Letter to Myself

Dear Josh,

We are memories, dust. We are random skin flakes, fabric and dirt. We are cobwebs and filth. We collect in corners. We wait. I wish it would have ended better but there was no other way for it to end. Suicide threats and bruised ribs. Heartache, betrayal, alcohol. I take full responsibility for my disloyalty. I cheated on you. I left you for someone else whom I then married. That's aching betrayal. That’s destruction.

For over 2 years we had our moments. We should have broken up long before we dug our trenches and weathered the war. No one but us understood why we were together.  Why we ignored everything around us.

That first night. We were trapped. We were 3 hours from home, staying with friends for a wedding. I was almost asleep. You were drunk. You wrapped your hands so tightly around my neck. I couldn't even scream. I was too shocked to try. Your eyes were so sad. I thought those blue daggers were going to be the last thing I ever saw. We were dying. First my edges got blurry and I stopped fighting I didn't break eye contact, not once. It was strange but at that moment right before the world went black I felt we were the same. For a fleeting pause, we switched place, you were the one dying. When my eyes fluttered open the next day I drew in a sucking, ravenous breath and exhaled tears. I ran to the bathroom and puked. I avoided you all day at our friends' house. I wore out our welcome because I didn't want to spend 3 hours in a car with you. Your eyes were still so sad.

My pulse raced. My hands shook as we got in the car. Every movement you made – to change the radio station or check your phone – caused a violent shift in my position. Over the course of 3 hours you won me back. You shouldn't have.

Loving you was exhausting. You made me feel so different. You lavished attention. You made me confident and beautiful and needed. Then you'd drink. Every night. I would explain away your behavior in public. I defended you. People asked me why, I had no real answer. I loved you. It was enough. I was skilled at reading you. I knew when we went home or went to bed what was going to happen. The nights I'd wake up to your hands around my throat. Fingers tightening. I knew better. I stayed. I stayed for those blue eyes and those meaningful words and that hard body. I stayed because I felt no one would ever love me so desperately, deeply, suffocating as you. I stayed because you stayed. Because dust is unseen.

Illness after strange ailment after injury befell me while we dated. My body was fully rejecting what we were. I didn't listen. Until my Colposcopy. I was scared and turned to you for the downpour of your addiction. You said,

"I just want you to know, if it's cancer or something serious, I'm not going to stick around. I can't watch you die slowly."

My world with you got fuzzy and faded to black. I could feel your fingers on my neck only this time your eyes, your beautiful blue eyes, were hard. You tried to backpedal when everything cleared. I should have ended it then. Instead we lingered. Dust on the air. We flitted. We fell. We became stagnant. Listless.

I broke your heart then. Smashed it into pieces with someone new. We should have separated then, completely. My guilt let me cling to you. Until I picked you up from the bar and brought you home. Your anger was palpable. It spilled over. I didn't believe I would survive this time. You pinned me to the wall and then the ground. You put your full weight into it. I still have the shirt you ripped when I tried to get away. Suddenly, though, it all shifted. You were the one dying.  I scurried to a corner, shaking, my phone smashed or thrown. The neighbors didn't even call the cops. I know I screamed this time. I know I begged for help. We crawled together to bed. After you begged me to kill you. After you turned a blade on yourself and I had to save you. I let you hold me one last time.

We are dust. We are molecules. We are memories in a faded, weathered photo album. Yellow pages turning in on themselves. I was happy forgetting you but you were never really forgotten cobwebs get rebuilt, wars leave scars. Your accident, where you died twice. Created an unexpected ripple effect for me. I contacted you, because I could watch you die slowly. Through our interactions I realized you still had a grip on my neck. You would say key phrases that would embed themselves under my skin. Burrow in my brain. One of us will always be dying. My only option. My only choice. Is to dust.

Your Daily Dose of Duke #22

I'm sorry I love my dog so much but you should probably love him too.

On our Way to the Poulsbo Beer Run

Yeah I don't remember taking this picture.

Thanksgiving Snarl

Look Away

STOP IT

The Ocean Smells Like Dead Fish

Yeah, Slober

So cute

Love Him

What's that over there

Losing a Same-Sex Parent at a Young Age

“It's just like waking up,
In that second and a half,
The bliss of not remembering,
Before it all comes flooding back.” – Ben Folds

Yes, everyone dies. Yes, sometimes it is sudden. Yes, you are never prepared for it. At some point you lose someone you love, whether that someone is a friend, family or even a fur baby, it hurts and cuts deep and is so permanent.  

