I miss hearing you tell me I am beautiful. You would tell me when I groggily woke up to you bashfully watching me. You would tell me when I got out of the shower and you would steal my towel making me chase you, dripping wet. You would tell me when I was in jeans, a t-shirt, glasses, and a dirty ponytail – stressed out in front of my computer. You would tell me on our walk to the car after a hot yoga class, my clothes seeping in sweat. You would tell me after I spent ninety-minutes getting ready for a date with you – in a new dress, fresh lipstick, high heels, and perfume. You would tell me when I would slip into something silk and lacy for you at the end of a long day. You would whisper it again as you stroke my cheek, playfully smack my behind, and then follow it up with a kiss that said it all over again, but without words. You would tell me when I was asleep and could only hear you through the echo of my dreams.
I didn't know much I wanted to hear the words until I stopped hearing them. You spoiled me. And now I try extra hard to look beautiful so I can say it to my reflection and believe myself. It's not a question of low self-esteem or seeking attention – I had just gotten so used to your compliments, to be stripped of them is a shock to my system. It makes me feel needy. A few nights ago, a friend told me that I looked beautiful. And then she said it again in different words, and then again. It was only on the third iteration that I realized it was because she actually meant it. My skin is so thick that maybe it won't let love in, or maybe it lets it in too easily. Hearing those words made my heart open up a little bit and let some love in and out. It also triggered how much I missed it coming from you, in your voice. It reminded me that while the words were soothing to my mind, my lips ache to be kissed and my skin begs for the weight of your body on top of me.
I miss that I could read your mind through the look in your eyes. Our souls shared the sixth sense. And if I couldn't read you, you would tell me what you were thinking without me needing to ask. And you were always thinking about something just so fantastic. You put everything out on the table. No questions. No holding back. No doubts. No games. You allowed yourself to be entirely vulnerable. You allowed yourself to love completely. You allowed yourself to be fully loved. I let you move into my heart. But now, it's been vacated. The love remains, but you aren't there to bask in it. Before, my love was weightless, but now it's heavy. Where does the love end and the baggage begin?
I miss you making me laugh. Laughter is the language of love. It echos across wide open spaces. It bounces across big-city buildings. It sweeps into canyons and valleys, lifting the fog. It defeats hatred. Laughter makes us kind. Kindness breeds love. And love is the triumph. So now I am attempting to juggle all this love. But, I never learned how to juggle. You knew how, but you never had a chance to teach me. I can't drop this ball; it's far too sacred.
I miss empty space with you: the few moments when we had
nothing to do except just be. You knew how to dress up boredom in a
glittery costume. Now, boredom and loneliness go hand-in-hand. When
space isn't filled up with some distraction, it's a reminder that I am
without you by my side. I am alone. Distraction overshadows the voices in my head reminding me that I am not OK. So now, I avoid silence. It's a trigger for how different it all is now, how confused I am, how quickly everything has changed, how it will never be like it was, and how happenstance can override all plans.
I miss your love: your unique strain of love. Love is like DNA. There is
no carbon copy. There is no love that is the same as another love.
That's one of the most beautiful things about love, but it's also one of
the most painful. Love is both limitless and irreplaceable at the same
time. But damn. Your love was divine. It's as if we were both made of
pure love as individuals, but when we came together it became an
offering to the Universe. Our love was a beacon.
Showing posts with label consciousness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label consciousness. Show all posts
Twisted Knife
Our true nature comes out when we having nothing left to offer. Who will I be when things get really, really hard? And then, get even harder and more confusing. Right when I think I might be turning a corner, something else slaps me down. Today I lost my job.
Quick backstory: I'm the Creative Director of two national yoga magazines. I work incredibly hard and passionately. As I've said time and time again, it is my dream job. After you passed away, I requested three months off and was given the green light with full support. Apparently, I was replaced two months ago and not told until today, when I let my job know I was ready to return after the three months, as agreed upon. Rant, over.
Unfortunately, we can't always rely on other people being honorable. We live in a dog eat dog world. Those who succeed often do so by knocking people down along the way. And that's OK. Such is life. It may not be the method I would choose, but it's none of my business. I am not in control of other people's empires. I only can admire what they created, offer my appreciation, and help when it's accepted. When it's no longer wanted, I move on. I will not fight. If I want to be in control of my own empire, then I will have to build one myself.
I imagine myself like an onion. Layer after layer has been peeled away. Soul mate, best friend, lover, biggest fan: gone. Big, protective layers are peeled away, revealing raw flesh. Plans and security for the future: gone. More layers peeled away. Job: gone. Another layer peeled, leaving the core exposed. My eyes are teary as the delicate center of the root is left vulnerable. When that which makes me who I have become is taken away, what remains? When I dive in head first, give my everything, open my heart – and am robbed – how do I react?
As we arrive into this life we are born pure. Then, we start to pile layers on that shape who we become. But when those layers are ripped off, even at our most shattered, our pureness remains. We may really have to dig for it, beneath dirt and grime, anger and fear, disrepute and sorrow – I have faith that our virtuosity endures. So here I lay, shattered, broken, crying – yet somewhere, beautiful and pure.
The hardest part for me today, was that I needed you. You were the one who would know exactly what to say to make me feel better. You would give me the best, longest hug. You would kiss my forehead in a way that breathed peace into my chest. You would tell me you were sorry that this happened. You would take my side and talk a bit of shit. Then, you would explore the other side, being reasonable and fair. Together, we would discover that there is no right or wrong, there is simply what is and what is not. You would say something that gave me hope for the future. Then, you would hug me again - an even better hug than the first one. You would kiss my lips and love my body tenderly. You would hold me while I cried, not saying a single thing for a very long time except "It will be OK. I love you." As the knife that resides in my chest was twisted in deeper today, I really needed you. But you were not there. There was no you. There was no bear. There was no fox. There were no blinking lights. There were no visitors from the other side. There were no dreams. There was no hug. There was just me. I had to look at myself – raw, confused, hurt – and choose to be righteous, to be healthy, and to have faith.
You once told me about scream therapy. You had an ex-girlfriend who made you incredibly angry. You told me when she really pissed you off, you would get in your car and turn on Pantera or Marilyn Manson and scream at the top of your lungs. You would scream and scream and scream. When you told me this, I think my eyes were as big as my face. I never once saw you angry, so the whole scenario was beyond me. I couldn't believe someone made you angry enough that you would even want to raise your voice. You were always so gentle. But, we all go through shit and at the time, it had helped you.
So today, when confronted with what could be anger I decided to give scream therapy a try. As I drove home from yoga and up the long hill to our house, I gripped the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles turned white. I opened my mouth to scream... but nothing came out. I tried again. I gripped. I opened my mouth to scream. All that came out was a choked sob. And then another sob. And another. I pulled over because my eyes needed windshield wipers and they don't make those yet. I crumpled my head into my hands as I gasped sadness to the universe, 'Well I'm down, so you may as well just keep kicking me.' In that moment, I remembered times when I used to tell you, "I don't get angry, I just get sad."
The universe has me on my knees. She's stripped me of some of the most important things to me. Love. Security. Career. But she hasn't taken everything. In my practice tonight, I tapped into my strength. She can take my love, she can take my security, but for now, I still have my body. So I danced with my body on my mat. I practiced grace as I played, breathed, loved, and balanced. Also today, I reached out to my loved ones. She can take you, she can take my job, but I still have support. And friends helped to soothe my weariness. And now, I sit here and I write. She can take my best friend, she can take my stability, but she can't take my words. She can't take my freedom. So I kneel. I am naked, I am raw, and I am crying. But I am still here. And, dammit, I will not loose faith. And as my true nature is forced to be revealed, I will discover my identity.
Quick backstory: I'm the Creative Director of two national yoga magazines. I work incredibly hard and passionately. As I've said time and time again, it is my dream job. After you passed away, I requested three months off and was given the green light with full support. Apparently, I was replaced two months ago and not told until today, when I let my job know I was ready to return after the three months, as agreed upon. Rant, over.
Unfortunately, we can't always rely on other people being honorable. We live in a dog eat dog world. Those who succeed often do so by knocking people down along the way. And that's OK. Such is life. It may not be the method I would choose, but it's none of my business. I am not in control of other people's empires. I only can admire what they created, offer my appreciation, and help when it's accepted. When it's no longer wanted, I move on. I will not fight. If I want to be in control of my own empire, then I will have to build one myself.
I imagine myself like an onion. Layer after layer has been peeled away. Soul mate, best friend, lover, biggest fan: gone. Big, protective layers are peeled away, revealing raw flesh. Plans and security for the future: gone. More layers peeled away. Job: gone. Another layer peeled, leaving the core exposed. My eyes are teary as the delicate center of the root is left vulnerable. When that which makes me who I have become is taken away, what remains? When I dive in head first, give my everything, open my heart – and am robbed – how do I react?
As we arrive into this life we are born pure. Then, we start to pile layers on that shape who we become. But when those layers are ripped off, even at our most shattered, our pureness remains. We may really have to dig for it, beneath dirt and grime, anger and fear, disrepute and sorrow – I have faith that our virtuosity endures. So here I lay, shattered, broken, crying – yet somewhere, beautiful and pure.
The hardest part for me today, was that I needed you. You were the one who would know exactly what to say to make me feel better. You would give me the best, longest hug. You would kiss my forehead in a way that breathed peace into my chest. You would tell me you were sorry that this happened. You would take my side and talk a bit of shit. Then, you would explore the other side, being reasonable and fair. Together, we would discover that there is no right or wrong, there is simply what is and what is not. You would say something that gave me hope for the future. Then, you would hug me again - an even better hug than the first one. You would kiss my lips and love my body tenderly. You would hold me while I cried, not saying a single thing for a very long time except "It will be OK. I love you." As the knife that resides in my chest was twisted in deeper today, I really needed you. But you were not there. There was no you. There was no bear. There was no fox. There were no blinking lights. There were no visitors from the other side. There were no dreams. There was no hug. There was just me. I had to look at myself – raw, confused, hurt – and choose to be righteous, to be healthy, and to have faith.
You once told me about scream therapy. You had an ex-girlfriend who made you incredibly angry. You told me when she really pissed you off, you would get in your car and turn on Pantera or Marilyn Manson and scream at the top of your lungs. You would scream and scream and scream. When you told me this, I think my eyes were as big as my face. I never once saw you angry, so the whole scenario was beyond me. I couldn't believe someone made you angry enough that you would even want to raise your voice. You were always so gentle. But, we all go through shit and at the time, it had helped you.
So today, when confronted with what could be anger I decided to give scream therapy a try. As I drove home from yoga and up the long hill to our house, I gripped the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles turned white. I opened my mouth to scream... but nothing came out. I tried again. I gripped. I opened my mouth to scream. All that came out was a choked sob. And then another sob. And another. I pulled over because my eyes needed windshield wipers and they don't make those yet. I crumpled my head into my hands as I gasped sadness to the universe, 'Well I'm down, so you may as well just keep kicking me.' In that moment, I remembered times when I used to tell you, "I don't get angry, I just get sad."
The universe has me on my knees. She's stripped me of some of the most important things to me. Love. Security. Career. But she hasn't taken everything. In my practice tonight, I tapped into my strength. She can take my love, she can take my security, but for now, I still have my body. So I danced with my body on my mat. I practiced grace as I played, breathed, loved, and balanced. Also today, I reached out to my loved ones. She can take you, she can take my job, but I still have support. And friends helped to soothe my weariness. And now, I sit here and I write. She can take my best friend, she can take my stability, but she can't take my words. She can't take my freedom. So I kneel. I am naked, I am raw, and I am crying. But I am still here. And, dammit, I will not loose faith. And as my true nature is forced to be revealed, I will discover my identity.
Operation Seratonin
You and I used to fuel ourselves with oxytocin. We would lie in bed for hours – not eat, not sleep, just bury ourselves in one another's love. The hormone would secrete out of our pores, into the space cocooning us, and then settle back onto the opposite's body with a sigh. If the space around us had a soundtrack it would be the 'ooh's, 'aah's, and giggles of a Parisian love story. Eventually, after hours of whispers, love making, and kisses you would say, "Alright babe, my body can no longer survive purely on oxytocin." We'd rouse to get you some food.
The oxytocin that used to sustain me is flickering out like the dying wick of a candle. My body craves touch. Your touch. My heart had learned to beat in tune with yours. She quieted down, listened for the echo in your chest, and set her pace with yours – happy to have a mate to pulse with. But now she strains to hear you and you aren't there. My heart is tired.
Over the past week I took a dip. I celebrated life – yours, mine, ours. I celebrated the past year – the good, the beauty, the love. Then once this year arrived, I stopped in my tracks like a deer in headlights. In a sense, I laid down in the road and allowed myself to be run over. I felt the pain. I crawled under my covers and turned out the lights. I stopped moving. I hoped that when I fell asleep I wouldn't wake up – that I would drift off to be with you again. I was supposed to be with you.
I don't believe in suicide. I have a hard time respecting it as a choice for others and I certainly do not for myself. In my belief system, I think that exiting life by your own hand signs you up for karmic debt. I think it's a cop out for the lessons we are meant to learn in this life. Life is a gift, even in suffering. Even in the most painful of times, I refuse to believe that human life is ruled by a dark force. So, I know I would never take that route. I am too stubborn. I am too proud. I am too afraid. But, over the past week, I've wanted to drift off to the other side with you, accidentally. Just slip away, into thin air, like you did. One moment you were there – talking, breathing, loving, making promises – and the next you were gone – you were dust, ashes, memories, history, just a dream. I have felt that the only true happiness I will ever feel again, is whenever, wherever I can find you.
Today I decided to make a shift out of the darkness, one of many small shifts that are a part of this rollercoaster ride on the Sea of Shit. I decided that today, I would unglue my chin from my throat. I would lift my gaze from the mud to the clouds. Clouds though they may be, I know behind them is clear, somewhere.
I filled my day up with action. Small things – call the plumber, fold the laundry, shave my legs, call my mom, change the oil, get my dog groomed. These small tasks that seem so ordinary to the layman are like climbing Mount Everest for the grieving. When I can hardly stick my toe out from under my comforter and place my foot onto the earth, going to the grocery store seems like running a marathon with no training, food, or water. My body feels thirty times heavier then it actually is. I tried to move it at times over the past week and all I could do was lay on the ground and beg the Earth to keep holding me, to not let me go.
But today I made it up. I made it out of the house. And I accomplished a lot. In fact, I accomplished a lot for a normal, non-suffering person if I do say so myself. And it felt good. And feeling good, when you're grieving, is like being able to take one breath of air without gasping.
My intention for the day was "Operation: Seratonin". I figured since I can no longer live on oxytocin, I should fuel myself on other natural uppers. I took supplements that I know help me feel better: 5-Htp, Lumiday, St. Johns Wart, Stress-B Complex, Ashwaganda, and GABA. I got out of bed before nine. I ate food. And later in the day, I went to the pool.
My best friend had recommended that maybe swimming would be helpful during this time. She said it might be peaceful to float. Now, considering moving from my bed to the toilet has seemed like a walking on a tight rope across the Grand Canyon, my hopes weren't high. But once I submerged myself in the salt water, it was as though I had tapped into a resource of power deep in my body. I started to swim laps. I started to pass other swimmers. I moved to a faster lane. I started to swim how I can only imagine Michael Phelps swims – super fucking fast. I just kept swimming. I gave myself permission to take the next breath. And then the next breath. And then the next breath. When the tears came, it was OK. No one could see them and I couldn't even feel them because I was already submersed in salt water. I glided forward in the water. Just a little further, I told myself. Just a little further. Until I had no other option – forward motion was the only possible way. I didn't want to stop. Finally, swim team practice started and they made me leave the pool. I had probably swam from Alcatraz to San Fransisco. When I got out of the water, I felt the endorphins rushing through my body. Even when the heart is full of sorrow, the body reminds us of our strength. "Hang in there," my body told my heart, "I know you feel alone, but I've gotcha."
After my swim, I took a steam and then I went to yoga. I continued to ring myself out. I took the sludge, the buildup, the tar, the darkness, the anger, the guilt, the grief, the torture, and the pain and attempted to clean out a layer of it. But I realized that once I accelerate, it's easier to push forward. I remembered how being kind to myself comes more naturally than being cruel. Being hopeful is more inherent than being forlorn.
