Inbox Zero: My Short Lived Dating App Experiment

 Inbox Zero: My Short Lived Dating App Experiment 

I made the profile in a fit of rage. I'd never used a dating app before. 

I found myself, quite abruptly, without a person. No one to text dumb little stories to, no "good morning" messages, no late night chats. And that, coupled with grief, was eating away at me. I rarely leave my house, I'm not a one-night-stand kind of person, so I thought, maybe, an app would give me access to a lot of people I'd not otherwise meet.

I've heard the horror stories. I've heard every tip. I knew the basic safety precautions about inviting people to my house, sharing too much about where I live or work, etc). 

After a dude I'd been absolutely smitten with told me he wasn't "available for a romantic relationship," I cried, I texted my best friends, and I got mad. 

Dear Blake, I'm Mad At You.

 Dear Blake, I'm Mad At You.

Dear Blake,

We are coming up on the year anniversary of your passing. Time really has no meaning, because I swear you passed just yesterday, three weeks ago, and ten years ago, all at once. 

I've been feeling flat-out stuck. I ran the gauntlet, from my birthday, Thanksgiving, your birthday, Christmas, New Year's, and then threw in a little "20th anniversary of my dad's passing," for good measure. 

Basically, I'm down for anything to budge the stuck-ness, so I found myself at something you'd made fun of- a group breathwork session. The scene looks like something you'd find in a cult documentary, but I gotta say, laying there, breathing, rocking my legs back and forth, with my hands in a sort of prayer position on my forehead (no idea how or why I'd gotten into that position), absolutely SOBBING, full on ugly crying, tears running down my face, something inside me broke and rang out: I'm mad at you.

Stepping Out of Anger, Into Something a Little More Comfortable

Stepping Out of Anger, Into Something a Little More Comfortable

For the first time in my whole life, my first response was not anger.

I was raised by an angry man. Anger was his immediate reaction to any slight- perceived or real- and it became my second language. Automatic. 

I have letters my dad wrote me when I was a toddler, and in one, he points out that I have a temper. For one, dad, I was two, and for two, I LEARNED IT FROM WATCHING YOU. But seriously, maybe she's born with it, maybe it's hammered into her every day from the time she came out of the womb. No one will ever know.

As I moved into my teenage years especially, everything was a cause for anger. No need to look deeper. Anger is fast, it's easy, it's cheap.

And it works. Get mad, watch people get out of your way. 

Dear Blake, Numb

you + a sloth

Dear Blake,

I really intended to write much more regularly. 

Normally, emotions and words swirl inside of me until they're practically clawing at my lips from the inside (fingertips?), eager to spill out. 

And they did. I wrote a lot here. I wrote notes to you every day in my phones calendar. Until I ran out of words. 

Not just words for you, just so you don't take it personally, because it's not. 

I went to a few writing workshops, a space where I've never been at a loss for words, and sat there, staring at blank pages for two hours. That's never happened. 

I've gone almost completely numb.

The Witness: The Rolling Waves of Death

 The Witness: The Rolling Waves of Death

TW: Death, dying

Everyone's heard that grief comes in waves.

Sometimes it comes as a small nudge, surf breaking over shore, a small reminder that it was Blake who usually did this chore, or skipping the ice cream aisle entirely, because there's no one at home to eat it all, reaching for my phone before I realize there's no one on the other end to appreciate my observation.

Other times, it's a riptide. It comes out of nowhere, dragging me under, leaving me gasping for breath. And as any good Floridian knows, fighting it will only result in drowning.

The nudges are constant, gentle saltwater lapping over my feet and ankles, sometimes covering my shins or splashing up to my knees. Sometimes surprising, constant, but tolerable.

The latest riptide came in pieces. 

Dear Blake, I saw another body

 

You and Crab in my favorite hiking spot

TW: Death

Dear Blake, 

It's 3:30 am. I can't sleep. 

I saw another body today. 

Can you believe I made it to 35, blessedly (if you will) never having seen a body? And now, just in the last two months, I have seen two. I skipped the viewing at every service when I was growing up. My father was cremated. 

After the first time I rescued a bird, gently pulling it's tiny, fragile legs from a glue trap, I found more injured birds. At a wildlife rehab, the woman told me I would find injured birds forever. They had marked me as someone who could be trusted. Is this how it will be with the recently deceased? I am not sure I am ready for the responsibility. 

But let me back up.

Dear Blake, Three hole punch

You, annoyed, modeling our friends' band shirt 

Dear Blake, 

You know how I feel about doctors and medical stuff. 

When you had drains in, woozy from surgery, you told the nurse to stop telling me about aftercare because you knew the conversation made me queasy. 

You'd always reassure me I'd be fine. That I could handle it. We could handle it. 

I picked a new dermatologist. My deep fear was that she would find a bunch of stuff that everyone other dermatologist ignored. 

That she'd slash at me after coming at me with needles. And she did.