Still Here.

Babes, Hey love, it's been a while. What can I say, not much is new. Here I am 21 months since you died and I’m just as fucked up as the day I found out. Maybe more, the compound effect a real thing. At least in the early days there weren't the added layers of actually trying to keep my life together in a meaningful way. There was just surviving. There was saying goodbye to your body; I will never forget what that was like. It was terrifying, I was so scared and I will never forget how cold you were when I finally got up the nerve to touch you. Alone and so unprepared in that room with you I couldn't even believe what was I was seeing. I remember falling into my Mom’s arms when I came out of that tiny room, and asking what I was going to do without you. I couldn't even imagine life after that. And here I am… asking myself the same fucking question with the same desperation.

Tomorrow I am moving to another house, and I haven't really packed anything. It is like time is moving me on but in so many ways nothing has changed since I stood in the driveway screaming No, as they tried to get close enough to me to tell me there had been an accident. I am still that same girl. Sure I go about my day-to-day and sometimes it becomes real. Some moments I get to feel what real life is like again, normalcy. I have glimpses of freedom. Moments where I don’t think about you and am just living. But those moments slip away and I am left reeling.As though I was finding out all over again. It happens countless times a day. Do you know there have been so few days I haven't cried at some point in the day. How fucking exhausting is that? It’s been almost two years.

Now there are expectations of me, having kept most areas of my life together there are deadlines and schedules and demands. I have even let a few men into my life. Well, really only one that lasted more than a few days; I set it up that way I am sure, attracting the equally unstable. Being from out of town he also wasn’t meant to stick around, but somehow he did and I liked it. But I can’t tell, do I miss him when he is gone, or am I really missing you. Does it bother me that he didn't text back or am I just aching for a text from you and his absence in so many ways easier to handle. When he is around I’m happy, I feel moments of life again, but when he has to go I spiral downward and it takes me weeks to find stable again. Am I strong enough to handle relationships?  Is it me, is it him, is it just not the right connection, or is this just part of the process? I can feel myself wanting to end it, but do I really or am I just so scared of him leaving that I am going to fuck it up myself to avoid the pain of another unexpected ending? I am self aware enough to ask the questions but never know the answers… It is like my body knows that when he leaves he might never come back and no matter how much I tell myself it is OK, it isn’t.

In the earlier days people would say to me they knew what I was going through because they lost a parent. I would stand there trying to force a smile and say nothing. I knew they were trying to connect. To show they were there for me, but here is the thing. They would go home to their spouse and have them to hold. They still had their person to hold them so tight as they sobbed over the loss of their parent, but I lost you. I lost you, the person I would turn to. To hold me tight, kiss my tear stained cheeks, and fuck me until I forgot even if only for moments. More than ever I need someone to fill that role but that role was yours and so it gets complicated.

Rene, I miss you so much. I thought that maybe I’d be able to make it Ok but I can’t be so sure. I remember my parents coming to the house the night we found out. My sister had called them when she got off the phone with me and they drove back from Chilliwack as soon as they heard. I opened the door and my Dad was standing there, his eyes filled with tears. He said, ‘I'll get over this one day but you, you never will Chels.’ I thought in that moment that he was wrong. That it would all be Ok, the shock making me believe that I could handle it.   I had no idea. I had no fucking idea.

Loving you and really really missing you.