I'll never be fueled by oxytocin and love the way I was with you. But I still have the power to be lifted up. I will try to climb out of the dark holes and see a bit of sky, no matter how treacherous the clouds seem. When I feel suffocated by my own tears, I will swim in them. I'll remind myself of what I love about me – about the me that is still whole. While you are no longer here, as much as I fight it, you can't take me with you. That's just not how this life works. So I am here. And you are there. But we are still a part of the same stardust.
The oxytocin that used to sustain me is flickering out like the dying wick of a candle. My body craves touch. Your touch. My heart had learned to beat in tune with yours. She quieted down, listened for the echo in your chest, and set her pace with yours – happy to have a mate to pulse with. But now she strains to hear you and you aren't there. My heart is tired.
Over the past week I took a dip. I celebrated life – yours, mine, ours. I celebrated the past year – the good, the beauty, the love. Then once this year arrived, I stopped in my tracks like a deer in headlights. In a sense, I laid down in the road and allowed myself to be run over. I felt the pain. I crawled under my covers and turned out the lights. I stopped moving. I hoped that when I fell asleep I wouldn't wake up – that I would drift off to be with you again. I was supposed to be with you.
I don't believe in suicide. I have a hard time respecting it as a choice for others and I certainly do not for myself. In my belief system, I think that exiting life by your own hand signs you up for karmic debt. I think it's a cop out for the lessons we are meant to learn in this life. Life is a gift, even in suffering. Even in the most painful of times, I refuse to believe that human life is ruled by a dark force. So, I know I would never take that route. I am too stubborn. I am too proud. I am too afraid. But, over the past week, I've wanted to drift off to the other side with you, accidentally. Just slip away, into thin air, like you did. One moment you were there – talking, breathing, loving, making promises – and the next you were gone – you were dust, ashes, memories, history, just a dream. I have felt that the only true happiness I will ever feel again, is whenever, wherever I can find you.
Today I decided to make a shift out of the darkness, one of many small shifts that are a part of this rollercoaster ride on the Sea of Shit. I decided that today, I would unglue my chin from my throat. I would lift my gaze from the mud to the clouds. Clouds though they may be, I know behind them is clear, somewhere.
I filled my day up with action. Small things – call the plumber, fold the laundry, shave my legs, call my mom, change the oil, get my dog groomed. These small tasks that seem so ordinary to the layman are like climbing Mount Everest for the grieving. When I can hardly stick my toe out from under my comforter and place my foot onto the earth, going to the grocery store seems like running a marathon with no training, food, or water. My body feels thirty times heavier then it actually is. I tried to move it at times over the past week and all I could do was lay on the ground and beg the Earth to keep holding me, to not let me go.
But today I made it up. I made it out of the house. And I accomplished a lot. In fact, I accomplished a lot for a normal, non-suffering person if I do say so myself. And it felt good. And feeling good, when you're grieving, is like being able to take one breath of air without gasping.
My intention for the day was "Operation: Seratonin". I figured since I can no longer live on oxytocin, I should fuel myself on other natural uppers. I took supplements that I know help me feel better: 5-Htp, Lumiday, St. Johns Wart, Stress-B Complex, Ashwaganda, and GABA. I got out of bed before nine. I ate food. And later in the day, I went to the pool.
My best friend had recommended that maybe swimming would be helpful during this time. She said it might be peaceful to float. Now, considering moving from my bed to the toilet has seemed like a walking on a tight rope across the Grand Canyon, my hopes weren't high. But once I submerged myself in the salt water, it was as though I had tapped into a resource of power deep in my body. I started to swim laps. I started to pass other swimmers. I moved to a faster lane. I started to swim how I can only imagine Michael Phelps swims – super fucking fast. I just kept swimming. I gave myself permission to take the next breath. And then the next breath. And then the next breath. When the tears came, it was OK. No one could see them and I couldn't even feel them because I was already submersed in salt water. I glided forward in the water. Just a little further, I told myself. Just a little further. Until I had no other option – forward motion was the only possible way. I didn't want to stop. Finally, swim team practice started and they made me leave the pool. I had probably swam from Alcatraz to San Fransisco. When I got out of the water, I felt the endorphins rushing through my body. Even when the heart is full of sorrow, the body reminds us of our strength. "Hang in there," my body told my heart, "I know you feel alone, but I've gotcha."
After my swim, I took a steam and then I went to yoga. I continued to ring myself out. I took the sludge, the buildup, the tar, the darkness, the anger, the guilt, the grief, the torture, and the pain and attempted to clean out a layer of it. But I realized that once I accelerate, it's easier to push forward. I remembered how being kind to myself comes more naturally than being cruel. Being hopeful is more inherent than being forlorn.
I'll never be fueled by oxytocin and love the way I was with you. But I still have the power to be lifted up. I will try to climb out of the dark holes and see a bit of sky, no matter how treacherous the clouds seem. When I feel suffocated by my own tears, I will swim in them. I'll remind myself of what I love about me – about the me that is still whole. While you are no longer here, as much as I fight it, you can't take me with you. That's just not how this life works. So I am here. And you are there. But we are still a part of the same stardust.
Course in Miracles
"The miracle comes quietly into the mind that stops an instant and is still."
- A Course in Miracles
This afternoon I got to thinking about miracles. According to a statistic from NPR in 2008, 79% of Americans believe in miracles. This number remains consistent with a stat from USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll in 1994. Today I sat at a lunch with seven adults and one three-year-old: five believed, two did not, and the remaining one kept quiet on the subject (it was not the three-year-old).
Today is Christmas Eve. As a Jew, I celebrate Christmas because of a pre-nuptial agreement my parents made before they married (dad: Jew, mom: Catholic). My father could raise us Jewish BUT we would always celebrate Christmas and have a Christmas tree. And so it went. We got Hanukkah and Christmas, a beautiful collaboration of two religions and American Capitalist excess.
Embarrassingly, today I actually had to Google what the "miracle of Christmas" is. Yes, I forgot we are celebrating Jesus's birthday. (Mind you, I've been tuning out all holiday cheer this year.) But now I remember, Jesus Christ was born to Mary, a virgin, as the son of God on December 25th. Honestly, this is not a miracle that I have ever really believed in. I tend to take the Bible's stories as metaphors and I also don't think women's words are very trustworthy, perhaps even saintly ones. They don't like to kiss and tell. In order to avoid pushing buttons, or maybe to push a few more, the miracle of Hanukkah celebrates oil burning in the Beit HaMikdash for eight days when it was claimed it would only last for one night – I don't know if I believe in that miracle either.
But over the past two months or so, I've been led to question all my beliefs – miracles, life, death, love, faith, and more. I don't know what I believe anymore. Maybe both of the miracles mentioned above are completely true! I mean, I can't tell you how many times over the past two months I've wished that I could be pregnant with your child despite the fact that you aren't here to make that happen! Why shouldn't I trust that if God or a higher power deems something like that to be possible, then it be possible? I mean, this whole universe thing is quite a miracle. Where did that come from? Something put it there. And I'm confident I saw a male figure standing in my living room the other day when no one was home... I barely thought twice about that miraculous vision. Through this grief, I've realized I need to believe in something. What has pulled me out of the darkness over the past week is the creation of faith. And when I say creation, I mean building something from relatively nothing.
Prior to this tragedy, religion was a part of my identity, rather than a belief system. Unlike so many, I was not pushed to put my faith in a God with a certain name. I was raised with an awareness of the stories but a choice to follow whatever path I was called towards. And to be honest, being raised in a house with mixed messages probably didn't help guide me one way or another. As I watched some friends follow their prescribed religions somewhat blindly (in my opinion, at the time), I became rather cynical about faith in general. It was kind of a dirty word. That being said, I was incredibly active in my Jewish youth group, to the extent of being an international chairwoman. Judaism gave me a social network, leadership training, the knowledge of a cool language not many people can read and write, and a sense of identity. But faith? Not so much. I have always been one of those people who says, "I'm not religious, I'm spiritual." But really, I wasn't that spiritual either.
Now, as I've been pushed to my emotional edge: raw, bleeding, and hopeless – one of the primary elements that's pulled me through is faith (the other main element is love). Faith in what? I'm not sure yet. I'm open to it all at this point. In fact, I've been reading about a book a day. Some are about quantum physics, a scientific methodology that explains 'the theory of everything'. Some are about reincarnation, samsara, past lives and future lives. Some are about the power of love. Some are about spirits and mediums. Some are about New Age mysticism like Kabbalah, the Jewish ancient wisdom that 'reveals how the universe and life work'. Some are about yogic philosophy. Some are poetry. Some are about miracles. Some are about Christian methodology. But what they all have in common is having hope and faith in something bigger than just this thing we call life – what we can see, touch, and be aware of through our five senses. I've been given the courage to choose to believe in the unknown.
In the past I've thought faith was blind – a blanket statement that I'd say I subscribed to. Now, I still believe faith CAN be blind. If we believe in the stories in the Bible verbatim and follow the words we are told without question, I maintain that those choices are blind and uneducated. But if faith is built through study, through questioning, through being able to have an open mind, and not say "I'm right, and you're wrong," I now believe faith is quite courageous. It's not easy to stand up for your faith in this world, I felt that today at my lunch!
I told my therapist this past week, "I wish I'd had a strong sense of faith instilled in my life. At least I'd have something to turn to now." She told me, "Yes, that would be easier. But now you have to build one. That is much harder but very beautiful." It will be a beautiful process. It already is.
I've opened to stillness. I've put down the remote control. I've turned off Instagram and Words With Friends. I've picked up the decision to learn. I've decided that what I thought was "right" is not necessarily "right". I've come to terms with the hard knowledge that I may never really "know". But, I have choosen to have faith in a few unknowns. I choose to believe that there is a truth beyond death. I choose to believe that I will see you again in some form. I choose to believe that you are still a witness to my life in some way. And I choose to continue my belief in miracles, no matter how bleak life looks.
"Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love. They are performed by those who temporarily have more for those who temporarily have less."
– A Course in Miracles
- A Course in Miracles
This afternoon I got to thinking about miracles. According to a statistic from NPR in 2008, 79% of Americans believe in miracles. This number remains consistent with a stat from USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll in 1994. Today I sat at a lunch with seven adults and one three-year-old: five believed, two did not, and the remaining one kept quiet on the subject (it was not the three-year-old).
Today is Christmas Eve. As a Jew, I celebrate Christmas because of a pre-nuptial agreement my parents made before they married (dad: Jew, mom: Catholic). My father could raise us Jewish BUT we would always celebrate Christmas and have a Christmas tree. And so it went. We got Hanukkah and Christmas, a beautiful collaboration of two religions and American Capitalist excess.
Embarrassingly, today I actually had to Google what the "miracle of Christmas" is. Yes, I forgot we are celebrating Jesus's birthday. (Mind you, I've been tuning out all holiday cheer this year.) But now I remember, Jesus Christ was born to Mary, a virgin, as the son of God on December 25th. Honestly, this is not a miracle that I have ever really believed in. I tend to take the Bible's stories as metaphors and I also don't think women's words are very trustworthy, perhaps even saintly ones. They don't like to kiss and tell. In order to avoid pushing buttons, or maybe to push a few more, the miracle of Hanukkah celebrates oil burning in the Beit HaMikdash for eight days when it was claimed it would only last for one night – I don't know if I believe in that miracle either.
But over the past two months or so, I've been led to question all my beliefs – miracles, life, death, love, faith, and more. I don't know what I believe anymore. Maybe both of the miracles mentioned above are completely true! I mean, I can't tell you how many times over the past two months I've wished that I could be pregnant with your child despite the fact that you aren't here to make that happen! Why shouldn't I trust that if God or a higher power deems something like that to be possible, then it be possible? I mean, this whole universe thing is quite a miracle. Where did that come from? Something put it there. And I'm confident I saw a male figure standing in my living room the other day when no one was home... I barely thought twice about that miraculous vision. Through this grief, I've realized I need to believe in something. What has pulled me out of the darkness over the past week is the creation of faith. And when I say creation, I mean building something from relatively nothing.
Prior to this tragedy, religion was a part of my identity, rather than a belief system. Unlike so many, I was not pushed to put my faith in a God with a certain name. I was raised with an awareness of the stories but a choice to follow whatever path I was called towards. And to be honest, being raised in a house with mixed messages probably didn't help guide me one way or another. As I watched some friends follow their prescribed religions somewhat blindly (in my opinion, at the time), I became rather cynical about faith in general. It was kind of a dirty word. That being said, I was incredibly active in my Jewish youth group, to the extent of being an international chairwoman. Judaism gave me a social network, leadership training, the knowledge of a cool language not many people can read and write, and a sense of identity. But faith? Not so much. I have always been one of those people who says, "I'm not religious, I'm spiritual." But really, I wasn't that spiritual either.
Now, as I've been pushed to my emotional edge: raw, bleeding, and hopeless – one of the primary elements that's pulled me through is faith (the other main element is love). Faith in what? I'm not sure yet. I'm open to it all at this point. In fact, I've been reading about a book a day. Some are about quantum physics, a scientific methodology that explains 'the theory of everything'. Some are about reincarnation, samsara, past lives and future lives. Some are about the power of love. Some are about spirits and mediums. Some are about New Age mysticism like Kabbalah, the Jewish ancient wisdom that 'reveals how the universe and life work'. Some are about yogic philosophy. Some are poetry. Some are about miracles. Some are about Christian methodology. But what they all have in common is having hope and faith in something bigger than just this thing we call life – what we can see, touch, and be aware of through our five senses. I've been given the courage to choose to believe in the unknown.
In the past I've thought faith was blind – a blanket statement that I'd say I subscribed to. Now, I still believe faith CAN be blind. If we believe in the stories in the Bible verbatim and follow the words we are told without question, I maintain that those choices are blind and uneducated. But if faith is built through study, through questioning, through being able to have an open mind, and not say "I'm right, and you're wrong," I now believe faith is quite courageous. It's not easy to stand up for your faith in this world, I felt that today at my lunch!
I told my therapist this past week, "I wish I'd had a strong sense of faith instilled in my life. At least I'd have something to turn to now." She told me, "Yes, that would be easier. But now you have to build one. That is much harder but very beautiful." It will be a beautiful process. It already is.
I've opened to stillness. I've put down the remote control. I've turned off Instagram and Words With Friends. I've picked up the decision to learn. I've decided that what I thought was "right" is not necessarily "right". I've come to terms with the hard knowledge that I may never really "know". But, I have choosen to have faith in a few unknowns. I choose to believe that there is a truth beyond death. I choose to believe that I will see you again in some form. I choose to believe that you are still a witness to my life in some way. And I choose to continue my belief in miracles, no matter how bleak life looks.
"Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love. They are performed by those who temporarily have more for those who temporarily have less."
– A Course in Miracles
Acts of Kindess
I had the best in you. Through our relationship, I went on a deep expedition of self-discovery. You were a launching pad for the unknown. You encouraged me to leap, with the promise that you'd be there to catch me with open arms when I came down. When I look back and examine the time we spent together, I am overwhelmed by all of the lessons you taught me in such a short period of time. One of them was the importance of generosity.
I remember early on in our relationship you told me of an investment you were making in a friend's restaurant business. You had faith in the project, but more-so, you had a deep love for the friend. You wanted to make his dreams a possibility and knew that you had the opportunity to help by being a financial benefactor. Investing in your friends gave you great joy. It wasn't about making money in the long end; you were never a shrewd businessman by any means. The few times that you came on as an benefactor for various projects, you told me verbatim: "I think of it as a contribution, not an investment. If the money comes back, great. If not, that's totally fine too." The money for the restaurant investment did come back to you. Just a few months before your death, you received a check in the mail and told me about the return with a big smile on your face. I knew the smile wasn't because of the money being back in your bank account, it was simply that the cycle was complete. You had helped and you felt rewarded because your generosity was not forgotten.
When I turned thirty this past summer, I decided to begin the new decade of my life by completing thirty acts of kindness. I hadn't come up with the idea myself or taken it from the web – I had borrowed it from you. On your thirty-third, you had set out to do thirty three acts of generosity. You had shared some of those acts at different points throughout our relationship. One day, we'd be walking through the park, and you'd joke, "I handed out Bead For Life to people in this park on my thirty-third birthday. Even the vagrants LOVE those necklaces!" We'd be walking down Pearl Street, and you'd say, "I handed out Drunken Hearts CDs here on my thirty-third. You'd be surprised at how many people are still psyched about free music!" It was truly inspiring.
