Thanks / Good / Bad

The below was published on FB

"Bob, 

This is the first holiday without you. And it’s Thanksgiving. A day where people stuff themselves with food-a day hopefully long divorced from the myth of Pilgrims and Indians to one of gratitude. I can barely eat or think about food. Everything tastes like cardboard. Like loneliness. The stress of missing you, the gulf of space between loving you in your absence and what I knew just over a month ago….is almost harder than getting dressed. I miss being able to tell about how excited I am about a piece I just finished, or some new music or some record I ordered from overseas, because you remembered ordering things you had to wait for. I miss trying new things you cooked, driving places we’d never been, seeing new art exhibits, and going out new restaurants you wanted to try: seeing you happy. Just holding you. Even when we were doing nothing, we had somewhere to be, to go….together.  

For 15+ years of that, I am thankful." 

(Redacted for health reasons) P.s.- I’m putting up the tree. Rick and Janice say how much they’ll miss you.*

*Rick and Janice are the owners of the Christmas Store in Santa Fe, a place Bob and I visited each year for well over a decade." 

Bad Days

So much has happened, yet I barely remember it happening. Like a book written about experiences that happened to someone else. My mind is alternately blank or filled with technicolor flashbacks to the worst moments, the ones I felt where I failed at caring for you, where I wasn’t my best. Where I couldn’t put aside how hurtful you were being because you were also scared and hurting. No amount of therapy or schooling teaches you to face your own death but its also doesn’t teach you how to manage your trauma responses while more trauma floods over you. But it’s not a flood. It’s lying to yourself about how high the water is because you’ve already run out of air watching the other person turn blue. It’s chaos. Its chewing your limb off with your bare teeth because you cannot fucking get out of the trap. Its trying to grow wings while being buried in concrete. It’s drowning. Therapist is telling me this is all normal. 

And in the midst of this…I am still here. My health stuff continues to elude me. The next two weeks are going to be fraught. I hope for nothing special but know something is…off. It’s folly to pretend otherwise. I may have put all my chips out in the front of the game over strategy, but at this point, I’m resigned. I met with lawyers today. More out of body experiences. I’ve gone from being homeless to fighting over million dollar property like chess pieces. I had to tell the lawyers to use the house to end this. The equity wasn’t worth being trapped in a haunted house. More still coming in terms of paperwork but it can't be helped. Answers soon, the future maybe.