Embrace

I can feel the warm embrace of my chemical combination to reduce the pain, tonight I had just a bit more and washed it down with some red wine, I want to feel something other than pain – physical, emotional, psychological. 

Sadly, the warmth only lasts for a few minutes and then the pain will only be dulled for an hour, then back to reality I go. Reality goes on and it strangles me

Call me anytime

“Call me anytime” you said, and I did.

Assaulted with RUOK day again, another round of telling people that their once-a-year inquiry about a depressed friend will achieve something, another round of keeping my head down in case someone asks me.

For the other 364 I'll do my best to pretend that I am okay, because I know damn well that there's only so much of me others can take.

You told me to call anytime, and for a while, I did. 

And for a while it helped. It's just that I took you literally, and just like every time before, with every friend who quit listening, I thought this time I was loved even if I was a downer.

The circumstances of life – being someone's carer, watching someone gradually relinquish their facilities, keeping my fears to myself to escape the tears – are a downer. 

I always promised that next time we talked, I'd be cheerful. I'd have good news, and we'd swap playful puns and plan a visit with the families. But there's always something new and it's never good.

Little-by-little, you withdrew. Instead of weekly, we would talk fortnightly or monthly. Finally, not at all; you occasionally and briefly answer e-mails promising a proper reply that never arrives.

Greed

I was supposed to go into hospital today, once again a visit to the psych clinic because my brain doesn't work and the melancholy is terrible. 

It was planned as a way to cocoon me from the shitstorm that people have created, and all just because they cannot understand that we had a life together and we chose not to tell them so they couldn't interfere in our decisions and our love. 

Their actions are pathetic and only prove we were always right in not trusting them. 

They are greedy and having a meltdown because they won't get what they want.  

Let them go get fucked!

In the beginning

I have been crying for over a thousand  days and nights.

Throughout this time my grief has had different smells, in the beginning it smelled of him, I refused to wash his clothes and I would wear selected items depending on how needy for his presence I felt, it took me over a month to finally change the bedding, I couldn't even bear the idea; then my sorrow started smelling of hospitals, particularly of psychiatric units and coffee shops and terrible food in the institutions. It never smells like food in my home, I don't cook anymore, I hate eating by myself so I very seldom eat anything I made. I eat very little now, the whole desire for food eludes me.

My own body odour is also indicative of my deepest sadness, I can't care for having a shower for many days when I'm alone, it had never really been this bad, I guess I'm just allowing my exterior truly match the way I feel. It is not a punishment, for me it is a form of surrendering to my pain, and I can only do that when I am alone. Living alone just facilitates this form of surrender.

But when I must go out I use his aftershave as moisturising base before sunscreen, I also have  shower gel and eau de toilette matching the aftershave, I don't care if it's a men's fragrance, it smells like him and it's all I have now.

This year has been so cruel, I'm sure I smell of medicines - analgesics, antidepressants, anxiolytics, antiemetics, anticonvulsants, anti-inflammatories, and all other classes of pills I have to take every day to help keep my body surviving. Pain smells of chlorhexidine hand wash, and it began smelling like the hydrotherapy pool. I'm sure I smell of bitter desperation.

The day it all began I smelled of doubt and uncertainty, of exasperated nerves by countless hours of waiting for news by the phone, of interviews with detectives, of rejection from his family,

and then, not long after came the smell of the tedious ritual of filling all sorts of legal paper work and thousands of forms and applications. And the smell of pitiful wilting flowers.

Since the beginning my loneliness smells of anguish at not having enough money for rent, bills, essential medications, and food; smells of pretending I'm managing and utterly collapsing in a heap of sobs behind closed doors. It smells of strange cars of people trying to be nice to me by driving me to airports or medical appointments. Airports are amongst the olfactory cues that I identify with my grief.

My heartache smells of death, of pain, of desperate loneliness, of tears and poor hygiene. Why did it all go so wrong? He was finally getting better, we were actually having a good time as a couple after having what had felt like the longest time of fighting, hurting, and resenting one another. We were lovingly looking after each other.

In my head I can play every word we said, I have the blessing/curse of a gifted memory, and I remember even the most inconsequential details, but I don't control when my mood will be better for thinking specific memories, so when my mind presents me with bits of conversations and times shared together it can make me feel good or just aggravate my grief.

That look in his eyes that was full of love, the look he had just for me every time I returned from a trip away or I cooked something he really enjoyed eating or when he felt particularly proud of being my man for whatever reason, that look of pure love, I miss it so much it aches. I miss being able to share a full meaning with just one look, I knew it was love because it was the same look he had when he spoke of the ocean and surfing, and the same look that was in his eyes whenever he spoke about flying. It must be the same look I had every time I saw him walking towards me and he could see only me. I miss him every living minute, how could I not? He was TheOne.

"I love you very much, I will be OK XXX" those where his last words to me in the beginning.

Not gone yet

Many things have changed since the last post, many remain the same. 

Life goes on and drags you with it, kicking and screaming and fighting it but it drags you none the less. 

I remain, perhaps I must endure so I can bear witness 

Didn't count

I've taken lots of Valium and a bunch of other pills and I hope there will be a lovely sunrise tomorrow, and people go on about their business of buying newspapers and walking looking important, even when they line up to buy their terrible lunches because "it's healthy and organic and paleo and I can't eat gluten" 

Sunshiny day for all those wankers, and I hope I won't be there because I will be with Simon, finally free of the angst that's inherent to being human.

Enjoy a great life darlings .

Just this once

When I got told you were dead all I wanted to do was be next to your body, I wanted to hold your beautiful hands and kiss them, I wanted to hug you and kiss you and clean your body and I wanted to be allowed to spend time with you, but that was denied to me, I was not even allowed to go to the mortuary because she said "she's no family"

Then that night I spent in the lounge, crying, praying, in agony unable to believe I will never see you again because you were dead. 

All my everything died that day. I had never belonged anywhere, proof of that is all my different places I've lived in, but with You, I belonged with you and it was wonderful. 

I don't feel anything but I know I'm still alive, but I don't want to be alive, and if I went ahead and joined you it would fuck them up. 

They never saw how beautiful you were

The wonderful light and the warmth of your love is gone and I don't want to spend another minute here without you