So on my thirtieth, I followed your lead and did thirty acts of kindness. When I think about why I set out to complete the tasks, I don't think it was entirely honest. I wanted to give back, sure. I wanted to feel in my body and spirit what I could tell you had felt when you'd completed your acts. And also, I wanted to distract myself from the milestone birthday that was looming. Maybe I could take the attention off of myself turning thirty if I did something for others instead.
After we took a yoga class together that morning, I began my acts. Some were as simple as smiling at a stranger or complimenting someone aloud when I usually would just do it in my mind. I gave a rose to a policeman and thanked him for his service. Even though his expression told me he thought I was a weird hippie, his body language was appreciative. I picked up trash I saw along the road, like we would always do at Burning Man, but in the real world instead. I wrote you a love letter and left it on on your bathroom sink for you see when you woke up. I left my favorite book, Shantaram, on a park bench with a note for a stranger, "I hope you enjoy this adventure as much as I did!" I handed out socks and peanut butter to the transients in the street and learned how thankful and also how picky some of the Boulder homeless are. I donated copies of the magazines I work for to the library. I gave a bone to a street dog. I left a lottery ticket on someone's car door. I stuck post-it-notes with messages of kindness on windshields. I sent my best friend a snail mail card. I broke the law and paid people's expired parking meters. After listening to NPR for free for years and years, I finally donated. I refrained from gossip all day. It was easier than I expected. In that moment, I realized since that I'd been with you I had both matured and become a kinder person – gossip no longer came naturally (though, maybe that's a side-effect of being in my thirties).
Later in the day, after nearly all my tasks were complete and after a sushi lunch (of course), you joined me to do the final few together. We held up a "Free Hugs" sign and offered embraces to those on the street. We stopped at Conscious Alliance and donated canned foods. We took flowers to a nursing home and asked them to be delivered to someone who hadn't received any in a long time. We went to a school for children with autism, took a short tour, learned about their program, and donated a basketball for the kids to play with. We went to a coffeeshop drive-through and got dirty chai's for ourselves and paid for whatever the person in the car behind us wanted as well.
The most challenging stop for us both was the hospital. On that day in July, we found the children's ward and left crayons and coloring books for sick kids. It took us a while to find a staff member, the floor was thankfully, quite empty. But wandering around and seeing the beds with cartoon wallpaper and kid-sized hospital apparatuses was heart-wrenching. We thought of Kevin's nephew, Bennett who struggles with an incurable disease. We thought of other friends, Lyndsey and Josh, who had recently struggled with a premature birth and near-death of their baby girl. We thought of little Jane. The nurse who accepted my donation had tears in her eyes. We embraced one another and cried in the elevator on the way out. Right then, we prayed together that our children would never have to stay in a hospital. They wouldn't, because little did I know at the time, I would visit that same hospital again less than six months later on the worst night of my life – the night you died.
When I had woken up that morning on July 23rd – the first day of my thirties – I had been in tears. I was flooded with self pity. I remember feeling sorry for myself and thinking about all of the things I hadn't accomplished yet. I was unmarried. I was not a mother. I could see the beginning of the decline of my metabolism. My belly wasn't as flat as it was in my twenties. I whined to you, "Next thing you know I'll be covered in stretch marks, cellulite, and I'll be all dried up. You'll need to replace me for a younger model before we even get started!" Without a hint of sarcasm or recognition of my shallowness, you lovingly told me how ridiculous I was being. But I was consumed with ego and distress because of numbers on the calendar.
By the end of the day, in some ways, I had blossomed. Through reaching out to others and being benevolent, I was able to get out of my own way. I'd gone from self-involved to self-sacrificing. It was because of your spirit that on that day, and especially over the course of our relationship, I became a better woman. You taught me to be generous with my self: physically, emotionally, and spiritually. You taught me about human purpose – on how generosity can reap change on an individual level which in effect will change lives on a global scale.
From what I know of you, your generosity came naturally. Giving was the only option. Selflessness was paramount. For me, it's a harder task. Sometimes, I find self-preservation and ego to be my initial routes of actuality. But with your affection, philosophy, and gentle teaching – you elevated my intrinsic kindness. You changed me. You made me become more at ease by being friendly instead of defensive, by trusting. You deterred me from gluttony and impatience and carved out a more beautiful path of altruism. This is just my story. I see the effects of your generosity continuing to spill over both those you touched directly, and more. You are an alchemist.
I remember early on in our relationship you told me of an investment you were making in a friend's restaurant business. You had faith in the project, but more-so, you had a deep love for the friend. You wanted to make his dreams a possibility and knew that you had the opportunity to help by being a financial benefactor. Investing in your friends gave you great joy. It wasn't about making money in the long end; you were never a shrewd businessman by any means. The few times that you came on as an benefactor for various projects, you told me verbatim: "I think of it as a contribution, not an investment. If the money comes back, great. If not, that's totally fine too." The money for the restaurant investment did come back to you. Just a few months before your death, you received a check in the mail and told me about the return with a big smile on your face. I knew the smile wasn't because of the money being back in your bank account, it was simply that the cycle was complete. You had helped and you felt rewarded because your generosity was not forgotten.
When I turned thirty this past summer, I decided to begin the new decade of my life by completing thirty acts of kindness. I hadn't come up with the idea myself or taken it from the web – I had borrowed it from you. On your thirty-third, you had set out to do thirty three acts of generosity. You had shared some of those acts at different points throughout our relationship. One day, we'd be walking through the park, and you'd joke, "I handed out Bead For Life to people in this park on my thirty-third birthday. Even the vagrants LOVE those necklaces!" We'd be walking down Pearl Street, and you'd say, "I handed out Drunken Hearts CDs here on my thirty-third. You'd be surprised at how many people are still psyched about free music!" It was truly inspiring.
So on my thirtieth, I followed your lead and did thirty acts of kindness. When I think about why I set out to complete the tasks, I don't think it was entirely honest. I wanted to give back, sure. I wanted to feel in my body and spirit what I could tell you had felt when you'd completed your acts. And also, I wanted to distract myself from the milestone birthday that was looming. Maybe I could take the attention off of myself turning thirty if I did something for others instead.
After we took a yoga class together that morning, I began my acts. Some were as simple as smiling at a stranger or complimenting someone aloud when I usually would just do it in my mind. I gave a rose to a policeman and thanked him for his service. Even though his expression told me he thought I was a weird hippie, his body language was appreciative. I picked up trash I saw along the road, like we would always do at Burning Man, but in the real world instead. I wrote you a love letter and left it on on your bathroom sink for you see when you woke up. I left my favorite book, Shantaram, on a park bench with a note for a stranger, "I hope you enjoy this adventure as much as I did!" I handed out socks and peanut butter to the transients in the street and learned how thankful and also how picky some of the Boulder homeless are. I donated copies of the magazines I work for to the library. I gave a bone to a street dog. I left a lottery ticket on someone's car door. I stuck post-it-notes with messages of kindness on windshields. I sent my best friend a snail mail card. I broke the law and paid people's expired parking meters. After listening to NPR for free for years and years, I finally donated. I refrained from gossip all day. It was easier than I expected. In that moment, I realized since that I'd been with you I had both matured and become a kinder person – gossip no longer came naturally (though, maybe that's a side-effect of being in my thirties).
Later in the day, after nearly all my tasks were complete and after a sushi lunch (of course), you joined me to do the final few together. We held up a "Free Hugs" sign and offered embraces to those on the street. We stopped at Conscious Alliance and donated canned foods. We took flowers to a nursing home and asked them to be delivered to someone who hadn't received any in a long time. We went to a school for children with autism, took a short tour, learned about their program, and donated a basketball for the kids to play with. We went to a coffeeshop drive-through and got dirty chai's for ourselves and paid for whatever the person in the car behind us wanted as well.
The most challenging stop for us both was the hospital. On that day in July, we found the children's ward and left crayons and coloring books for sick kids. It took us a while to find a staff member, the floor was thankfully, quite empty. But wandering around and seeing the beds with cartoon wallpaper and kid-sized hospital apparatuses was heart-wrenching. We thought of Kevin's nephew, Bennett who struggles with an incurable disease. We thought of other friends, Lyndsey and Josh, who had recently struggled with a premature birth and near-death of their baby girl. We thought of little Jane. The nurse who accepted my donation had tears in her eyes. We embraced one another and cried in the elevator on the way out. Right then, we prayed together that our children would never have to stay in a hospital. They wouldn't, because little did I know at the time, I would visit that same hospital again less than six months later on the worst night of my life – the night you died.
When I had woken up that morning on July 23rd – the first day of my thirties – I had been in tears. I was flooded with self pity. I remember feeling sorry for myself and thinking about all of the things I hadn't accomplished yet. I was unmarried. I was not a mother. I could see the beginning of the decline of my metabolism. My belly wasn't as flat as it was in my twenties. I whined to you, "Next thing you know I'll be covered in stretch marks, cellulite, and I'll be all dried up. You'll need to replace me for a younger model before we even get started!" Without a hint of sarcasm or recognition of my shallowness, you lovingly told me how ridiculous I was being. But I was consumed with ego and distress because of numbers on the calendar.
By the end of the day, in some ways, I had blossomed. Through reaching out to others and being benevolent, I was able to get out of my own way. I'd gone from self-involved to self-sacrificing. It was because of your spirit that on that day, and especially over the course of our relationship, I became a better woman. You taught me to be generous with my self: physically, emotionally, and spiritually. You taught me about human purpose – on how generosity can reap change on an individual level which in effect will change lives on a global scale.
From what I know of you, your generosity came naturally. Giving was the only option. Selflessness was paramount. For me, it's a harder task. Sometimes, I find self-preservation and ego to be my initial routes of actuality. But with your affection, philosophy, and gentle teaching – you elevated my intrinsic kindness. You changed me. You made me become more at ease by being friendly instead of defensive, by trusting. You deterred me from gluttony and impatience and carved out a more beautiful path of altruism. This is just my story. I see the effects of your generosity continuing to spill over both those you touched directly, and more. You are an alchemist.
Fallen Queen
We were so in love.
Our hearts exploded all over one another like stars scattered across the Milky Way. I kissed every inch of your body. I ran my fingers through every strand of your hair and I sucked on each one of your toes. Your tongue discovered every wet place of mine that had never been reached. You even pressed it to my wisdom teeth and while you licked you siphoned poetry into my soul. You made me come alive with your touch. Your hand fit into mine like the latched lock on a buried treasure on the bottom of the sea. When clasped, our hands had a priceless secret between them. A knowing. A truth.
You made me feel like a princess. No, you made me feel like the queen. The queen of the universe. A universe where peace reigns and freedom is the only option. Where marching soldiers shoot arrows of compassion. A universe in which broken hearts don't exist because there is only love. Where tears aren't recognized as sadness because they only come from laughter. Where a child never dies. Where every woman is beautiful and every breast is a perfect handful. Where the soundtrack is the cry of passion and everyone wants to hear it. Where all cities are like New York in the sixties. Where every day is a good hair day. Where every photo is a keeper. Where tumors cause longer eyelashes and smaller pores. Where every family lives in a luxurious home with heated floors and everybody has a swimming pool with a slide. Where sleep arrives effortlessly and only puppies and kittens snore. Where the band is always awesome. Where the coffee is always hot, but not so hot you burn your mouth. Where goldfish have the memory of elephants. Where the vegetables grow from real seeds and you don't have to kill an animal to eat meat. Where the dress always makes my ass look fantastic. Where the biggest argument is over who pays the bill, but there – everyone actually wants to pay. Where babies always sleep through the night. Where bouquets of flowers in vases keep living infinitely. Where farts are always funny and never smell. Where everyone likes to dance. Where every game is won by the underdog. Where no one ever has to be alone and even if you want to be – the space will still give you a hug. Where the good guys always finish first. You made me the queen of that universe.
When we were together, our souls shot out of our fingertips like magic from a wizard's wand and connected like two beams of lightning. We became one. The wrinkles around our eyes grew deeper because all we did was smile. We could have powered all the energy needed for the world with our laughs, magic, and rainbows. Our love caused mountains to grow taller. The peaks swelled up from the earth with the Heavens as their magnet and gravity as a forgotten foe. When I was sad you would rock me like a baby in the arms of my mother. And then everything was perfect. We were learning how to fly.
And then we fell. And then you evaporated. And then I crashed. We wanted to make love in the moonlight but instead, it fucked us. You died in the moonlight. When the executioner slaughtered that day's sun it took you with it. The darkness was supposed to be our dance floor and it ended up being a cemetery. And our bedroom is the morgue. Now our memories don't even rob my dreams instead they are drained from my brain like innocence from a child. You disappear into stardust or sawdust or nothing… I don't know.
I am bound. I'm trapped in this world because I believe if I take my life I won't get to go to the same place as you. I'll be captive on the wrong side of a one-way glass window. And I'm too scared to leave. And I don't really want to. I just want you back.
I want you back so we can press our hands into wet concrete and leave an impression for the future. I want you back so when I do my yoga, I can reach for your outstretched fingers instead of a box of tissue. I want you back so I can hold your sisters in a hug of love rather than needing them as a brace to hold me up from crumpling onto the floor as my knees give out. I want you back so we can talk to your mother on Bluetooth while we're driving through the mountains. I want to hear her smile on the other side of the line call you Bubs and you call her Mud. I want to hand her a grandchild in a polka-dotted blanket that looks half like you, half like me, and one-hundred percent like an angel. I want to watch you play catch in the front yard with our little boy and not know who is actually the kid because you will always be my Peter Pan.
Now I imagine sixty more years of life with my head looking backwards over my shoulder remembering the time I carried pixie dust. Dreaming of the treasure I once had, the man I got to touch every night and was supposed to still be touching. At what was supposed to be. I imagine trading in our castle in the sky for a windowless, basement studio apartment with dingy carpet and yellowed, linoleum countertops. I imagine a future of boredom and faithlessness. A future of stumbling steps because I'm too busy straining my eyes at what once was. I imagine kissless love and touchless nights. I imagine sex that's governed by ovulation dates and once in a while maybe too much tequila. I imagine divorce. I imagine searching for a time machine so I can go back to the day before that night. I imagine looking for God in everything and never being able to find him. Hidden beneath my clothes, I imagine scratching the skin off my bones and ripping my nails out of their beds just to try to feel pain worse than loosing you. But it never comes.
And then someday I'll die. Alone. And disappear into stardust or sawdust or nothing… I don't know.
Our hearts exploded all over one another like stars scattered across the Milky Way. I kissed every inch of your body. I ran my fingers through every strand of your hair and I sucked on each one of your toes. Your tongue discovered every wet place of mine that had never been reached. You even pressed it to my wisdom teeth and while you licked you siphoned poetry into my soul. You made me come alive with your touch. Your hand fit into mine like the latched lock on a buried treasure on the bottom of the sea. When clasped, our hands had a priceless secret between them. A knowing. A truth.
You made me feel like a princess. No, you made me feel like the queen. The queen of the universe. A universe where peace reigns and freedom is the only option. Where marching soldiers shoot arrows of compassion. A universe in which broken hearts don't exist because there is only love. Where tears aren't recognized as sadness because they only come from laughter. Where a child never dies. Where every woman is beautiful and every breast is a perfect handful. Where the soundtrack is the cry of passion and everyone wants to hear it. Where all cities are like New York in the sixties. Where every day is a good hair day. Where every photo is a keeper. Where tumors cause longer eyelashes and smaller pores. Where every family lives in a luxurious home with heated floors and everybody has a swimming pool with a slide. Where sleep arrives effortlessly and only puppies and kittens snore. Where the band is always awesome. Where the coffee is always hot, but not so hot you burn your mouth. Where goldfish have the memory of elephants. Where the vegetables grow from real seeds and you don't have to kill an animal to eat meat. Where the dress always makes my ass look fantastic. Where the biggest argument is over who pays the bill, but there – everyone actually wants to pay. Where babies always sleep through the night. Where bouquets of flowers in vases keep living infinitely. Where farts are always funny and never smell. Where everyone likes to dance. Where every game is won by the underdog. Where no one ever has to be alone and even if you want to be – the space will still give you a hug. Where the good guys always finish first. You made me the queen of that universe.
When we were together, our souls shot out of our fingertips like magic from a wizard's wand and connected like two beams of lightning. We became one. The wrinkles around our eyes grew deeper because all we did was smile. We could have powered all the energy needed for the world with our laughs, magic, and rainbows. Our love caused mountains to grow taller. The peaks swelled up from the earth with the Heavens as their magnet and gravity as a forgotten foe. When I was sad you would rock me like a baby in the arms of my mother. And then everything was perfect. We were learning how to fly.
