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.

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. 

The Body Keeps The Score, and Mine is Losing

 The Body Keeps The Score, and Mine is Losing

CW: Talk of death 

This guy  Bessel van der Kolk wrote The Body Keeps The Score about the ways in which trauma affects the body. 

In a way, I already knew what happened. I'd received a few phone calls asking about medications Blake was on. The calls got a little more frantic, and I was frustrated because even if I teleported to the hospital in that moment, there was no way I could (or would want to) see him while the nurses and doctors worked on his tired body. The people at the desk had a hard time locating him. And I knew. In my body, I knew.

When I made it to the hospital to say goodbye to Blake, my first thought was that the nurses were playing some kind of joke with me that Blake was in on. We'd been going back and forth about him trying to do a little more around the house. "Alright, I get it, you're SICK-SICK, that was mean!" I'd say.

Dear Blake, I promise this is about you.

 Dear Blake, 

I promise this is about you. Well, it's about us. And me. And my new reality.

Your service was beautiful, by the way. Adam and Josh and the whole Soundstage crew made it possible. I know you'd tell me I could count on them to handle everything. As far as memorials go, it was nice. There was a great turn out, tons of people texting and checking in, and sending photos. 

Your uncle told a random anecdote in the MOST Southern MD accent and he basically stole the show. More than one person asked if I hired him. Nope, just...very clearly your family.

The whole day was kind of a blur honestly. I know I would gripe about being at shows and being ignored or minimized because I was "Blake's girlfriend" and not Lindsey, while people circled around you and sort of, it felt like many times, begrudgingly tolerated me. But being in your shoes, not being able to take three steps without someone talking to me was also challenging. I never considered what that might have been like for you. I know you relished it and enjoyed it, but damn. That was hard.

(Not a complaint, friends reading. I am grateful to everyone who came, I am so glad for everyone I spoke to, and I am sorry I couldn't spend hours with everyone there. I am much more introverted, much more awkward, far slower to warm up to people, and much shyer than Blake. My memory is also absolutely garbage right now, so it was a challenge to remember....anything. This is an observation of my experience and our personalities, not a judgement!)