Here’s the part where my story may differ from some. I was 13 when I lost my mom. When you lose a parent as an adult you have memories to hold onto, you have a life. When you lose a parent as a teenager, pre-teen or child, you have scraps of memories. Little pieces you try to cling to and you hold on so tightly they tend to crumble to dust. Some days I can remember my mom’s laugh, other days her scent but most days, it’s a wash. I can tell you she dyed her hair a red-brown color and wore green contacts over light brown eyes. I can tell you she was a cardio queen and taught morning aerobics up until the day before she died. I can tell you she hated western medicine and doctors and believed in healing crystals which helped contribute to her downfall. I can tell you I loved her with all my heart. I can tell you it hurts everyday like a scab you can’t stop pick at and it festers and leaves a scar as a constant reminder. Some mornings I forget she’s gone, or that I’m grown up or that I grew up without her.

Most of the time I just feel guilty, because I don’t remember her, because I’m supposed to, because I hold a torch for someone I was only just beginning to know. My mother shaped me and molded me, even put me in the kiln but I wasn’t done yet, I wasn’t ready. I had just started puberty. I had no mother to walk me through hair and makeup, clothes and shaving, bras and tampons. Some people tried to help, but it was hard and there was pain in their eyes. My dad, tried, but he’s a man. If I ran out of deodorant or shaving cream he told me to use his. I spent one year of my teens smelling like Mennen without a bra and rarely shaven legs. I spent another year shaving everything including my stomach and chest because I didn’t know any better. My hair was a mess, my sense of style a disaster and it has taken me years YEARS to find the woman inside of me. To understand my looks, my skin tone, everything. Losing my mom meant losing my guidance and I had to feel my way through adolescence. My mother wasn’t there to tell me there’d be other boys or spend the night letting me vent with cookies and ice cream and movies. It was just me. I was angry for a long time. But it’s no one’s fault, there is no one to be angry at, my mother had a brain aneurysm. She had a blood bubble that slowly leaked into her brain. It amazes me how a little bit of blood can destroy a life, a family, a child.

Losing a same-sex parent at a young age means you don’t only lose your guidance, you don’t only live with guilt for not remembering, it means you also; don’t know how to respond or how to act. My husband told me at his father’s funeral, he didn’t cry and everyone thought this 11-year-old boy was brave. I didn’t cry at my mother’s funeral and everyone thought I was a heartless, cruel child. I’ve cried many tears for my mother over the years. What people don’t understand is as a child you have no coping mechanisms, you have no clue what you should be doing. You are in SHOCK. The gravity of the situation doesn’t hit you for YEARS. As a kid you barely understand your numbers and ABCs let alone death. Something so permanent, so absolute and final how can you expect a child to understand that? I cry at the drop of a hat, over anything, commercials, movies, breaking a glass, but my emotions are bewilderment even to me. I could mechanically tell you about how my mother died and what I had to do to survive without a tear in my eyes and usually with a smile because I know you’re just curious. My emotions have been severed and reattached and so they don’t work like you’d expect. You could be pouring your heart out and I will be dry eyed and supportive but maybe we could be shopping for clothes and I just start crying for no apparent reason. I never learned how to express correctly, how to be appropriate. My mom’s funeral showed me that people judge you constantly and it also showed me that it’s okay because I won’t force feelings, I’m me and that’s all I can be.

Today marks 15 years since my mom passed away. She’s been dead longer than I even had time with her. Each year the anniversary hits me a different way. Some years I completely forget, other years I am overjoyed thinking about the time I did have with her, some years it hits me hard and I can’t contain myself and other years I remember but am neither happy nor sad, it’s just another day. Losing a parent at a young age turns them into a ghost, they are a pale comparison to the person they were or we think they were. They are in your peripherals. They are misty and ambiguous. There are only so many pictures or videos to remind you of someone you can just see the outline of, like a mirage. When the pictures run out, when you've memorized them, when you look at yourself in the mirror and try to pull traits, there's not much more you can do. Some days I remember her voice and think I hear it in mine. Today, I remember everything, the way she clicked her tongue, the way she lost her temper, the way she danced, the way she laughed, her perfume, her outfits, her walk, everything. Tomorrow I might not be so lucky, best to hold on to today.  

Your Daily Dose of Duke #2

I love the beginnings and ends of a day. So does Duke.