And then we fell. And then you evaporated. And then I crashed. We wanted to make love in the moonlight but instead, it fucked us. You died in the moonlight. When the executioner slaughtered that day's sun it took you with it. The darkness was supposed to be our dance floor and it ended up being a cemetery. And our bedroom is the morgue. Now our memories don't even rob my dreams instead they are drained from my brain like innocence from a child. You disappear into stardust or sawdust or nothing… I don't know.
I am bound. I'm trapped in this world because I believe if I take my life I won't get to go to the same place as you. I'll be captive on the wrong side of a one-way glass window. And I'm too scared to leave. And I don't really want to. I just want you back.
I want you back so we can press our hands into wet concrete and leave an impression for the future. I want you back so when I do my yoga, I can reach for your outstretched fingers instead of a box of tissue. I want you back so I can hold your sisters in a hug of love rather than needing them as a brace to hold me up from crumpling onto the floor as my knees give out. I want you back so we can talk to your mother on Bluetooth while we're driving through the mountains. I want to hear her smile on the other side of the line call you Bubs and you call her Mud. I want to hand her a grandchild in a polka-dotted blanket that looks half like you, half like me, and one-hundred percent like an angel. I want to watch you play catch in the front yard with our little boy and not know who is actually the kid because you will always be my Peter Pan.
Now I imagine sixty more years of life with my head looking backwards over my shoulder remembering the time I carried pixie dust. Dreaming of the treasure I once had, the man I got to touch every night and was supposed to still be touching. At what was supposed to be. I imagine trading in our castle in the sky for a windowless, basement studio apartment with dingy carpet and yellowed, linoleum countertops. I imagine a future of boredom and faithlessness. A future of stumbling steps because I'm too busy straining my eyes at what once was. I imagine kissless love and touchless nights. I imagine sex that's governed by ovulation dates and once in a while maybe too much tequila. I imagine divorce. I imagine searching for a time machine so I can go back to the day before that night. I imagine looking for God in everything and never being able to find him. Hidden beneath my clothes, I imagine scratching the skin off my bones and ripping my nails out of their beds just to try to feel pain worse than loosing you. But it never comes.
And then someday I'll die. Alone. And disappear into stardust or sawdust or nothing… I don't know.
In Line
I'm sitting on the airplane flying over the Atlantic back to the USA. I think you are hanging around me on this flight. I was watching a movie. It was one we planned to see together because it stars one of my distant cousins and is his first Hollywood hit. While everyone else's TV worked flawlessly, mine had a complete mind of it's own. It kept stopping and starting and flipping to different movies and entertainment options. The mouse would appear on the screen and flail all around, even though I was not interacting with it. They restarted it twice and it kept doing the same thing, the flight attendant was quite puzzled. Then a bit later it worked just fine. Maybe it's just a coincidence. Or maybe it's not. But the thought that it was not made me happy. So I decided to choose happiness.
But then, just moments after the movie stopped it's games and I settled into the plot, a woman who was walking down the aisle to the bathroom grabbed onto the attendant in front of her as her face turned white. In mere seconds, she passed out, falling backwards and slamming her head on an armrest beside me. This is seriously happening right now? I thought to myself as my blood pressure skyrocketed. The woman remained still on the floor as panic ensued through the cabin. The pilot got on the loudspeaker and requested the aid of a doctor. One arrived on the scene before I even had time to react. There are over forty rows on this flight and three sections of seats, and this happened next to my chair. This is the third time someone has passed out near me since you died. Prior to that it had happened once, and I was nine. I sobbed openly as the woman was revived and given orange juice to help her blood sugar. The young girl next to me stared at my reaction. "I think she's fine," she told me, calmly. "Yes, I know. I'm sorry. I have some anxiety regarding this sort of thing," I said. "Oh yeah, I hate flying too!" she said. I nodded, but thought, 'That's not it. I don't mind flying... Come to think of it, I also don't mind crashing.'
One minute I choose to happy and believe you're beside me, the next minute fear and trauma erupt through my body. It's crazy how quickly things can go from high to low. Grief is more potent of a drug than anything I've ever experienced.
The lows are low… and so are the highs. But the fluctuation between the lowest of the lows and the highest of the lows are vast. I am a sticky sponge of emotion. What is around me sinks into my being. The way things land in my being is as impressionable as a fourteen-year-old girl craving popularity.
When I am involved in enlightened conversation or embodying my yoga, rooted in wisdom but open to higher consciousness, I feel connected, hopeful, and faithful. When I am around conflict, whether it's a lover's quarrel or a traffic jam, I am absorbent to that discord. I feel disconnected, nervous, and critical. When I listen to music, the mood and lyrics consume me. I can be uplifted or forlorn. When I stay in the moment, just this breath, I can make it to the next. When I open up the limits of my vision to encompass the greater future – the next inhale is a hiccup of fear.
Yesterday, I felt more lost than I have been yet. I couldn't see any light, anywhere. I recognize that feelings of futile despair are a part of this process. I did not volunteer for any of this. I did not imagine it in my worst nightmare. I don't know how to cope most of the time. The way I felt yesterday shows me that sometimes I will crawl under the dark blanket of depression, that bleak hiding place is now one of my homes. But it's not my only home. I will not let it be.
I think of the woman you loved. Me. I remind myself of what you loved about me. You loved my ambition. When I set a goal, I'm committed to it. You loved my vulnerability. I dive in headfirst and with open arms. You loved my sensitivity. I cry at half of the commercials on TV. You loved my reliability. I call when I say I'll call, no games. Although, to be honest, you could generally always rely on me to be ten minutes late. You loved my passion. Nothing more needs to be said there. You loved my empathy. We always were on the same wavelength, but when we occasionally weren't, we would communicate in the same nurturing language. We never got in a single argument, not even once. You loved my kindness. I always wanted you to be happier than you could dream. You loved my mind. You once told me you thought I was smarter than you. I disagree, but thank you. You loved my spirit. Neither of us had ever been able to have so much fun with just one other person. From the moment we awoke to falling asleep in one another's arms, it was always, ALWAYS fun.
When I am struggling, I have to remind myself of the woman you loved. I have to allow myself to realize that I am still her. I have said that you are my other half – and I believe it. But you wouldn't have fallen in love with me unless you thought I was whole, on my own. I will have faith in your investment of love.
This past August, we went to Burning Man for our second year together. Our summer had been nonstop. We had been at six music festival in the two-or-so months prior to the Burn. To be honest, we were burnt out (pun intended) before even getting to the Playa. You had been in the studio recording an album the weekend before we were to drive to BRC. I had flown to Reno on Saturday morning alone to gear up. Unlike the previous year, when you had pretty much organized everything, this year I took the lead. I secured the RV. I playa-proofed it – covering all the floors in plastic, window seals in painter's tape, and vents in air filters. I did all the shopping for the week and packed the fridge full. I stocked the bar. I organized costumes, clothes, toiletries, and put fresh batteries in all the EL wire and lights. I had the RV ready to go when I picked you up from the airport on Sunday night.
On our way into Black Rock City I was at the wheel while you slept on the couch of the RV. We had passed through the gates and were on the dirt road. We were so close! It was about 2:30 am. We would be at camp by 4am. Traffic slowed to a crawl as the wind and dust kicked up. The crawl turned to a stop. We creeped forward over the next hour and a half, only making it about a half mile closer to the gate. Then it started to rain. Rain on the Playa is not good at all. The earth is made of a thick dust that turns to a cement-like clay when wet. If the cars were to continue driving, they would get stuck as if in hard concrete. They closed the gate. Anyone on the dirt road, like us, was told to put our vehicles in park and stay tuned for more information.
This sort of announcement does not go over well for an anxious Type-A personality, like me. Wide-eyed and revved-up behind the wheel, I listened to BRC Radio as they replayed the same announcement over and over for another hour. You remained peacefully asleep. I had awoken you to tell you the news, but you simply said, "We'll get in when we get in. This is what the Universe is delivering to us." "But like, whennnn will we get in?" I responded. "In time, babe," you muttered as you drifted back to sleep. You dreamt. I paced around the RV. I went for a walk in the clay and chatted with the other Type-As in neighboring vehicles. "When do you think they'll open the gates?" we all asked one another as it continued to rain. "I mean, they can't just like, make us sit here all night and into the day… can they?" we continued. It eventually stopped raining. I sat in the driver's seat of the RV and literally, impatiently watched the earth dry. You slept, peacefully. It started to rain again.
When you woke up eventually (OK so maybe I woke you up…) you continued to persuade me that this was simply how it was supposed to be. "The Universe is delivering this to us, babe. We have been going nonstop all summer. We are being forced to just stop, just be, and wait – without knowing what's next," you told me, poetically. If I knew we would be sitting in that same spot, 100 cars from the entrance to the city for sixteen total hours, maybe I would have relaxed. But instead, for sixteen hours, I nagged like a child on a road trip, "Whennnnnn?" But no matter how many people we asked, no one knew when! It was a matter of time. You could settle into time's uncertainty. But I fought it.
Looking back at our time on the Playa this past year, those sixteen hours in line were the most fun I had the whole time. That is, in retrospect. Maybe if I'd simply learned to unleash into the uncertainty, I could have seen the fun of the situation in the moment. Twenty-thousand anxious, amazing Burners were waiting to get into the biggest celebration in the world. Why did I feel the need to be through the gate and in the city when the whole population was surrounding me? The biggest party on the Playa was happening in line and I couldn't even see it. But you could. DJs unpacked their gear and set up on the roofs of neighboring RVs. The bass started to thump before the sun even came up. We popped open champagne before breakfast. I changed from normal Earth clothing into Burning Man clothing as soon as the sun warmed up the air. As I got drunk, I still focused on watching the puddles dry. "That puddle seems smaller now, don't you think?" I'd ask. I had chosen one puddle near our RV as a 'measuring device'. You kept laughing at me. You didn't care about the size of the puddle. You tried to share your perspective with me, but I couldn't get it. I couldn't accept what the Universe had offered.
We wandered the line. You carried a smile. I carried a bottle of champagne. We adventured. We did yoga on the hot roof of our RV. I almost fell off while handstanding drunk. We danced to the music that vibrated the clay floor. We ran into old friends in line. We made up our own card game. We made new friends. We spoke with a pair of young sisters who were nine and eleven years old. It was their forth Burn. They told us that they were the most authentic versions of themselves at Burning Man. They had feathers in their hair and paint on their faces. They said they were allowed to actually be kids on the Playa because it's where everyone comes to be a kid again. They shared their innocent souls and beautiful smiles with us. We all did cartwheels together on the wet earth. You lit up and connected. I tried, but the lingering question of when the gate would open haunted the back of my mind, preventing me from truly being in the experience of living in the moment.
The Playa dried and we got into the city at about 6:00 pm., fourteen hours later than our expected arrival. I didn't actually 'arrive' until days later. I was too stuck.
In some ways, I am always stuck. Stuck in the future. Stuck in the past. Stuck with uncertainty. Stuck with impatience. Stuck in the high. Stuck in the low. Stuck in love. Stuck in fear. Stuck in place. Stuck in no place.
Despite the harrowing darkness that this time brings, the impending bouts of depression and loneliness, I commit to not staying stuck. The woman you loved would not stay stuck. She would rally. She would learn. She would grow. She would fight. She would love in whatever way she could muster love. When life deals me a shitty hand, I commit to working through it. When my permeable spirit takes a nose dive, I commit to getting unstuck – to removing myself from the place of darkness and stepping into something that gives me an ounce of peace. I will do this for you. And I will do this for me.
But then, just moments after the movie stopped it's games and I settled into the plot, a woman who was walking down the aisle to the bathroom grabbed onto the attendant in front of her as her face turned white. In mere seconds, she passed out, falling backwards and slamming her head on an armrest beside me. This is seriously happening right now? I thought to myself as my blood pressure skyrocketed. The woman remained still on the floor as panic ensued through the cabin. The pilot got on the loudspeaker and requested the aid of a doctor. One arrived on the scene before I even had time to react. There are over forty rows on this flight and three sections of seats, and this happened next to my chair. This is the third time someone has passed out near me since you died. Prior to that it had happened once, and I was nine. I sobbed openly as the woman was revived and given orange juice to help her blood sugar. The young girl next to me stared at my reaction. "I think she's fine," she told me, calmly. "Yes, I know. I'm sorry. I have some anxiety regarding this sort of thing," I said. "Oh yeah, I hate flying too!" she said. I nodded, but thought, 'That's not it. I don't mind flying... Come to think of it, I also don't mind crashing.'
One minute I choose to happy and believe you're beside me, the next minute fear and trauma erupt through my body. It's crazy how quickly things can go from high to low. Grief is more potent of a drug than anything I've ever experienced.
The lows are low… and so are the highs. But the fluctuation between the lowest of the lows and the highest of the lows are vast. I am a sticky sponge of emotion. What is around me sinks into my being. The way things land in my being is as impressionable as a fourteen-year-old girl craving popularity.
When I am involved in enlightened conversation or embodying my yoga, rooted in wisdom but open to higher consciousness, I feel connected, hopeful, and faithful. When I am around conflict, whether it's a lover's quarrel or a traffic jam, I am absorbent to that discord. I feel disconnected, nervous, and critical. When I listen to music, the mood and lyrics consume me. I can be uplifted or forlorn. When I stay in the moment, just this breath, I can make it to the next. When I open up the limits of my vision to encompass the greater future – the next inhale is a hiccup of fear.
Yesterday, I felt more lost than I have been yet. I couldn't see any light, anywhere. I recognize that feelings of futile despair are a part of this process. I did not volunteer for any of this. I did not imagine it in my worst nightmare. I don't know how to cope most of the time. The way I felt yesterday shows me that sometimes I will crawl under the dark blanket of depression, that bleak hiding place is now one of my homes. But it's not my only home. I will not let it be.
I think of the woman you loved. Me. I remind myself of what you loved about me. You loved my ambition. When I set a goal, I'm committed to it. You loved my vulnerability. I dive in headfirst and with open arms. You loved my sensitivity. I cry at half of the commercials on TV. You loved my reliability. I call when I say I'll call, no games. Although, to be honest, you could generally always rely on me to be ten minutes late. You loved my passion. Nothing more needs to be said there. You loved my empathy. We always were on the same wavelength, but when we occasionally weren't, we would communicate in the same nurturing language. We never got in a single argument, not even once. You loved my kindness. I always wanted you to be happier than you could dream. You loved my mind. You once told me you thought I was smarter than you. I disagree, but thank you. You loved my spirit. Neither of us had ever been able to have so much fun with just one other person. From the moment we awoke to falling asleep in one another's arms, it was always, ALWAYS fun.
When I am struggling, I have to remind myself of the woman you loved. I have to allow myself to realize that I am still her. I have said that you are my other half – and I believe it. But you wouldn't have fallen in love with me unless you thought I was whole, on my own. I will have faith in your investment of love.
This past August, we went to Burning Man for our second year together. Our summer had been nonstop. We had been at six music festival in the two-or-so months prior to the Burn. To be honest, we were burnt out (pun intended) before even getting to the Playa. You had been in the studio recording an album the weekend before we were to drive to BRC. I had flown to Reno on Saturday morning alone to gear up. Unlike the previous year, when you had pretty much organized everything, this year I took the lead. I secured the RV. I playa-proofed it – covering all the floors in plastic, window seals in painter's tape, and vents in air filters. I did all the shopping for the week and packed the fridge full. I stocked the bar. I organized costumes, clothes, toiletries, and put fresh batteries in all the EL wire and lights. I had the RV ready to go when I picked you up from the airport on Sunday night.
On our way into Black Rock City I was at the wheel while you slept on the couch of the RV. We had passed through the gates and were on the dirt road. We were so close! It was about 2:30 am. We would be at camp by 4am. Traffic slowed to a crawl as the wind and dust kicked up. The crawl turned to a stop. We creeped forward over the next hour and a half, only making it about a half mile closer to the gate. Then it started to rain. Rain on the Playa is not good at all. The earth is made of a thick dust that turns to a cement-like clay when wet. If the cars were to continue driving, they would get stuck as if in hard concrete. They closed the gate. Anyone on the dirt road, like us, was told to put our vehicles in park and stay tuned for more information.
