Death, Dying & the Dead

He said “why would you want that? It never is the last time.” That was his response to me saying literally something that I heard in a movie, the question of if we could have one more night, one more hug, one more moment, etc. After 8 years, this on again off again sometimes friends/lovers bit had really nothing to show for it. In a right mind, one would think that I had lost enough already. I was approaching the year mark of losing my mom, and so many relationships had shifted with her passing that it felt like constant grief of a life and a me that wasn’t anymore. Letting go would mean that I had to accept all of it, and maybe that alone was too painful.

I did that thing last night that I shouldn’t have done, which was look at his IG, to witness him living his life, declaring in his birthday post that this was his statement year. I was never a statement or a public face for him. He never chose me publicly or fully and I can accept that. There’s also my mental health, that he weaponized repeatedly, but I clung to him for dear life. This is a lie, because I have been clinging to someone in my mind. We weren’t really an us, ever. He says that I am rewriting history, I say that I accept what is true for me. His in the house person, a bit of a Comfort woman. I guess the particulars don’t matter much. But the truth, laying in a messy bed, half crying, half trying to find something to respond to for his question sent hours ago, in the dark. It’s desperate. And I suppose I’m desperate. Dead things don’t make you feel alive.

I was with my mother when her body could no longer do it anymore. I closed my eyes and put my hand on her shoulder and repeated that she can go in peace. I had left his house that morning, he allowed me to go alone into the wilderness. I never came back out of the hospital the same.

In the 8 years, my daughter has gone from an 8 year old to a teen, and holding on to this dead thing has robbed me of presence, robbed her of my grace. The tumult of our roller coasters never gave her a man that was truly in her life. I don’t know if that makes sense, but it does to me. I am sad. I fight the feelings of failure in every aspect of life. I tell my sweet and dear friend that it is time for me to start living mine. Because in many ways I feel dead.

This might just be for my journal, but I’m tired of being alone right now, and I need someone else to witness this with me. I’m used to being in the shadows. I don’t think I can do that anymore.