I always try to reflect on my year and boy can this year go straight to hell lol.
I would probably rate this year in my top 5 worse years I have ever had. I never knew what waves of grief truly felt like. What is really means to have the ever loving wind knocked out of you just by smelling an old perfume. What is feels like to want to claw your brain out just for a few peaceful moments.
I've touched briefly at the being of the year about my best friends passing. Someone who I have been friends with for half my life... HALF!
I use to spend EVERYDAY with this person for years! Before I had my only family she was all I had. From the time I was 16 till about 20 we literally spent every.single.day. Together. We lived together, we went through some tough shit together, cried together and boy did we laugh together. It wasnt until about the time I turned 25 that I really had to step away from her. That doesn't mean I didn't spend everyday talking to her. I just couldn't be around her until she could clean up her act. And like I said before beyond a shadow of a doubt those last few weeks of her life she finally wanted to be clean. She wanted to be set free.
But waves come and I feel like I'm drowning again. I feel like I literally can't breath. When I think about the fact that she literally is no longer alive. That she knows what it's like to be dead. She knows what is on the other side. That the person I would ride in the car with singing at the top of our lungs is no longer of this world. She experienced this life and now she is experiencing the other. She knows if there is a heaven or hell. It just such a hard concept to think about that I start shaking. She knows if there is a bright light! someone I spent everyday with is on the other side. Untouchable until I get to see her again. Silenced until I get to hear her voice again. And then I get so angry. How can this be? How can a 30 year old girl be gone. Therapy has taught me about the 5 stages of guilt..
The five stages of guilt:
Denial-
Anger-
Bargaining-
Depression
Acceptance-
Shew denial... I've def been in denial. Even burying her I still was waiting for her to hop up and say kidding. I think said 20000 times this isn't happening this can't be happening. This didn't happen.
Then comes the anger. God knows the anger I have felt. I'm angry with her for leaving me (like she had a choice) for not loving herself like I loved her. Anger at god for letting this happen. Anger at people who say oh she is in a better place because the only place I want her is here.
Bargaining. If only I would have been there. If only I would have Called her that day. If only we hadn't have moved into that apartment things would have been different. But they wouldn't have. Things would have happened exactly how they did. There was nothing I could do about that. I loved her as hard as any friend could love another. I spent my days worrying about her all the time. I checked in on her even when she didn't have a clue I was. I had to learn there was nothing more I could have done. That doesn't make the guilt of her death any easier though.
Depression. And boy did the depression hit.HARD. Like I said above do you know how hard it is to know that the person you spent every single day with is gone. GONE! She won't watch your kids grow up and you won't watch her ever have any. I won't watch her get married. I won't even get to see what she would look like old. She knows what the other side is like. She is so far ahead of me and out of my reach now. I will never hear her laugh again or sing again or dance again and that is such a hard fucking thing to wrap your brain around.
She won't celebrate another Halloween (her favorite holiday) or Christmas or birthday. All that is no more and that took a hard role on me. Mix that in with what my therapist calls survivors guilt (that I'm going to keep to myself why I have survivors guilt. Can spill you all my secrets) and it was a mix for a disastrous heartache. I'm just now starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel but it will always be a dim light because she is still gone and will always be gone.
Acceptance. I'll let you know how that goes when it finally happens. Because how do you except that your best friend is dead. How do you accept that?
See... I have a fear of dying. I know, I know how stupid is that because there isn't much I can do to control that. We are all gonna go at some point. But it just terrifies me. Leaving me kids. Venturing into the great unknown. I have faith in going to heaven but what if that doesn't exist. So to have someone so close to you have your worst fear happen is so scary. I never thought I would miss her as much as I do. Don't get me wrong I always knew if anything happen to her it would break my heart... but I had no idea how upside down it would turn my life. The pain I feel in my chest when I think about her can be unbearable at times.
And when that wave hits and the tears just won't stop... I get in my car and put on my cd she made me and drive to the arbor apartments and I sit outside apartment 404. And I lose it. I let myself grieve. (Sorry people who live in 404 who probably think I'm a creeper but don't call the cops! Lol) but I just feel closer to her there. That's where some of the best memories I ever had with her are. That small little apartment on the right side of the arbors changed my life. When it was just me and her against the world. Where we would bring Ocharleys back to because we didn't know how to cook or have any pots and pans. Where we would lay on the floor with all the blankets we owned and watched the MTV tapes her mom would record for us because we couldn't afford cable. Where we had 5 poster boards in our living room full of funny quotes we had. Where in her bed room upstairs was a wall that was painted pink around the furniture because she didn't want to move it so if you looked behind the dresser you would see the white part of the wall.
And I cry because I know there won't be any more memories to be made with her. Our time on earth together had ended.
I do find joy in the fact that I do feel her everyday. In songs on the radio they come on even when they don't play that song anymore.
When my kids celebrated her favorite holiday Halloween I know she wouldn't miss that.
I know that days will keep rolling forward and I can't stop that. I can't stop that the days move further past the last time I talked to her. But I know they are moving forward to the next time I get to see her again.
Until we meet again-ASH
