and opened my eyes for the day. As the trauma of that night fades from immediacy, I think the PTSD is beginning to settle in. I heard a siren the other day and I felt my heart rise up through my throat to my crown. A bus pulled out into traffic, but not into my lane at all, and I swerved and cried out. I wonder if I'll be jumpy forever? I wonder if every time I feel love, I will also feel grief, like both sides of a hand: the back and the palm.

I opened the blinds and the sunlight wasn't there to greet me as it has been daily. The wind whirled and clouds moved in. Are you upset with me for leaving for the weekend?

I thought leaving the house would be good. It would give me a break from being completely engulfed in memories of you. Earlier this week I put away 3 baskets of your laundry. April stood chatting with me so I was less likely to stare at each t-shirt before hanging it, recall the last time I'd seen you in it and melt into the carpet sobbing, using each clean t-shirt to wipe my snot and dry my tears. I put each shirt back in your closet, color-coded, just how you like them. I felt a bit of guilt because I knew you would have ideally preferred me to tumble dry them all again for twenty-minutes; they were a bit crumpled after sitting in the baskets for a week and you would want them wrinkle-free. I put everything back in its place as if you were just gone on a trip or a tour or out walking the dog, about to pop back in, climb the stairs, kiss my forehead, and hop in the shower before sliding into a fresh shirt.

As I prepared to pack for the weekend trip, I pulled out my suitcase. It still had a luggage tag from our last trip. You always tore off the tags when unpacking, but I would leave them on: a reminder of the last time we went somewhere together. I studied it, trying to place where the tag was from. When was the last time I'd flown with that carry-on roller? My mind blank. My memory has been hazy these past couple weeks. I think the shock of the present is all my mind can wrap itself around, and my brain is saying "Don't worry about anything else right now, Sami. This is all you can handle for the time being."

I've avoided looking at pictures of us, watching the videos people are posting, or listening to the voicemails on my phone from you – even the one that's forty-seconds long and I've never listened to before. I feel so much pain without needing to see or hear the reminders. I'm living amongst the reminders. I changed the toilet paper roll yesterday thinking "he was the last one to change this roll". I touch everything gently: the shower handle, each piece of cutlery, the cat – maybe he was the last one to touch right here. I walk through the house in a daze, stopping to run my hand along the banister, remembering how just months ago you carefully wrapped it in streamers for my birthday party, redoing my half-assed attempt. I stop at the bookshelf; I read the titles and pull out books, leafing through them and gingerly touching earmarked pages. I have a huge stack of your books to read, dying to fill my mind with everything that was in your mind.

As I pack my clothes, I realize how painfully sad I am. I'm choosing outfits you won't see me in. "Why even bother," I ask myself. I'm leaving the house that's still full of you even though you aren't physically here. I tell myself it will be good to get away for a few days, noting to myself sensibly that I'm sitting in your tomb, suffocating in memories. But I love this tomb and each memory is beautiful and the thought of going away into the mountains and creating memories without you is fucking heartbreaking. My mind retorts. My heart cracks more, like a car's broken windshield in the dry mountain air or the Liberty Bell. How can it keep breaking more? I moved to the mountains to be with you. I would have chosen the sea if it were up to me alone, but I chose you and the mountains and I fell in love with their grounding and their strength and mostly I fell in love with YOU. And I need YOU. And I don't want to leave you, like you left me.

Last night I went out with the girls. Angie, Elizabeth, Signe, and I got our nails done and grabbed a bite of food. Ted, do you know that I have had a manicure every day for the past year in case you ever proposed to me? So that my hands would be a canvas for the beautiful, sparkling symbol of our love and our oath to be together forever? Do you know that when your family gathered around me and proposed to me on your behalf, my manicure was torn off, exposing layers of brittle nails and ripped cuticles? Not that it matters at all anymore, but it used to. I used to painstakingly choose a color every two weeks, over-analyzing, "Should this be the color I'm wearing when it happens?" My nail lady would smile through the language barrier, she got it. So last night, I chose a color. I chose it nearly as quickly as I chose the dress I wore to your funeral. Because those things don't matter anymore. Maybe they never should have mattered, but now they truly don't. Is that a lesson this is supposed to teach me? Did this happen so that I would be forced to see what's actually important? Love, not nails? Love, not fashion? Love, not marriage? Couldn't you have taught me this a different way, God?

All snuggled into a booth at a Mexican restaurant, the tears began. I'd been doing pretty well until that point. I told the girls how I was feeling scared about two things in particular, right now:

One. I'm scared of being alone. I have had boyfriends since I was 18-years-old. I've never been single for more than two months. I am now 30. That's twelve years of partnerships.

When relationships have ended in the past, it's because one or both partners decide it's time: everything has been gained from the relationship that can be. You glean from it and you learn what is right and what is not right for each individual. You probably leave some of your love with that person, a special place for their memory, but mainly, you take your love back. Then you have all that love that you are ready to give to the next person. And then more love is created in the next relationship and the cycle continues. Love grows and awareness sharpens.

So here I am, with many relationships behind me (maybe too many), and so much love. But this one is different. It doesn't match the cycle. I am not done. I don't want anyone else ever at all (the thought of it literally makes me sick to my stomach). I wasn't done gleaning from my relationship with Ted, I never would have been. He was the relationship all the other ones had lead me to, had carved the way for. And now I have all this love and no matter how many times I say to myself 'give it to his spirit' and 'give it to yourself,' I don't really know how, and that is a very, very lonely feeling. People tell me, 'it will take time'. I hear that and I trust that, but 'time' for a woman who has never been alone for more than two months is terrifying. I am trying to just stuff this concern back into my brain and not focus on it, kind of like the photos, the voicemails, and the clothes in the closet that I'll deal with someday, maybe.

Two. I'm scared that Ted is sad. I don't know what my beliefs are exactly, but I do have confidence that in whatever way the realms work, that Ted is an angel. I had never really given too much thought to angels but prior to all this, I just kind of assumed they fly around being compassionate and shooting arrows of love at people and animals. Ted did that during his life, so I would hope that he's doing it now! But then I had a conversation with Ted's mentor... who is now my therapist. She pointed out that compassion, in it's purest state, would be hard to achieve without an understanding of pain or anguish. It made sense to me completely. How can an angel, or a spirit, or a master, or whatever you want to call it, feel true love without feeling it's opposite? Again, like two sides of your hand, love on the palm, anguish on the back.

So as I woke to the wind ripping through the trees, I feared that Ted was sad. That he was crying from whatever the bigger place is where he resides now. He doesn't have all of the thousands of people who've reached out to me, to help me, to hold me... there, with him, to help and to hold him. How can he? I mean, maybe we're doing it right and giving him peace, but maybe we're not. How do we know?

So probably the most difficult part of all of this to me right now, is the fear that Ted is suffering and that I can't help him: that he is asking for help through the wind. Maybe he's asking me not to leave the house for the weekend, because maybe he won't be able to see me in the mountains. But I don't know. And there's no way for me to ever know, for certain. But, Ted, my love, I hope that you are at peace, and that only those of us on Earth have to feel this sadness. And that the wind is just a breeze coming from a weather pattern that used to be a storm somewhere else, that has nothing to do with anger, sadness, or us. I love you.