This sort of announcement does not go over well for an anxious Type-A personality, like me. Wide-eyed and revved-up behind the wheel, I listened to BRC Radio as they replayed the same announcement over and over for another hour. You remained peacefully asleep. I had awoken you to tell you the news, but you simply said, "We'll get in when we get in. This is what the Universe is delivering to us." "But like, whennnn will we get in?" I responded. "In time, babe," you muttered as you drifted back to sleep. You dreamt. I paced around the RV. I went for a walk in the clay and chatted with the other Type-As in neighboring vehicles. "When do you think they'll open the gates?" we all asked one another as it continued to rain. "I mean, they can't just like, make us sit here all night and into the day… can they?" we continued. It eventually stopped raining. I sat in the driver's seat of the RV and literally, impatiently watched the earth dry. You slept, peacefully. It started to rain again.
When you woke up eventually (OK so maybe I woke you up…) you continued to persuade me that this was simply how it was supposed to be. "The Universe is delivering this to us, babe. We have been going nonstop all summer. We are being forced to just stop, just be, and wait – without knowing what's next," you told me, poetically. If I knew we would be sitting in that same spot, 100 cars from the entrance to the city for sixteen total hours, maybe I would have relaxed. But instead, for sixteen hours, I nagged like a child on a road trip, "Whennnnnn?" But no matter how many people we asked, no one knew when! It was a matter of time. You could settle into time's uncertainty. But I fought it.
Looking back at our time on the Playa this past year, those sixteen hours in line were the most fun I had the whole time. That is, in retrospect. Maybe if I'd simply learned to unleash into the uncertainty, I could have seen the fun of the situation in the moment. Twenty-thousand anxious, amazing Burners were waiting to get into the biggest celebration in the world. Why did I feel the need to be through the gate and in the city when the whole population was surrounding me? The biggest party on the Playa was happening in line and I couldn't even see it. But you could. DJs unpacked their gear and set up on the roofs of neighboring RVs. The bass started to thump before the sun even came up. We popped open champagne before breakfast. I changed from normal Earth clothing into Burning Man clothing as soon as the sun warmed up the air. As I got drunk, I still focused on watching the puddles dry. "That puddle seems smaller now, don't you think?" I'd ask. I had chosen one puddle near our RV as a 'measuring device'. You kept laughing at me. You didn't care about the size of the puddle. You tried to share your perspective with me, but I couldn't get it. I couldn't accept what the Universe had offered.
We wandered the line. You carried a smile. I carried a bottle of champagne. We adventured. We did yoga on the hot roof of our RV. I almost fell off while handstanding drunk. We danced to the music that vibrated the clay floor. We ran into old friends in line. We made up our own card game. We made new friends. We spoke with a pair of young sisters who were nine and eleven years old. It was their forth Burn. They told us that they were the most authentic versions of themselves at Burning Man. They had feathers in their hair and paint on their faces. They said they were allowed to actually be kids on the Playa because it's where everyone comes to be a kid again. They shared their innocent souls and beautiful smiles with us. We all did cartwheels together on the wet earth. You lit up and connected. I tried, but the lingering question of when the gate would open haunted the back of my mind, preventing me from truly being in the experience of living in the moment.
The Playa dried and we got into the city at about 6:00 pm., fourteen hours later than our expected arrival. I didn't actually 'arrive' until days later. I was too stuck.
In some ways, I am always stuck. Stuck in the future. Stuck in the past. Stuck with uncertainty. Stuck with impatience. Stuck in the high. Stuck in the low. Stuck in love. Stuck in fear. Stuck in place. Stuck in no place.
Despite the harrowing darkness that this time brings, the impending bouts of depression and loneliness, I commit to not staying stuck. The woman you loved would not stay stuck. She would rally. She would learn. She would grow. She would fight. She would love in whatever way she could muster love. When life deals me a shitty hand, I commit to working through it. When my permeable spirit takes a nose dive, I commit to getting unstuck – to removing myself from the place of darkness and stepping into something that gives me an ounce of peace. I will do this for you. And I will do this for me.
Love Waves
I believe that love hits space like radio waves.
The love of my parents is one frequency. They have a respectful and passionate love. It's a love that I've looked up to as an inspiration my whole life. They are patient and always considerate of one another. My dad tells my mother constantly that she gets more and more beautiful each day. He writes her love poems with rubber stamps and she decorates the mirror above her dresser with the collection. She has never once told him that he is a nauseating driver, she simply lets it be and trusts that she will arrive with her stomach whole. He gives her honest feedback about what he thinks of her outfits. She never lets him win at cards. They are supportive and active parents, working together to nurture children who treat themselves and others with respect and kindness. Their love is long-lasting, over thirty years and still growing. I imagine that my parents frequency of love soars high in the sky. It beams through the heavens alongside of other great loves.
Each partnership forms a distinct love wave. The love of my best friend, Aliyah, and her husband, Ben, is one. They are grounded in their love, they have much in common and are honest best friends to one another. The love of Natalia and Jaime is another frequency – a fresh love that is driven by spiritual growth and the throws of passion. The love of Lena and Corey is another. Their love began in middle school and continues to morph as they discover themselves – a love vested in common values, family, and tradition.
There are billions of different frequencies of love that broadcast through space with various rates. Some loves are high up in the heavens. Maybe these are the loves of great poets, spiritual love, and loves that are immortal. Maybe they are simply loves that just got it right. There are the loves that run closer to the earth, lower waves of love. Maybe these are animal partnerships, like two swans that mate for life because of evolution and survival. Maybe it's violent love that is not rooted in understanding, but instead in control. Maybe it's love between a girl with a broken heart and her dog, who has been there with her through it all because of an unexplainable bond and also a nylon leash.
The waves aren't necessarily a constant line. They can pulse, like an EKG reading if the relationship is tumultuous or driven by passion. They can angle up, like positive growth on the Cartesian Plane, if the love grows. They can fade off, like the hush at the end of a whisper, if the love dies.
I have tested my theory and discovered many of the waves of love I've cast out into the universe: some lower frequencies, mid-range frequencies, perhaps lustful higher frequencies that quickly disintegrate. But, I have only truly known physical love: such as the love that exists between a man and a woman, a woman and a woman who are also lovers, a pair of close friends, a boy and his pet. I have known love that dies – sometimes to a halting finish, sometimes to a low-level hush. I have known love that grows – like a bond that is no longer romantic love but turns to a stronger connection in a platonic status, or a friendship that through trauma and pain changes into something more inescapably connected. I have known high frequency love – our love.
While I can't compare our love wave to other great loves (and don't want to), I know it was the strongest love I have felt. It was full acceptance. It was patience. It was excitement. It was trust. It was encouragement. It was devotion. It was growth. It was passion. But all of these words and emotions I use to describe our love exist mainly in physical-form. For instance, I can't trust you now in the way that I did when you were alive. I can't experience passion with you now, unfortunately. How can I encourage you, when I don't know what I'm encouraging or if I'm encouraging anything at all.
Where does the wave go when the man dies but the love doesn't?
Does it rise up? Does it descend? Does it disappear slowly? Is it already gone? Am I foolishly chasing imaginary stardust? Does it become divine love? Are you whizzing around my head like a hell-bent fly as my a guardian angel? Does it become universal love? Am I opening up to the love of nature and what is, because of what is no longer? I don't know.
I do know that no love wave is the same. I will never rebuild what we had. While I hope it is still there, beaming through the heavens as an example for others, I know I will never feel it in this body again. It has changed with grief. It has altered as it's been transferred to the unconscious. But what we had when you were alive will be there as a guide for me someday – when I decide I want to love again or when someone decides they want to love me and I let it in. But our wave of love is irreplaceable and unique, and I desperately miss it more and more with each of sorrowful breath.
The love of my parents is one frequency. They have a respectful and passionate love. It's a love that I've looked up to as an inspiration my whole life. They are patient and always considerate of one another. My dad tells my mother constantly that she gets more and more beautiful each day. He writes her love poems with rubber stamps and she decorates the mirror above her dresser with the collection. She has never once told him that he is a nauseating driver, she simply lets it be and trusts that she will arrive with her stomach whole. He gives her honest feedback about what he thinks of her outfits. She never lets him win at cards. They are supportive and active parents, working together to nurture children who treat themselves and others with respect and kindness. Their love is long-lasting, over thirty years and still growing. I imagine that my parents frequency of love soars high in the sky. It beams through the heavens alongside of other great loves.
Each partnership forms a distinct love wave. The love of my best friend, Aliyah, and her husband, Ben, is one. They are grounded in their love, they have much in common and are honest best friends to one another. The love of Natalia and Jaime is another frequency – a fresh love that is driven by spiritual growth and the throws of passion. The love of Lena and Corey is another. Their love began in middle school and continues to morph as they discover themselves – a love vested in common values, family, and tradition.
There are billions of different frequencies of love that broadcast through space with various rates. Some loves are high up in the heavens. Maybe these are the loves of great poets, spiritual love, and loves that are immortal. Maybe they are simply loves that just got it right. There are the loves that run closer to the earth, lower waves of love. Maybe these are animal partnerships, like two swans that mate for life because of evolution and survival. Maybe it's violent love that is not rooted in understanding, but instead in control. Maybe it's love between a girl with a broken heart and her dog, who has been there with her through it all because of an unexplainable bond and also a nylon leash.
The waves aren't necessarily a constant line. They can pulse, like an EKG reading if the relationship is tumultuous or driven by passion. They can angle up, like positive growth on the Cartesian Plane, if the love grows. They can fade off, like the hush at the end of a whisper, if the love dies.
I have tested my theory and discovered many of the waves of love I've cast out into the universe: some lower frequencies, mid-range frequencies, perhaps lustful higher frequencies that quickly disintegrate. But, I have only truly known physical love: such as the love that exists between a man and a woman, a woman and a woman who are also lovers, a pair of close friends, a boy and his pet. I have known love that dies – sometimes to a halting finish, sometimes to a low-level hush. I have known love that grows – like a bond that is no longer romantic love but turns to a stronger connection in a platonic status, or a friendship that through trauma and pain changes into something more inescapably connected. I have known high frequency love – our love.
While I can't compare our love wave to other great loves (and don't want to), I know it was the strongest love I have felt. It was full acceptance. It was patience. It was excitement. It was trust. It was encouragement. It was devotion. It was growth. It was passion. But all of these words and emotions I use to describe our love exist mainly in physical-form. For instance, I can't trust you now in the way that I did when you were alive. I can't experience passion with you now, unfortunately. How can I encourage you, when I don't know what I'm encouraging or if I'm encouraging anything at all.
Where does the wave go when the man dies but the love doesn't?
Does it rise up? Does it descend? Does it disappear slowly? Is it already gone? Am I foolishly chasing imaginary stardust? Does it become divine love? Are you whizzing around my head like a hell-bent fly as my a guardian angel? Does it become universal love? Am I opening up to the love of nature and what is, because of what is no longer? I don't know.
I do know that no love wave is the same. I will never rebuild what we had. While I hope it is still there, beaming through the heavens as an example for others, I know I will never feel it in this body again. It has changed with grief. It has altered as it's been transferred to the unconscious. But what we had when you were alive will be there as a guide for me someday – when I decide I want to love again or when someone decides they want to love me and I let it in. But our wave of love is irreplaceable and unique, and I desperately miss it more and more with each of sorrowful breath.
Labyrinth
This past year at Burning Man, Kevin, you, and I took a ride out to Deep Playa. We were searching for nothing and everything at the same time. We had no plan, which was your favorite way to journey. Far away from the lights and bass of the city, almost to the trash fence, we stumbled upon a labyrinth carved into the earth. It was camouflaged, a facade amongst the clay earth. We headed to the entrance of the maze and began to walk.
The network of paths was narrow and we moved forward in a single file line. At first we moved in silence, one foot in front of the other, moving slowly. Then, we began to talk about unique experiences of our own life-wanderings. We shared, we laughed, we cried, and we walked within the web for a long time.
The labyrinth's network was unclear. We couldn't tell where we were in the system – at times we'd laugh and ask, "Are we even halfway through this?" The mid-point was unrecognizable from our place in the midst of the web. "Is this the beginning, middle or end?" I would ask, impatiently. "It doesn't matter," you would respond, "It could be anything." We continued on our pilgrimage.
Do we ever really know the end from the beginning? What I thought was the beginning for us, turned out to be our last day together. And yet, maybe that terrible night was just the beginning, or maybe a dot within the middle of our own odyssey together through consciousness.
As I sat on Natalia's patio for la comida (a leisurely lunch) this afternoon, the sound of the waves crashing on the shore blended in the distance with Nati's partner, Jaime's classical guitar melody. As I heard the sounds I felt a sense of clairaudience. You are here even in your absence. It's all connected. I suddenly knew. It's all one and the same. As clear as it is that you are not here, it is also clear that you are here.
I heard you in the soulful conversation at lunch. I heard the ideas that you loved to discuss. I heard the music that you loved to create. I saw something out of the corner of my eye and it reminded me of the dream I had last night where you appeared and we had a new adventure together. I saw you in the love of Nati and Jamie. They met not long after we did, but after Natalia told me she was inspired by our love. So, in some ways, we helped foster their love, and therefore, you are inside of them. And I felt it absolutely.
The morning after your death, as I clung to your Aunt Ginny's mattress, trying to ground myself and understand this new emotion – grief – my friend Amirah was the first person to arrive. Her face stained with tears and mind aghast at the tragedy, she simply held space for my devastation. She brought her baby, Sora, with her to the house. As she entered the bedroom, she apologized for bringing the baby. She hadn't been able to find someone to watch her on such short notice. I told her not to worry. I was glad Sora was there, but I didn't know why yet.
As Amirah sat with me, in essence she cradled both her baby and her friend. All of a sudden, Sora, with huge brown eyes of innocence, looked into my grief-stricken eyes and reached out towards me. She grabbed your necklace, which was on my neck. It was the necklace you wore beneath your shirt every day – a wrap that contained both sides of an ammonite nested within a alkaline dust of gold, silver, and burning man ash. It was the necklace that only a few hours before, in the hospital, I'd removed from your neck and placed on mine. The baby reached for the necklace, grasped it in her tiny hand, and looked into my eyes, and I gasped. "Ted is inside of Sora," I told Amirah, "I'm so glad you brought her." It was the first time I saw your spirit in something other than your physical self.
William Blake wrote:
To see a world in a grain of sand
And heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
We are all connected. You are here. You are in the ocean. You are in each grain of sand. You are in my voice. You are in the dog's tongue that kisses my cheek. You are in the conversation I'm having and the one the strangers down the beach are having too. You are in a star that makes up the farthest constellation away from this place. You are in your friends' rituals. You are in the love I offer to myself. You are in your mother's heartbeat.
Quantum physicist, Michael Talbot, who authored your favorite book, The Holographic Universe, says that the energy of a trillion atomic bombs is in every cubic centimeter of space. Space is not empty, as we often see. Instead, it is full. It is more dense than any other matter – a plenum as opposed to a vacuum. So when your soul ascended from your body that night and I watched your spirit leave its physical habitat, you became a part of the fabric of the universe. You became the light. You became time. You became space.
So I continue on my journey. What I thought was the beginning of our life was redefined by the Universe's lesson. Is it the beginning, the middle, or the end? It is all three. Am I alone or among all? I am both. I have learned that placing faith in the future is fruitless. I cannot trust the future – not even this very breath. Though expectations and plans are not entirely futile – they are an important exercise in patience and uncertainty.
For now, I walk with myself on this journey. Myself – which is the sum of everything I am and have been, all I've learned, all my memories, all I love, all I've touched – and I honor this very moment in my understanding of time, this very lesson in my own pilgrimage, and seize an openness to the connectedness of us all, you included, within this labyrinth of consciousness.
The network of paths was narrow and we moved forward in a single file line. At first we moved in silence, one foot in front of the other, moving slowly. Then, we began to talk about unique experiences of our own life-wanderings. We shared, we laughed, we cried, and we walked within the web for a long time.
The labyrinth's network was unclear. We couldn't tell where we were in the system – at times we'd laugh and ask, "Are we even halfway through this?" The mid-point was unrecognizable from our place in the midst of the web. "Is this the beginning, middle or end?" I would ask, impatiently. "It doesn't matter," you would respond, "It could be anything." We continued on our pilgrimage.
Do we ever really know the end from the beginning? What I thought was the beginning for us, turned out to be our last day together. And yet, maybe that terrible night was just the beginning, or maybe a dot within the middle of our own odyssey together through consciousness.
