Mourning

My computer crashed just as I was about to finish this. I cannot describe my frustration. Finally, I can write cathartically about something so important, and my computer crashes and I lose it.

Sigh.

Anyway, I'd like to request comments on it. People's reactions. Thanksabunch.



Mourning
~~~~~~~~

This is semi fiction.

It's kind of like a semi-autobiography. Maybe it's not exactly how things happened. Maybe it's something that you wish happened. Maybe it's something that happened just a little bit differently in your life. Maybe it's a few things, all mixed together, intermingling like the feelings in your head, and it's not exactly true, but it means so much to you.

You say "pie" when you hang up the phone because it's too difficult to say "bye," and it is really time to go now, it's been time for so long, you really have to be going, so "I miss you" and then in a small unwilling voice, "pie." And you tell yourself, I've only met this person once, a really good once, but it was only just once. But then you tell yourself, it was good, it was so good, I haven't felt this connected in years, I haven't lost myself so completely in anyone in so long. Maybe ever. And then you tell yourself that it helps so much with the other thing, with the death. And now you're having a conversation with yourself. But really, it's a conversation with her still. You're always having a conversation with her in the back of your head. The only time it really stops is when you see her again and you're talking to her for real. It's better than you remember. It's better than you remember because your memory can't hold it, can't contain it. But you don't need your memory to hold it because every time you talk to her, every moment in between when you even think of her, you feel it in your chest. It moves you. It moves you so much that it feels like your guts are actually shifting in concert with your heart. It moves you so much that when you do talk to her again you have to say "pie" because you can't say "bye."

I knew her for five years of my life. Five years of drifting back and forth. You can look at it two ways: I had a series of relationships, and saw her in between. Or, I saw her off and on again, and had a series of relationships in between. Really, it's both of those, and neither. Really, talking about it like this is missing the point.

It's two weeks now. Two difficult weeks. The other thing is helping. And it's the first time you can talk about her, even just a little. You miss little things about her, because you've known her for so long and so intimately. You can tell when you haven't spoken for months and you're hanging out again, you can tell exactly what's going on, the subtext is familiar and good. When she's touching her hair that way, it means she's hoping you'll kiss her. And a thousand other tender little things.

And in your mind you have a map of the landscape. It's not a topographically correct map. It doesn't have all the mountains or all the rivers or all the the towns. But you can see it clearer than you can when you try to think of one of those. It only exists in your mind. It's all the places that ever meant anything to you together. That place you went that time in the summer when you were young that you kept coming back to, exploring, mapping together, claiming. All the sites you saw and sounds you heard and things you said and things you did together. This used to be a wonderful thing. She always used to be there on this map, at a distance. You always used to be able to think that someday you'd find each other again against the backdrop of a chaotic life, even if just for a while.

I believe that all change is good. I try to. I try so hard. I tell myself that all change is good. I tell myself that I should be happy for all these wonderful memories. That I should be happy that she's so important to who I am now. That I'll take it all forward with me. And now I'm having a conversation with myself. But really, it's missing having a conversation with her. Will I always be talking to her in the back of my head? Will how good it was fade from my memory?

I think back to that time before I left. She told me that after those four weeks, those four glorious weeks, she was mine then. She was moving her hips to the music I gave her, and thinking about me all the time, wanting to spend lazy afternoons making love, wanting to be with me. I was moving to New York to leave everything behind, to start a new life. She told me, so much after the fact, when it wasn't important anymore, not in the same way at least, but so important in this other way, she told me that if I'd stayed, she would've been mine heart and soul. And I told her that if she'd told me that, if I'd suspected even just a little, I would've stayed. I've never meant anything more. And she cried a little, and I cried a little, and that's one of the last things I ever said to her.