Authors note:
I wrote this on Monday for publishing on Tuesday. Woke up at 8:49 am, walked to the porch for a cigarette after I’d put the kettle on. Just like every other morning. But unlike every other morning Panda opened the door and said “___ died last night, I am on my way to Manda Bear’s”.
Her face was swollen from crying. I opened our group chat and saw the texts. My heart broke.
I am currently wracking my brain trying to remember what we did on Sunday, but I can’t. And maybe that is some bliss in itself.
I know Tuesday by 11:30 we were all gathered on a patio, just to be together. I had more bad news, but that can wait for another post.
I am telling you this because I rushed this post. My girls wanted something to read and distract so I shoved it out of the nest without spellcheck etc…
So here is the revised version.
I Walk on Water by Kaleo YouTube, that is what I was looking for.
Actually looking for Peter Gabriel singing I Grieve, which I found, then Kaleo
Because I grieve, I grieve for you and you leeeeeave you leave me…
And also I do walk on water…
Except when I don’t.
I sink and I swim and I float.
Had a good float going.
But Nooooo YouTube is trying to kill me, Explosions in the Sky, the album “Those who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Live Forever” (the album) just came up.
Fuck you YouTube. I didn’t need reminding, I never forget.
That’s I all I ever do.
Remember and tell my truth, the whole of it and nothing but the truth so help me god.
Help me god, seriously. Need a little help down here.
I know I’ve sinned, it’s what I do but I cannot abide a lord who would give me a body like this that does the things it does and then says ‘nay Sister Sarah, deny thine fine self.’
I’ll make my own kingdom of heaven here just in case I’m wrong and I don’t get in.
Heaven once was Black 19/Moonface or picking up take out and coming over for couch cuddles.
“I miss the way he talked” Panda said.
Me too baby, me too.
And him cutting his eyes at me while we were watching a movie because he knew I wasn’t paying attention to anything but the curve of his top lip, and how it curled when he knew I was looking.
I sent the bulk of this post to our Sara of Lords. I was in the car on my way back from a bar.
Not a fan of bars.
When did I stop dancing and singing and smiling? Who told me my teeth were ugly and my voice unpleasant and my dancing awkward?
And why did I listen?
I know who…Varying exes and toxic friends. My sister mocked my singing voice until I just stopped. For like 30 years I didn’t sing. Now I sing in the car, alone. One person has heard me, once, because I didn’t care.
And I know why. I didn’t love me. I didn’t love me because I didn’t know me. I am still learning.
I’m getting better, in this circle of friends I have. I don’t have to care about what they think because they love me, tone deaf derpy dumb girl that I am.
When they hurt, I hurt. And some of them are hurting right now. These mens of ours are not doing right by us.
I can sit here like some wise woman on top of a mountain doling out wisdom about heartache and how I’ve overcome losing men I’ve loved.
How I survived being the girl you fuck but never marry. but I gotta tell you a secret.
It could be 2am or noon and sometimes it’ll just hit me that one or all of them or gone and it’s a sucker punch to my heart.
It fucking hurts.
I dread running into Giant and his traveling waitress because I know I’ll time-travel back to the girl who ugly cried and chain smoked in her bedroom begging for another chance while Panda and kiddo pulled their hair out trying to pull me out of my heartbreak funk. I don’t think the hurt would last as long as the first time, but still. Wounds reopen and you never can tell.
Every breakup is a loss.
You have to mourn.
It’s the same as death.
And we have to get up.
Someones gotta buy the milk and walk the dog.
You force yourself.
You baby step and purge. The time spent not crying starts getting longer like the days leading up to summer.
Then you start deleting messages and pictures like pulling out splinters so your body can heal itself.
My girl sent me pics of her ex.
So she ‘knows they exist somewhere’ before she deletes them.
I wish I was so brave
My inboxes folders and archives read like war memorial. Date of birth, date of death, pics and screenshots.
They have to exist somewhere just in case I start feeling crazy, like it was always unrequited and maybe I was just too blind to see. But I open them from time to time, I wasn’t blind, they said those things.
I know this shall pass.
But right now I am thinking about the Muay Thai Fighter and his face when he opened the door and saw me in the red dress, or when the Hulk saw me in the other red dress.
Red dresses instead of black.
Funerals for the living.
Those whose eyes used to light up when I walked in the room turning to cold, dead stares.
I remember when I lost my joy, just like I remember every kiss every hit.
When my Jeep got plowed into from behind and we rolled and skidded for a mile all my muscle memories were lost on impact. I barely remember learning to walk and talk again, but I did it. I am here.
I still get jolted awake in the night remembering the accident to but I got behind the wheel and drove. I got back on stage with knees made of jell-o and agonizing pain and I did it. I moved.
Bravery is movement anyways.
It is dragging yourself out of bed with a broken heart, crying in the shower hoping no one and everyone hears you, but you have to get it out because it’s killing you.
It’s waking up one morning down the road and not crying first thing. Its moments of forgetting that stretch into hours and eventually days.
Its seeing punch buggies and not cringing, its hearing that song on the radio or smelling that cologne and not having the sting of tears breach your ducts and hit your cheeks.
You think you won’t live, but you will.
And scientifically speaking, 7 years from the last day they touched you and it burned like a hot stove that you couldn’t keep your hands off, your body gifts you with regenerated cells that they haven’t ever been privy to.
Memories fade. Time moves forward whether we want it to or not.
And at least we have each other.
