talk to me

like lovers do.

Rest in Peace Nate

weave

weave your words around me. catch me on the down side. four-leaf-clover the things you see. remember to say good-bye. i love you. don't let the days get away. do better than just get by.

because every single moment counts. or doesn't. who the hell knows. and i don't know if anything gets better but i know i don't want to leave.

seriously now,

what is going on up there. god? buddah? someone?

another high school memory gone. a main street face. a million laughs and memories to fill binders.

nate grazul. dead on sunday. the last time i saw him i was probably 20 years old. he made me moccasins himself with some take home kit. he had a crush on me and i was busy with my new-york-college-life.

and so time moves on.

and what the hell? an entire group of friends is dropping one. name. at. a. time.

four out of how many? and how many more?

it's funny because last night i dreamt ivan in the sweetest way. i don't remember much but that he was a part of me. like i had weaved him in so smoothly you couldn't find the seam. where i end. where he begins.

i sat on the t listening to jay z anthem-ize new york and in the meditative nothingness of my morning i realized how much i have changed. how much less afraid i am. how every day i am getting closer to living the life i meant to live all along.

and how it's nothing like i thought it would be. and how many faces i have lost. and how i don't actually need any of the things i thought i did and how the things i want are actually in my hands.

...and in the night i could be helpless...

and i can't bring myself to delete his name from my phone. like he's not really dead as long as i have that. like somehow a text message in the night can turn back time. like i am not ready to give this up yet.

telephone

it's always like a game of telephone when we talk.
i tell you something. you hear something else. you pass it on.
and i turn my back.
so let's start over.
speak only sentences that count.
and listen to the things that come out of our mouths.

cause it's rainy here. and there is no where i'd rather be than sitting here at my work.

a computer.

a cup of tea.

coming off of a weekend that offered me rest and peace.

fail

youfailme.com

iamsopissedicouldthrowrocksatwindows.org

letmeingetyouout.gov

and-so-on.

a revolution

we say we want a revolution
but my lame generation can't even get out the vote.
really.
what the fuck mass.
we voted in a republican who doesn't believe in universal healthcare, abortion rights (which i read as womans rights), climate change, gay marriage. basically anything i hold as part of a moral society. and i am pissed.
i am pissed because i probably can count the people my age who voted on one hand.
pissed because we walk around all heavy with our ideals but we are too lazy to walk up the road and cast a paper ballot on a snowy afternoon.
pissed because we idolize john lennon and his revolution but we expect the world to be fixed by someone else and in less than a year and when it's not we sit back, have another coke and order new shoes on amazon.com

we are a fucked up group of kids here waiting for the world to change while we sit on our hands and sunbath in the sorrow of the state of things.

handicap

i sat on the floor in a tiny little gallery space to listen to one of joe's friends bands that i really like and remembered for the first time in a while that i am not like everyone. you know, the bad leg thing. the handicap. nerve damage and love are forever. and after five songs sitting on that pile of scar tissue i have instead of an ass my entire leg was shaking and it felt like a hundred bats were flying around inside me and i could barely walk to the car and it's funny really how i could spent five years on crutches and then wake up one morning and forget it was ever any other way and last night i couldn't sleep because of the lightning strikes that shook down my entire leg right into my pinky toe and this is what the living means and this is how recovery is forever and watch me run but that night will always trip me up because it lives inside me like ivan's laugh and the smell of the ocean.

oh you know

it's just one of those days. when just waking up is such a hassle. what should i wear and there is no where i want to be and the only thing that sounds appealing is sitting on some empty cold cape cod beach and something about the open-ness of the day makes me angry and i don't know what i want to do. and it's friday.
and my dear friend from college is coming here.
and my dad is at mass general seeing his doc because he is sick and a liver is something you need these days. apparently.

and everyone is sick.

and i slept weird and i have a kink in my neck.

and josh's teenage sister had a baby and i want to see baby jackson and i really did love her but i can't imagine sitting two hours in a car with him. both ways.

and the house needs cleaning and the laundry needs folding and the bills need paying and on one income i am broke. broken.

and i am not responsible for ivan's passing but i dream it some days anyway.

and some times the mornings get me. i get frozen. it takes me an hour just to get up the energy to put on my clothes. and there is not one thing i want to do.

and it feels like suffocating.
and this is what we do.

mama

my mom has ms. every year we walk to raise money and to keep hope alive.
consider donating. or just think about us on april 11th.

http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/hilarysmama

meditations

during acupuncture on monday i closed my eyes and all i could picture was ivan running through this field full of tall grass and orange light and he looked so happy and he was looking right at me and he seemed so light, so free. and he was looking at me with these shining eyes and all the sadness and all the pain and all the years were washed away and it broke my heart to see him so happy because i knew it meant i had to let him go. i had to give him up. and maybe now he is at peace. and i have to let him go. because down here things were heavy and dark for him. and maybe there is light where ever he is now.