As I sat on Natalia's patio for la comida (a leisurely lunch) this afternoon, the sound of the waves crashing on the shore blended in the distance with Nati's partner, Jaime's classical guitar melody. As I heard the sounds I felt a sense of clairaudience. You are here even in your absence. It's all connected. I suddenly knew. It's all one and the same. As clear as it is that you are not here, it is also clear that you are here.
I heard you in the soulful conversation at lunch. I heard the ideas that you loved to discuss. I heard the music that you loved to create. I saw something out of the corner of my eye and it reminded me of the dream I had last night where you appeared and we had a new adventure together. I saw you in the love of Nati and Jamie. They met not long after we did, but after Natalia told me she was inspired by our love. So, in some ways, we helped foster their love, and therefore, you are inside of them. And I felt it absolutely.
The morning after your death, as I clung to your Aunt Ginny's mattress, trying to ground myself and understand this new emotion – grief – my friend Amirah was the first person to arrive. Her face stained with tears and mind aghast at the tragedy, she simply held space for my devastation. She brought her baby, Sora, with her to the house. As she entered the bedroom, she apologized for bringing the baby. She hadn't been able to find someone to watch her on such short notice. I told her not to worry. I was glad Sora was there, but I didn't know why yet.
As Amirah sat with me, in essence she cradled both her baby and her friend. All of a sudden, Sora, with huge brown eyes of innocence, looked into my grief-stricken eyes and reached out towards me. She grabbed your necklace, which was on my neck. It was the necklace you wore beneath your shirt every day – a wrap that contained both sides of an ammonite nested within a alkaline dust of gold, silver, and burning man ash. It was the necklace that only a few hours before, in the hospital, I'd removed from your neck and placed on mine. The baby reached for the necklace, grasped it in her tiny hand, and looked into my eyes, and I gasped. "Ted is inside of Sora," I told Amirah, "I'm so glad you brought her." It was the first time I saw your spirit in something other than your physical self.
William Blake wrote:
To see a world in a grain of sand
And heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
We are all connected. You are here. You are in the ocean. You are in each grain of sand. You are in my voice. You are in the dog's tongue that kisses my cheek. You are in the conversation I'm having and the one the strangers down the beach are having too. You are in a star that makes up the farthest constellation away from this place. You are in your friends' rituals. You are in the love I offer to myself. You are in your mother's heartbeat.
Quantum physicist, Michael Talbot, who authored your favorite book, The Holographic Universe, says that the energy of a trillion atomic bombs is in every cubic centimeter of space. Space is not empty, as we often see. Instead, it is full. It is more dense than any other matter – a plenum as opposed to a vacuum. So when your soul ascended from your body that night and I watched your spirit leave its physical habitat, you became a part of the fabric of the universe. You became the light. You became time. You became space.
So I continue on my journey. What I thought was the beginning of our life was redefined by the Universe's lesson. Is it the beginning, the middle, or the end? It is all three. Am I alone or among all? I am both. I have learned that placing faith in the future is fruitless. I cannot trust the future – not even this very breath. Though expectations and plans are not entirely futile – they are an important exercise in patience and uncertainty.
For now, I walk with myself on this journey. Myself – which is the sum of everything I am and have been, all I've learned, all my memories, all I love, all I've touched – and I honor this very moment in my understanding of time, this very lesson in my own pilgrimage, and seize an openness to the connectedness of us all, you included, within this labyrinth of consciousness.
Conscious Living
Today as I sat down for lunch at a restaurant in Boulder, I read a quote on the wall saying, "This Earth does not belong to us. We belong to this Earth." Though you may not reside on this planet in the flesh any longer, you nourished it while you were here – as though you were a respectful guest being mindful of someone's home.
On one of your first trips to Austin, we were in my kitchen making a snack. You asked if I had a napkin. I snagged a couple paper towels off the roll and handed them to you. You, without a word, gently ripped each paper towel in half, then you took one half, and ripped that in half – leaving a quarter of a paper towel for yourself. You sat the other remnants of towel back near the roll and joined me at the table. "Why did you do that?" I asked, thoughtlessly. "I just don't need a whole one, no sense in wasting," you said.
I thought of all the times I'd unrolled a clump of paper towels, even the ones claiming to be the most absorbent, just to wipe a spill of water off the counter. I thought of the napkins I'd grabbed from a restaurant, by the handfuls, and then carelessly trashed later when they went unused. I thought of the multitudes of ketchup packets I had never opened and then tossed into the garbage. I thought of so much waste I had created – stomping around this Earth two Carbon footprints at a time. And then I saw, you – thoughtful, conscious – taking the time to consider what you needed and how you could avoid waste.
When I got to your home in Boulder, first as a visitor and then eventually as a resident, I joined you in using cloth napkins at every meal. They weren't even just cloth napkins, they were squares of cotton that your ex-girlfriend had sewn from remnants, as to not waste unused fabric. They were sewn haphazardly and by no means a trendy item – but for day-to-day lunch and dinner, they were perfect. (And still are perfect.) My use of paper towels has dwindled down to a quarter here, a quarter there. When I wipe the counters, I use a cloth, never a paper product. I, learning from you, grab just a couple napkins when getting takeout, and then the ones that are unused, get put in the console of my car or in my purse for when the next need arises. And if it hadn't been for you, my love, I would still be piling paper into the trash.
Fast forward six months to when you and I arrived in Black Rock City for Burning Man. I was ready. My luggage overflowed with my Playa necessities: tutus, feathers, glitter, pasties, fishnets, steampunk garb, panties, and five pairs of boots. You also brought some necessities: an RV, EL-wire, headlamps, bikes, an electric scooter, jugs of water, first aid kits, camelbacks, water bottles, batteries, electrolytes, duct tape, oh... and food. They says Burning Man makes or breaks a relationship. Our time on the Playa made us closer than I've ever felt possible with another human. And outside of our duo, Burning Man let me see people from a whole new perspective: intrinsically GOOD. Every soul we met on the Playa was friendly and every soul we met on the Playa was conscious – they simply cared about the land, the values of the event and city, and the Earth.
In Burning-Man-speak, any trash is referred to as MOOP, or 'matter out of place'. As a part of the duty as a citizen of Black Rock City, they ask you to pick up MOOP when you see it laying around. Whether its a stray sequin, a tossed cup, or a pile of shit in Deep Playa, you take responsibility for it as if it were your own and aid to dispose of it properly. Ted, you did your due diligence. To this day, when I find any of your Playa gear, every pocket is stuffed with MOOP you cleaned up. I never once heard you bitch about other peoples trash. I never once saw an ounce of irritation as you stopped the scooter to dispose of an array of other Burners' tossed items. You simply did it because you were a conscious and kind man.
You are an example to the other sixty-five thousand citizens of BRC because you embody the elements that the city strives to set in place. You arrived to the city with care and packed-in what you thought necessary (and also not too much). You helped the camp organize our site and contributed to the art projects installed. You danced your face off, partied till sunrise, and lived large. You picked up other people's shit all along the way. You visited art, you climbed, you admired, you watched, and most importantly, you participated. You loved – you loved me, you loved your camp mates, and you loved every person you met along the way. You, in the midst of a city of over-stimulation, intoxication, and intensity – allowed yourself (and me) to stop, look around, be grateful, and stay conscious.
When I moved to Boulder we settled into a beautiful life together in this gorgeous home. A home you purchased because you wanted to be surrounded by nature. A home that allowed us to be somewhat off-the-grid – solar panels allowed us to sell electricity back to the city, well-water let us be mindful about quality and consumption, acreage allowed us privacy and interaction with wilderness, and the view allowed us intensely of sublime beauty. Again, my Ted, you were living as one with this Earth, in partnership. What you took, you paid back.
When we would get our weekly sushi delivery, you always remembered to tell the delivery man not to bring chopsticks and soy packets – we didn't need them. The average person, myself included, could easily forget that thoughtful action. When we bought food, you insisted on shopping locally – and beyond that, you wanted to purchase food and products that came from conscious companies. You read many articles on whether farm or wild fish was more humane, wanting to know all sides of the story and then make up your mind for yourself, and not because of hearsay. When we went to the store, you always remembered your bags. In fact, you also always remembered to put bags in my car too, so I would also have them.
When it came time to take out the recycling, my love, you labored over separating the glass from the plastic. You took the caps off of each glass bottle and disposed of them individually and properly. You stayed current on which clam shell containers were recyclable – lettuce containers: yes, but berry containers: no. When your band left after weekly Tuesday rehearsals, you went through the trash to make sure all of their beer cans were thrown away in the proper bin, and then, you woke up early to take out the trash and recycling. You made sure the bags were tied. You made sure the bags were secure in the trash cans. You made sure you didn't take them out too early, so animals would get to them first. And you never once asked Kevin or I to do it, until we started insisting.
And while, when I moved in with you, I finally had to give a firm "NO!" to single-ply recycled toilet paper, you gently helped me through the learning curve of living consciously. I thought I had been kind to the environment before I met you, but I realized the huge gap. Tossing my garbage into the one of the eight proper receptacles (?) at Whole Foods and attempting to distinguish trash from recycling is not all I can do. Because of you, I live with more regard for reduction of waste, consumption, and consideration for Earth, because we belong to it – it does not belong to us.
Now you've risen from this Earth into something larger. Just a few days ago, you came to your best friend Frenchy in a vision. You told him to ask you some questions. He, knowing you were dead, asked you "Is there a God?" You told him, with a quiet smile, "There is a a higher power larger than anything imaginable taking care of everything." I have no doubt you are right. And while there may be something holistically all-encompassing beyond this Earthly realm, while I am here on this planet, I will take care of it with consciousness and selflessness, as you strove to do everyday. I will not rely on others. I will not rely on something grander to take care of my shit. I will be responsible: for me, for the citizens of the world, for the Earth, and for you.
On one of your first trips to Austin, we were in my kitchen making a snack. You asked if I had a napkin. I snagged a couple paper towels off the roll and handed them to you. You, without a word, gently ripped each paper towel in half, then you took one half, and ripped that in half – leaving a quarter of a paper towel for yourself. You sat the other remnants of towel back near the roll and joined me at the table. "Why did you do that?" I asked, thoughtlessly. "I just don't need a whole one, no sense in wasting," you said.
I thought of all the times I'd unrolled a clump of paper towels, even the ones claiming to be the most absorbent, just to wipe a spill of water off the counter. I thought of the napkins I'd grabbed from a restaurant, by the handfuls, and then carelessly trashed later when they went unused. I thought of the multitudes of ketchup packets I had never opened and then tossed into the garbage. I thought of so much waste I had created – stomping around this Earth two Carbon footprints at a time. And then I saw, you – thoughtful, conscious – taking the time to consider what you needed and how you could avoid waste.
When I got to your home in Boulder, first as a visitor and then eventually as a resident, I joined you in using cloth napkins at every meal. They weren't even just cloth napkins, they were squares of cotton that your ex-girlfriend had sewn from remnants, as to not waste unused fabric. They were sewn haphazardly and by no means a trendy item – but for day-to-day lunch and dinner, they were perfect. (And still are perfect.) My use of paper towels has dwindled down to a quarter here, a quarter there. When I wipe the counters, I use a cloth, never a paper product. I, learning from you, grab just a couple napkins when getting takeout, and then the ones that are unused, get put in the console of my car or in my purse for when the next need arises. And if it hadn't been for you, my love, I would still be piling paper into the trash.
Fast forward six months to when you and I arrived in Black Rock City for Burning Man. I was ready. My luggage overflowed with my Playa necessities: tutus, feathers, glitter, pasties, fishnets, steampunk garb, panties, and five pairs of boots. You also brought some necessities: an RV, EL-wire, headlamps, bikes, an electric scooter, jugs of water, first aid kits, camelbacks, water bottles, batteries, electrolytes, duct tape, oh... and food. They says Burning Man makes or breaks a relationship. Our time on the Playa made us closer than I've ever felt possible with another human. And outside of our duo, Burning Man let me see people from a whole new perspective: intrinsically GOOD. Every soul we met on the Playa was friendly and every soul we met on the Playa was conscious – they simply cared about the land, the values of the event and city, and the Earth.
In Burning-Man-speak, any trash is referred to as MOOP, or 'matter out of place'. As a part of the duty as a citizen of Black Rock City, they ask you to pick up MOOP when you see it laying around. Whether its a stray sequin, a tossed cup, or a pile of shit in Deep Playa, you take responsibility for it as if it were your own and aid to dispose of it properly. Ted, you did your due diligence. To this day, when I find any of your Playa gear, every pocket is stuffed with MOOP you cleaned up. I never once heard you bitch about other peoples trash. I never once saw an ounce of irritation as you stopped the scooter to dispose of an array of other Burners' tossed items. You simply did it because you were a conscious and kind man.
You are an example to the other sixty-five thousand citizens of BRC because you embody the elements that the city strives to set in place. You arrived to the city with care and packed-in what you thought necessary (and also not too much). You helped the camp organize our site and contributed to the art projects installed. You danced your face off, partied till sunrise, and lived large. You picked up other people's shit all along the way. You visited art, you climbed, you admired, you watched, and most importantly, you participated. You loved – you loved me, you loved your camp mates, and you loved every person you met along the way. You, in the midst of a city of over-stimulation, intoxication, and intensity – allowed yourself (and me) to stop, look around, be grateful, and stay conscious.
When I moved to Boulder we settled into a beautiful life together in this gorgeous home. A home you purchased because you wanted to be surrounded by nature. A home that allowed us to be somewhat off-the-grid – solar panels allowed us to sell electricity back to the city, well-water let us be mindful about quality and consumption, acreage allowed us privacy and interaction with wilderness, and the view allowed us intensely of sublime beauty. Again, my Ted, you were living as one with this Earth, in partnership. What you took, you paid back.
When we would get our weekly sushi delivery, you always remembered to tell the delivery man not to bring chopsticks and soy packets – we didn't need them. The average person, myself included, could easily forget that thoughtful action. When we bought food, you insisted on shopping locally – and beyond that, you wanted to purchase food and products that came from conscious companies. You read many articles on whether farm or wild fish was more humane, wanting to know all sides of the story and then make up your mind for yourself, and not because of hearsay. When we went to the store, you always remembered your bags. In fact, you also always remembered to put bags in my car too, so I would also have them.
When it came time to take out the recycling, my love, you labored over separating the glass from the plastic. You took the caps off of each glass bottle and disposed of them individually and properly. You stayed current on which clam shell containers were recyclable – lettuce containers: yes, but berry containers: no. When your band left after weekly Tuesday rehearsals, you went through the trash to make sure all of their beer cans were thrown away in the proper bin, and then, you woke up early to take out the trash and recycling. You made sure the bags were tied. You made sure the bags were secure in the trash cans. You made sure you didn't take them out too early, so animals would get to them first. And you never once asked Kevin or I to do it, until we started insisting.
And while, when I moved in with you, I finally had to give a firm "NO!" to single-ply recycled toilet paper, you gently helped me through the learning curve of living consciously. I thought I had been kind to the environment before I met you, but I realized the huge gap. Tossing my garbage into the one of the eight proper receptacles (?) at Whole Foods and attempting to distinguish trash from recycling is not all I can do. Because of you, I live with more regard for reduction of waste, consumption, and consideration for Earth, because we belong to it – it does not belong to us.
Now you've risen from this Earth into something larger. Just a few days ago, you came to your best friend Frenchy in a vision. You told him to ask you some questions. He, knowing you were dead, asked you "Is there a God?" You told him, with a quiet smile, "There is a a higher power larger than anything imaginable taking care of everything." I have no doubt you are right. And while there may be something holistically all-encompassing beyond this Earthly realm, while I am here on this planet, I will take care of it with consciousness and selflessness, as you strove to do everyday. I will not rely on others. I will not rely on something grander to take care of my shit. I will be responsible: for me, for the citizens of the world, for the Earth, and for you.
Gracefully Patient
Patience has never been a virtue of mine. I have always found it difficult to live in the moment and enjoy spending life planning what's next. I have trouble staying focused on one thing and tend to multitask – often in front of multiple screens. For instance right now, I'm booking air travel, texting about yoga class, responding to email, drinking coffee, people watching, writing this, oh, and mourning intensely. You struggled with ADD as a student and continued to as an adult, but despite your diagnosis of lack of focus, I never met a man who was more patient.
When I spent my days with you, I woke up cheerful. I was excited about life.