and it gave me such peace. and i realized that loving him means letting him go. letting him have this. because isn't that what i've always wanted for him? for him to be happy?

and i slept soundly that night. and yesterday when i came home from a work training to a warm house full of jenckes and joe and stupid television i felt deep down happy. i still cried in the car when i heard that song, but i cried because i know i have to do this. i have to say good bye. but it didn't feel like suffocating. and it didn't hurt to know i had to be alive.

universe

so the universe is coming back into balance. josh is validating my dislike of him (who talks mean about their tiny adorable chihuahua) and i hate him so strong some moments i almost believe it was in fact he who killed ivan.

but he didn't.

and that's okay too. i read this book i had from grad school and it reminded me of things like that no one kills themselves for one single reason so it can't be one single person or actions fault. also that bad dreams and crying eyes are part of the process. and that you don't have to wear your sorrow like a vigil, a cloak, proof to the world that you miss his existence. and i do miss him so. but i am alive. and he chose to go. and i want to be here and happy. and so that is what i have to do.

and after the up all nights of nightmares joe talked me into calmer dreams. he brought me back down to the place i meant to be. like i was going to be okay living in my own skin.

and we played connect four and clue and ate onion dip and banana bread and watched the patriots lose and took turns on the exercise bike and he skated on the pond by my house and it was cold as shit but the fresh air felt good.

a weekend home with joe and jenckes and i feel in balance and okay again.

for the first time in a month

last night i didn't have any bad dreams. there was no running. no screaming. no reason to cry.

but yesterday was bad. my eyelids were so puffy it hurt my eyes. excessive crying. stupid shit. so we ate take out and watched newsies and he tried to make me believe all those things (it's not your fault, ivan didn't do this to you or because you or at you, ivan loved you). it was good to sleep. finally.

also, it turns out that it is easier to get a divorce than it is to break up your sprint family plan.

that, and other things.

good bye

i just don't know how to say good-bye to you.

the worst in me

suicide brings out the worst in me.

i want to hate you. any of you. all of you.
i want to make it your fault. just to have a name. a blame.
something to direct my broken bottles to.

i want to kick you when you are down. and up. and over.
i want to kick right through you.

i want to make you cry. watch you die. because this is all because of you.

i want to hate you. because i could never hate him. i want to break you.
because he is already broken.

and i know that none of it is true. i know the no-ones fault talk. i have
my masters degree in that mental health shit. but the things you know don't
change the things you feel.

and if it's your fault then maybe i can really believe that there was nothing i
could do.

and if it's your fault then maybe i can believe that it wasn't my fault too.

i miss you when you're gone

i can't imagine he knew it would hurt us so badly to have him gone. i can't imagine that he would have gone if he had known. or maybe he hurt worse than this. maybe this is how cold it had gotten where he lay.

and either way.

it
breaks
me
right
in
two.

last night as joe played his guitar and zoe sipped her vodka and i held my beer close i remembered all sorts of things and it mostly felt good and i mostly felt alive and i mostly wanted to laugh. and i like to say this is all i've got but i've always got more. i mean i have to right? i mean what else can i do?

and sometimes i want to just send a text to ivan anyway. like maybe if i could just pretend for a minute that he was there to read it it would make him feel less far away.

and i want to feel glass break on brick walls.

and i am in love.

so join me for a cup of soup. tell me over coffee about the things you do. because i could use the distraction and i like the sounds of you.

dear ivan,

i woke up from the loudest dreams and i needed to ask you what i should do. i needed you to tell me where to go. because you always tell me the right thing. you always know what i should do. so i was wondering where the fuck you are because i need you right now and i hate this day

and please.

just tell me.

what.

i

am

supposed

to do.

you

and really it was always you. and he holds me just right. and food tastes better. stories feel stronger. the good lasts longer when we are there together.

it was a vermont snowy day weekend. it snowed feet. it was cold as shit. but through that big hotel window it looked perfect and peaceful like little snowcones falling from the sky. we ate calzones and chicken wings and swam in an indoors pool. hot tub for two. it was quiet like i like it.

and it's a new year. and ivan's birthday was saturday only he was dead so he couldn't share. and he sent me a snow storm. and i scribbled notes to him on an old map. and he was close enough to haunt my dreams. i look forward to when the dreams turn nice.

(i hate all the screaming i do.)

so lets do some things. resolutions to remind me of the ways i have failed in years past. the ways i always fail. isn't that what the new year is about?

so...this year i promise to:
starve myself
ride a bike every time i touch a fattening food
be a better person
NO TV!
NO FUN!
do.do.do.

or no. let's be kind. let's look forward to new horizons. you can't go back and right those wrongs (no matter how many i times i dream it. no matter how many times my arms reach his before that trigger is pulled. no matter how loud i yell. no matter how fast i run. i will wake up. and i wake up. and he is gone.) so this year i resolve to:
1. bake bread
2. can my own jam
3. bbq
4. pickle things
5. sleep through the night and forgive the past like i forgive you