Now, I wake up anxious. I wake up sad. I feel like a Peanut's cartoon character who walks around with a raincloud over her head all day. I see something out of place and get upset with whoever put it there. My father has been staying with Kevin and I in the house since you died. He's been giving me space and acting with nothing but love, but I am reactive and snappy towards him. I feel like I'm experiencing my worst case of PMS every day, all day. I can hardly stand to be around myself.
I think of the woman I was with you – the joyful woman who always had a positive outlook. That woman would not want to be around this woman. She might pity this woman. I want to be the me I was with you.
A few days ago, someone told me, "Sami, you are grace". The comment stopped me in my tracks. When I was a ten-year-old ballet dancer, my Mademoiselle told me the opposite. She said to me, "Sami you are just not graceful and you will never be". That insult stuck with me as a child and was a defining moment for me. I remember the exact place I was standing when she said it. I remember my black leotard. I remember the scent of rosin on the wood floor. I remember my pointe shoes carelessly laced around my ankles. I decided right then, in that moment, 'Since I am not graceful, instead I will be strong'. And so, I became strong. I left the possibility of embodying grace in the past. In fact, I decided that since I was absolutely not graceful, that I would name the little girl I hoped have someday, Grace. That way, someday, I could have grace.
So when this person told me that I am grace. I was taken aback. I took inventory – where could I possibly give the impression of being graceful right now? I'm a fucking mess! Maybe I appeared graceful in my yoga practice – my own dance of devotion, with strength meeting flexibility, a moving meditation? Maybe I appeared graceful in my moments of gentle strength throughout this mess: a broken woman trying to hold it together? A woman who in her best moments, only allows one tear to fall from the corner of her eye. Maybe in my writing I can sometimes appear graceful – when I'm able to string words together in a proper sentence with only a few grammatical liberties?
I'm not graceful when I'm screaming in my car, punching the steering wheel, red-faced and puffy with buckets of tears falling from my baggy eyes. That's not grace. I'm not graceful when I'm angry – angry at death, angry at life for being fleeting, angry at people for not having altered your fate, angry at myself for failure, even at times, angry at you for leaving. That's not grace. I'm not graceful when I frigid or needy towards others. When someone puts their hand on me and my mind screams, 'Don't fucking touch me!' or maybe when it screams, 'Oh! Please keep touching me.' That's not grace. I'm not graceful when my body is so confused by its lack of touch, that I try in vain to pleasure myself and end up sobbing into a pillow. That's not grace. I'm not graceful when I drive the hairpin turns up the hill to our home and before each turn think, 'Maybe I'll just keep going straight off the cliff instead'. That's not grace. That's not strength.
But you my love, you define grace. You were grace in every move: as a thinker, as a yogi, as a lover, as a driver, as a skier, as a musician, as a teacher, simply, as a man. You carried us in grace. And often, I carried us in strength. You carried us in patience. I carried us in movement. It was a great fit. We each carried the perfect amount of weight to even out the scale. We balanced one another out.
A testament to your beautiful virtue of patience and grace:
In our shower, my faucet tended to leak. Unless the handle was turned tightly, the head would drip constantly. I never remembered to crank the handle. Within a couple weeks of us moving in together, you said to me, "Hey baby, so in our shower, you need to crank the handle down or your faucet will drip." "Oh, OK! I'll remember," I told you. Over the course of the next six months, you reminded me at least forty times. Always with the same patience, the same tone, and never with an ounce of irritation, "Hey baby, so in our shower, you need to crank the handle down or your faucet will drip." "Argh! Yes!" I would remember. "Hey baby, soooo in our shower..." "Yes, yes yes! The drip," I'd say. Over and over and over and over.
One day, six months later, I stepped into the shower and my handle was wrapped in sparkly duct tape. You were trying a new technique. You realized the method you'd been implementing, verbal reminders, wasn't landing – so without being antagonizing, you tried a different method, a visual reminder. And that landed. And every day since, I've cranked the shower handle.
And now, in your absence, that sparkly duct tape is still there. It's a little 'Hello' from you every time I turn the water on and off. You reminded me for six months about that drip, without fail. And you, with your patience that matches none other, didn't place blame for my forgetfulness. You were gracious, thoughtful, and simply tried something new.
I love you for your patience, Teddy. I love you for your grace. I love you for your strength. And as I move through this grief process, when emotions arise – whether it be depression, tears, anger, desperation, or anything else – I'll remember your grace and your patience. I'll remember that now, in order to carry you on, I must embody you. Maybe in time I will have the steadfast patience that you so beautifully held. Maybe there will be brief moments when your grace shows through my being. And maybe someday, I will still have Grace.
When I spent my days with you, I woke up cheerful. I was excited about life.
Now, I wake up anxious. I wake up sad. I feel like a Peanut's cartoon character who walks around with a raincloud over her head all day. I see something out of place and get upset with whoever put it there. My father has been staying with Kevin and I in the house since you died. He's been giving me space and acting with nothing but love, but I am reactive and snappy towards him. I feel like I'm experiencing my worst case of PMS every day, all day. I can hardly stand to be around myself.
I think of the woman I was with you – the joyful woman who always had a positive outlook. That woman would not want to be around this woman. She might pity this woman. I want to be the me I was with you.
A few days ago, someone told me, "Sami, you are grace". The comment stopped me in my tracks. When I was a ten-year-old ballet dancer, my Mademoiselle told me the opposite. She said to me, "Sami you are just not graceful and you will never be". That insult stuck with me as a child and was a defining moment for me. I remember the exact place I was standing when she said it. I remember my black leotard. I remember the scent of rosin on the wood floor. I remember my pointe shoes carelessly laced around my ankles. I decided right then, in that moment, 'Since I am not graceful, instead I will be strong'. And so, I became strong. I left the possibility of embodying grace in the past. In fact, I decided that since I was absolutely not graceful, that I would name the little girl I hoped have someday, Grace. That way, someday, I could have grace.
So when this person told me that I am grace. I was taken aback. I took inventory – where could I possibly give the impression of being graceful right now? I'm a fucking mess! Maybe I appeared graceful in my yoga practice – my own dance of devotion, with strength meeting flexibility, a moving meditation? Maybe I appeared graceful in my moments of gentle strength throughout this mess: a broken woman trying to hold it together? A woman who in her best moments, only allows one tear to fall from the corner of her eye. Maybe in my writing I can sometimes appear graceful – when I'm able to string words together in a proper sentence with only a few grammatical liberties?
I'm not graceful when I'm screaming in my car, punching the steering wheel, red-faced and puffy with buckets of tears falling from my baggy eyes. That's not grace. I'm not graceful when I'm angry – angry at death, angry at life for being fleeting, angry at people for not having altered your fate, angry at myself for failure, even at times, angry at you for leaving. That's not grace. I'm not graceful when I frigid or needy towards others. When someone puts their hand on me and my mind screams, 'Don't fucking touch me!' or maybe when it screams, 'Oh! Please keep touching me.' That's not grace. I'm not graceful when my body is so confused by its lack of touch, that I try in vain to pleasure myself and end up sobbing into a pillow. That's not grace. I'm not graceful when I drive the hairpin turns up the hill to our home and before each turn think, 'Maybe I'll just keep going straight off the cliff instead'. That's not grace. That's not strength.
But you my love, you define grace. You were grace in every move: as a thinker, as a yogi, as a lover, as a driver, as a skier, as a musician, as a teacher, simply, as a man. You carried us in grace. And often, I carried us in strength. You carried us in patience. I carried us in movement. It was a great fit. We each carried the perfect amount of weight to even out the scale. We balanced one another out.
A testament to your beautiful virtue of patience and grace:
In our shower, my faucet tended to leak. Unless the handle was turned tightly, the head would drip constantly. I never remembered to crank the handle. Within a couple weeks of us moving in together, you said to me, "Hey baby, so in our shower, you need to crank the handle down or your faucet will drip." "Oh, OK! I'll remember," I told you. Over the course of the next six months, you reminded me at least forty times. Always with the same patience, the same tone, and never with an ounce of irritation, "Hey baby, so in our shower, you need to crank the handle down or your faucet will drip." "Argh! Yes!" I would remember. "Hey baby, soooo in our shower..." "Yes, yes yes! The drip," I'd say. Over and over and over and over.
One day, six months later, I stepped into the shower and my handle was wrapped in sparkly duct tape. You were trying a new technique. You realized the method you'd been implementing, verbal reminders, wasn't landing – so without being antagonizing, you tried a different method, a visual reminder. And that landed. And every day since, I've cranked the shower handle.
And now, in your absence, that sparkly duct tape is still there. It's a little 'Hello' from you every time I turn the water on and off. You reminded me for six months about that drip, without fail. And you, with your patience that matches none other, didn't place blame for my forgetfulness. You were gracious, thoughtful, and simply tried something new.
I love you for your patience, Teddy. I love you for your grace. I love you for your strength. And as I move through this grief process, when emotions arise – whether it be depression, tears, anger, desperation, or anything else – I'll remember your grace and your patience. I'll remember that now, in order to carry you on, I must embody you. Maybe in time I will have the steadfast patience that you so beautifully held. Maybe there will be brief moments when your grace shows through my being. And maybe someday, I will still have Grace.
Victim
When the small talk dies down, the room gets quiet, and the stimulation of being in nature wears off, I am hit with the reality of your death over and over and over and over. It's a reverse nightmare. When I wake – whether from sleep or distraction – I remember that the worst of any terror doesn't even begin to explain this truth. You are gone. My best friend, my lover, my soul mate, my philosopher, my buddy, my role model, my comedian, my teacher, my fiancé... is gone.
I've tried to stay busy over the past couple weeks. I've made a goal for myself to do one thing every day. I have committed to saying "yes" when good friends who are in-the-know ask me to do something. I can't make a decision for the life of me, but I can join the crowd. It's not easy, but I've managed to stay busy, stay healthy, and stay active in a yin way – long walks, hikes, and yoga. The amount of people who have reached out to me via social media, text, and phone has been overwhelming, and while I haven't had time to thank everyone individually, I am appreciative. Your parents, sisters and extended relatives, who are dealing with their own immeasurable amount of grief that I can't even begin to comprehend, have treated me with pure love and truly as family. I have also had the beautiful benefit of having wonderful friends and family arrive in Boulder with plans to take me somewhere, to nurture me, to do my dishes, laundry, pull me off the floor, and simply to be there as a shoulder to cry on. In the support realm, I have been blessed.
But no matter the amount of support, it doesn't purge the suffering. The grief process is unleashing itself in agonizing and unmapped ways.
In some moments – in nature, good music, during a heartfelt conversation, or when I'm writing to you – I feel somewhat strong. I feel like I might even thrive some day. There's always an underlying haze of sadness that doesn't let up – but mostly in those moments, I feel like you live on – in the nature, in the music, in the story, or in the words. But the times of strength are few and far between; I'm thwarted by their opposite.
A hiccup occurs, it's my reverse nightmare. I remember all over again what has happened. The trauma of the actual circumstance that night – your last words, the sudden shaking of your body, your eyes rolling back into your skull, your unresponsiveness when I tried to hold your hand, the panic of calling 911, the sixteen-minutes of trying to bring you back without success, the sirens, the flashing lights, your lack of pulse, the EMTs drilling holes in you and shocking your heart, Kira licking your face with concern, the ambulance, the emergency room, the guttural and unrecognizable sounds of my own wailing when they told me you were gone, shaking and kissing your lifeless body, laying on the gurney with 'you' for hours screaming and pleading for you to come back... the torture floods back like a ricochet of images from a flip book from hell.
I've refused to watch a horror movie since my teens. I avoided them because I get scared easily and didn't want to contend with the horrid circumstances they etched in my imagination. So instead, life decided to be a cunt and deliver one to me directly – front row seat, set in my own basement, participation required, and worst of all, a harrowing end. I can't get the scene out of my head – no matter how many good people are surrounding me, no matter how much I walk in nature, no matter how loud I turn up the music, and no matter how often I pour my words out to you through sobs or writing.
I like to think I've been doing a lot of work on myself, particularly for about the past four years. Yoga trainings, practice, reading philosophy, personal growth forums, surrounding myself with healthy and smart people, and then meeting you. You were the trophy for the woman I'd become. You made me a better person. The fact that a man with a soul, mind, and body as beautiful as yours fell in love with me was a testament to my dedication, or so I thought.
One thing I've really tried to master is not victimizing myself. It's a narcissistic behavior to think that happenstance occurs because of the self. But this situation has been really hard to navigate with a commanding, 'This has nothing to do with me,' attitude. Really fucking hard. Because this tragedy has ripped my life and future to bloody shreds, not to mention, the life and future of other people who love you too. But I feel like the Universe has played a cruel joke on me.
The woman I was when I was with you is struggling. She's confronting some big demons that she thought she'd left in the dust. The pure joy, love, and belief that she trusted has been derailed. Now, she's irritable and mournful. She doesn't live with pure faith. She's suspicious. She's melancholy and sarcastic about life's misgivings. She's not a woman I like to be around.
We come in and out of life alone. But along the way, we cross paths with extraordinary people. Ted, you were more than just extraordinary. You were a beacon of truth. You were a radiating example of the existence of true love. At the risk of sounding like a victim, I got teased by true love. It was dangled in front of me, I sucked on its sweetness, I tasted its lusciousness, and then, once addicted to it, to you, to your coddling love – it was ripped away. Now, I'm left alone – wanton, dry, barren, and lost.
No matter how much I coax myself to be strong, the truth of matter is that you are gone. I will not see your face ever again. I will never be able to kiss your lips. I will never hear your laugh. I will never hear you ask me, "Will you marry me?" I will never touch your soft skin. I will never be able to see you as a father. I will never be able to wake up with you. I will never hold your hand again. I will never again hear your words of wisdom. I will never be able to steal bites of food from your plate. I will never be able to impress you with a dirty joke. I will never be able to hold your hand during svasana again. And worst of all, I will never love the way I have loved with you. I was taunted with the pinnacle of love. The best love. I was given a gift that most people never get to experience. I was given a love that was glorious and absolute. And at the risk of being greedy, I want it back.
I've tried to stay busy over the past couple weeks. I've made a goal for myself to do one thing every day. I have committed to saying "yes" when good friends who are in-the-know ask me to do something. I can't make a decision for the life of me, but I can join the crowd. It's not easy, but I've managed to stay busy, stay healthy, and stay active in a yin way – long walks, hikes, and yoga. The amount of people who have reached out to me via social media, text, and phone has been overwhelming, and while I haven't had time to thank everyone individually, I am appreciative. Your parents, sisters and extended relatives, who are dealing with their own immeasurable amount of grief that I can't even begin to comprehend, have treated me with pure love and truly as family. I have also had the beautiful benefit of having wonderful friends and family arrive in Boulder with plans to take me somewhere, to nurture me, to do my dishes, laundry, pull me off the floor, and simply to be there as a shoulder to cry on. In the support realm, I have been blessed.
But no matter the amount of support, it doesn't purge the suffering. The grief process is unleashing itself in agonizing and unmapped ways.
In some moments – in nature, good music, during a heartfelt conversation, or when I'm writing to you – I feel somewhat strong. I feel like I might even thrive some day. There's always an underlying haze of sadness that doesn't let up – but mostly in those moments, I feel like you live on – in the nature, in the music, in the story, or in the words. But the times of strength are few and far between; I'm thwarted by their opposite.
A hiccup occurs, it's my reverse nightmare. I remember all over again what has happened. The trauma of the actual circumstance that night – your last words, the sudden shaking of your body, your eyes rolling back into your skull, your unresponsiveness when I tried to hold your hand, the panic of calling 911, the sixteen-minutes of trying to bring you back without success, the sirens, the flashing lights, your lack of pulse, the EMTs drilling holes in you and shocking your heart, Kira licking your face with concern, the ambulance, the emergency room, the guttural and unrecognizable sounds of my own wailing when they told me you were gone, shaking and kissing your lifeless body, laying on the gurney with 'you' for hours screaming and pleading for you to come back... the torture floods back like a ricochet of images from a flip book from hell.
I've refused to watch a horror movie since my teens. I avoided them because I get scared easily and didn't want to contend with the horrid circumstances they etched in my imagination. So instead, life decided to be a cunt and deliver one to me directly – front row seat, set in my own basement, participation required, and worst of all, a harrowing end. I can't get the scene out of my head – no matter how many good people are surrounding me, no matter how much I walk in nature, no matter how loud I turn up the music, and no matter how often I pour my words out to you through sobs or writing.
I like to think I've been doing a lot of work on myself, particularly for about the past four years. Yoga trainings, practice, reading philosophy, personal growth forums, surrounding myself with healthy and smart people, and then meeting you. You were the trophy for the woman I'd become. You made me a better person. The fact that a man with a soul, mind, and body as beautiful as yours fell in love with me was a testament to my dedication, or so I thought.
One thing I've really tried to master is not victimizing myself. It's a narcissistic behavior to think that happenstance occurs because of the self. But this situation has been really hard to navigate with a commanding, 'This has nothing to do with me,' attitude. Really fucking hard. Because this tragedy has ripped my life and future to bloody shreds, not to mention, the life and future of other people who love you too. But I feel like the Universe has played a cruel joke on me.
The woman I was when I was with you is struggling. She's confronting some big demons that she thought she'd left in the dust. The pure joy, love, and belief that she trusted has been derailed. Now, she's irritable and mournful. She doesn't live with pure faith. She's suspicious. She's melancholy and sarcastic about life's misgivings. She's not a woman I like to be around.
We come in and out of life alone. But along the way, we cross paths with extraordinary people. Ted, you were more than just extraordinary. You were a beacon of truth. You were a radiating example of the existence of true love. At the risk of sounding like a victim, I got teased by true love. It was dangled in front of me, I sucked on its sweetness, I tasted its lusciousness, and then, once addicted to it, to you, to your coddling love – it was ripped away. Now, I'm left alone – wanton, dry, barren, and lost.
No matter how much I coax myself to be strong, the truth of matter is that you are gone. I will not see your face ever again. I will never be able to kiss your lips. I will never hear your laugh. I will never hear you ask me, "Will you marry me?" I will never touch your soft skin. I will never be able to see you as a father. I will never be able to wake up with you. I will never hold your hand again. I will never again hear your words of wisdom. I will never be able to steal bites of food from your plate. I will never be able to impress you with a dirty joke. I will never be able to hold your hand during svasana again. And worst of all, I will never love the way I have loved with you. I was taunted with the pinnacle of love. The best love. I was given a gift that most people never get to experience. I was given a love that was glorious and absolute. And at the risk of being greedy, I want it back.
Grey
We left Steamboat early this morning to make our way back to Boulder – hugs, goodbyes, gifts, and coffee passed around. Minutes before loading into the car, a bear was spotted in our host's backyard. It wandered down a path and onto a neighboring green from the golf course behind their property. I swallowed a hiccup of hope as I watched the animal. I see you in nature.
I took two long walks yesterday. I wasn't motivated to move at all yesterday, but eventually I did. I wanted to curl up in a ball and wither away, tattered in sadness. I can literally feel pain in my heart, since you left. It aches constantly, ricocheting storm clouds of depression through my being. I have been fortunate in my life to have never been taunted by depression before now. In fact, I think have been insensitive to the struggle that it creates due to my naivety. But now, I can recognize its symptoms as they start to settle in. I hear the infomercials calling my name.
Just a few weeks ago, I was the happiest I had ever been. If we had been colors in a box of crayons we would have been a shockingly bright purple and its complimentary lemon-lime. We were creating drawings unlike anything anyone had ever seen – wild and and imaginative art. We were pissing people off with our neon accolades as we tore through life with love and color.
Then death showed up, took your crayon, and snapped mine in half with a 'fuck you'. The colors are gone, along with our dreams, brightness, and mostly, our togetherness. Now, I feel like a grey crayon. And not a pretty grey.
When we were making all the choices for our home renovation, you liked to poke fun at how often I would choose grey as a color palette. You'd laugh and say, "Grey?! What about a color?" I'd say, "But you know, like a pretty grey!" Your eyes would narrow with confusion and humor. We'd compromise and choose a color that would compliment the grey I so adored. Without you, I feel like a grey without its compliment. A grey that clashes with all the other colors. A grey that when children open the box of crayons, would be the last pick, "Ewwww, I don't want that one." The stray loser chosen last for the kickball team. Stranded, ugly, and colorless.
Despite the darkness that is cast over me, strangely, nature appears more beautiful than ever. Maybe it's because I have lost trust in what I thought was stable: people, life, and plans… but the bigness of this world and what's above it give me a sliver of hope. The moon rising over mountains, big and luminous, casting its silver glimmer on mountain peaks: it's sublime. The sunlight feels warmer than I've ever noticed, despite it being the middle of November. The mountains seem stronger, sturdier, and more majestic than before. My immediate world is bleak. Days pass like black and white, silent movies. But when I look into nature's eye, I see her magic. I see the hope that one day my pages will fill with color once again. I see you in nature. I can't really feel you and I can't really hear you, but I have faith that you live in her beauty. That you, like a master puppeteer, will be able to direct some sunlight towards my days, someday. While everything else around me is so shattered, what I thought was my future has turned into ashes, and my heart is broken – I see the stability in the Earth, the heavens, and the realms in between where I know you reside.
Last May, we traveled to South Africa for a wedding. We made the event into an opportunity to travel for a couple weeks. The story I want to tell happened at the very end of our two week trip. But at the beginning of our trip, on the way to Africa, another incident occurred that I will share first, because it's kind of funny and I've taken to embarrassing myself lately.
We boarded the plane in Denver, and you – always the mischievous dare-devil, handed me a Cheeba Chew before we went through security. A Cheeba Chew is medicated candy containing 70 mg of THC. You told me the candy would help my impending motion sickness, as I always get nauseas during air travel. You told me it would chill us out, make the long journey fun, and we'd be able to sleep deeply. I am incredibly sensitive to pot and don't partake very often, but you know what you're talking about, so I trusted you. My results were not as you described.
The paranoia kicked in as soon as I sat down on in my seat on the aisle. You sat in the middle, having claimed the aisle seat for our next flight, the international leg. The flight attendant ambled down the aisle, mindlessly collecting drink orders and distributing beverages and crackers. "Ted, I can't order my drink! She is going to know! Will you ask her for a water with no ice for me?" I whispered. My eyes were wide with fear. You belly laughed and said, "Don't worry, sweetie, you're fine. And yes, I'll get you your water." "Ted! I am so scared they aren't going to let us into South Africa," I whispered into your ear. "What, baby? I can't hear you," you responded. "The dogs will know we have pot in our systems," I whispered even more quietly. "Babe, it's legal in Colorado. We didn't do anything illegal. Plus, dogs aren't going to be able to smell oil inside of our bodies. Unconvinced, I said "I don't know, I think we are in trouble. I swear that flight attendant it looking at me weird." "I can't hear what you're saying, love," you replied, totally enjoying this. "I. Feel. Like. I'm. Screaming!" I replied, so quietly you could barely catch a syllable of what I was saying. I reached forward into the seat pocket and grabbed the motion sickness bag. My knuckles white and my belly uneasy, I sat in near stillness for the next two hours as we flew across the continental USA to our layover in Atlanta. You, barely phased by the candy, very sweetly tended to me and my dramatic hysteria. You held my hand, checked in with me, and rubbed my back as I squeezed my eyes shut and leaned onto your shoulder, frozen with fear and nausea. "You bit off more than you could chew," you said, always finding time for a pun.
By the time we arrived in Atlanta, the candy wore off. You got me some food and water, and soon enough I was back to myself again. The rest of our travel to Johannesburg was much less entertaining. We settled into our seats and enjoyed ten hours of on demand movies. We don't have cable at home, so TV is a bonus. Like giddy kids, we'd choose a movie together. Yes, we both would watch the same one, even though we had independent screens. We would choose our film and then say, "1. 2. 3. Go!" and hit play at the same time. Hand in hand, we'd watch the movie as we squirmed in the non-ergonomic coach seats with their three-inch recline. A few movies later, we arrived in South Africa. We cleared customs with no problem. Not a single dog pawed or growled at our bellies.
After a blissful couple weeks in South Africa, we spent our last day in the country in Capetown, before a redeye flight back home. We had saved a hike we wanted to take together for that last day. Table Mountain had been the recommended route, but we chose Lion's Head instead. It was less popular and just as scenic, offering a view of the whole city, harbor, and stretch of coast from the top. As the taxi dropped us at the start, near the top of Signal Hill, the clouds rolled in. We had been advised to start the hike early to avoid the overcast skies, but we'd decided that sleeping in and a relaxing morning was more important that day. So we had no one to blame but ourselves as the fog poured in from all sides.
We made our way up the gravel road, circling the peak. We chatted aimlessly and both decided the sky was going to open up, clear, and blue as soon as we reached the summit. The road turned into a single file, rocky path. One at a time, we continued on. We passed another small group of hikers, applauding ourselves for 'training at altitude' in Colorado. The 669 meter ascent wasn't affecting us much, and we continued to make our way up with nonstop conversation. We snapped photos of each other climbing up a section of steep rock that used chains and ladders and joked about how in the U.S.A. it would be a lawsuit. And after about 90-minutes, we climbed over the last rock, to the top of the peak. We couldn't see a thing.
Fog completely surrounded us. We literally could hardly make our each others faces standing two feet apart. We laughed and laughed, and decided that it didn't matter. We joked about stealing a photo from Google to show the view from the top. We sat down and added our names to a rock full of hearts and messages. You ate a Kind Bar. I fed some of it to a little bird that arrived and ate from my hand. We eventually left, and carefully made our way down the trek. The sun stayed behind the clouds all day.
When it was you and I surrounded by grey, it didn't matter, because we were together, and in our world, it was always colorful. Without you, the gray is cold, lonely, and ugly.
I took two long walks yesterday. I wasn't motivated to move at all yesterday, but eventually I did. I wanted to curl up in a ball and wither away, tattered in sadness. I can literally feel pain in my heart, since you left. It aches constantly, ricocheting storm clouds of depression through my being. I have been fortunate in my life to have never been taunted by depression before now. In fact, I think have been insensitive to the struggle that it creates due to my naivety. But now, I can recognize its symptoms as they start to settle in. I hear the infomercials calling my name.
Just a few weeks ago, I was the happiest I had ever been. If we had been colors in a box of crayons we would have been a shockingly bright purple and its complimentary lemon-lime. We were creating drawings unlike anything anyone had ever seen – wild and and imaginative art. We were pissing people off with our neon accolades as we tore through life with love and color.
Then death showed up, took your crayon, and snapped mine in half with a 'fuck you'. The colors are gone, along with our dreams, brightness, and mostly, our togetherness. Now, I feel like a grey crayon. And not a pretty grey.
When we were making all the choices for our home renovation, you liked to poke fun at how often I would choose grey as a color palette. You'd laugh and say, "Grey?! What about a color?" I'd say, "But you know, like a pretty grey!" Your eyes would narrow with confusion and humor. We'd compromise and choose a color that would compliment the grey I so adored. Without you, I feel like a grey without its compliment. A grey that clashes with all the other colors. A grey that when children open the box of crayons, would be the last pick, "Ewwww, I don't want that one." The stray loser chosen last for the kickball team. Stranded, ugly, and colorless.
Despite the darkness that is cast over me, strangely, nature appears more beautiful than ever. Maybe it's because I have lost trust in what I thought was stable: people, life, and plans… but the bigness of this world and what's above it give me a sliver of hope. The moon rising over mountains, big and luminous, casting its silver glimmer on mountain peaks: it's sublime. The sunlight feels warmer than I've ever noticed, despite it being the middle of November. The mountains seem stronger, sturdier, and more majestic than before. My immediate world is bleak. Days pass like black and white, silent movies. But when I look into nature's eye, I see her magic. I see the hope that one day my pages will fill with color once again. I see you in nature. I can't really feel you and I can't really hear you, but I have faith that you live in her beauty. That you, like a master puppeteer, will be able to direct some sunlight towards my days, someday. While everything else around me is so shattered, what I thought was my future has turned into ashes, and my heart is broken – I see the stability in the Earth, the heavens, and the realms in between where I know you reside.
Last May, we traveled to South Africa for a wedding. We made the event into an opportunity to travel for a couple weeks. The story I want to tell happened at the very end of our two week trip. But at the beginning of our trip, on the way to Africa, another incident occurred that I will share first, because it's kind of funny and I've taken to embarrassing myself lately.
We boarded the plane in Denver, and you – always the mischievous dare-devil, handed me a Cheeba Chew before we went through security. A Cheeba Chew is medicated candy containing 70 mg of THC. You told me the candy would help my impending motion sickness, as I always get nauseas during air travel. You told me it would chill us out, make the long journey fun, and we'd be able to sleep deeply. I am incredibly sensitive to pot and don't partake very often, but you know what you're talking about, so I trusted you. My results were not as you described.
The paranoia kicked in as soon as I sat down on in my seat on the aisle. You sat in the middle, having claimed the aisle seat for our next flight, the international leg. The flight attendant ambled down the aisle, mindlessly collecting drink orders and distributing beverages and crackers. "Ted, I can't order my drink! She is going to know! Will you ask her for a water with no ice for me?" I whispered. My eyes were wide with fear. You belly laughed and said, "Don't worry, sweetie, you're fine. And yes, I'll get you your water." "Ted! I am so scared they aren't going to let us into South Africa," I whispered into your ear. "What, baby? I can't hear you," you responded. "The dogs will know we have pot in our systems," I whispered even more quietly. "Babe, it's legal in Colorado. We didn't do anything illegal. Plus, dogs aren't going to be able to smell oil inside of our bodies. Unconvinced, I said "I don't know, I think we are in trouble. I swear that flight attendant it looking at me weird." "I can't hear what you're saying, love," you replied, totally enjoying this. "I. Feel. Like. I'm. Screaming!" I replied, so quietly you could barely catch a syllable of what I was saying. I reached forward into the seat pocket and grabbed the motion sickness bag. My knuckles white and my belly uneasy, I sat in near stillness for the next two hours as we flew across the continental USA to our layover in Atlanta. You, barely phased by the candy, very sweetly tended to me and my dramatic hysteria. You held my hand, checked in with me, and rubbed my back as I squeezed my eyes shut and leaned onto your shoulder, frozen with fear and nausea. "You bit off more than you could chew," you said, always finding time for a pun.
By the time we arrived in Atlanta, the candy wore off. You got me some food and water, and soon enough I was back to myself again. The rest of our travel to Johannesburg was much less entertaining. We settled into our seats and enjoyed ten hours of on demand movies. We don't have cable at home, so TV is a bonus. Like giddy kids, we'd choose a movie together. Yes, we both would watch the same one, even though we had independent screens. We would choose our film and then say, "1. 2. 3. Go!" and hit play at the same time. Hand in hand, we'd watch the movie as we squirmed in the non-ergonomic coach seats with their three-inch recline. A few movies later, we arrived in South Africa. We cleared customs with no problem. Not a single dog pawed or growled at our bellies.
After a blissful couple weeks in South Africa, we spent our last day in the country in Capetown, before a redeye flight back home. We had saved a hike we wanted to take together for that last day. Table Mountain had been the recommended route, but we chose Lion's Head instead. It was less popular and just as scenic, offering a view of the whole city, harbor, and stretch of coast from the top. As the taxi dropped us at the start, near the top of Signal Hill, the clouds rolled in. We had been advised to start the hike early to avoid the overcast skies, but we'd decided that sleeping in and a relaxing morning was more important that day. So we had no one to blame but ourselves as the fog poured in from all sides.
We made our way up the gravel road, circling the peak. We chatted aimlessly and both decided the sky was going to open up, clear, and blue as soon as we reached the summit. The road turned into a single file, rocky path. One at a time, we continued on. We passed another small group of hikers, applauding ourselves for 'training at altitude' in Colorado. The 669 meter ascent wasn't affecting us much, and we continued to make our way up with nonstop conversation. We snapped photos of each other climbing up a section of steep rock that used chains and ladders and joked about how in the U.S.A. it would be a lawsuit. And after about 90-minutes, we climbed over the last rock, to the top of the peak. We couldn't see a thing.
Fog completely surrounded us. We literally could hardly make our each others faces standing two feet apart. We laughed and laughed, and decided that it didn't matter. We joked about stealing a photo from Google to show the view from the top. We sat down and added our names to a rock full of hearts and messages. You ate a Kind Bar. I fed some of it to a little bird that arrived and ate from my hand. We eventually left, and carefully made our way down the trek. The sun stayed behind the clouds all day.
When it was you and I surrounded by grey, it didn't matter, because we were together, and in our world, it was always colorful. Without you, the gray is cold, lonely, and ugly.
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.
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.
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