This year… To say I have lost is such an understatement that it’s almost laughable. Or would be if I wasn’t spending my free time curled up into a tiny, tiny ball crying and raging. I assure you I’m not laughing through my tears.
Some of this loss has been by choice but too much of it has been by force which is, I suppose, how loss typically happens.
It might as well have been by gun point that my aunt was taken from us a couple of weeks ago. We learned of the cancer prognosis about a month before she was taken. No one really saw the prognosis coming and we were given just enough time between prognosis and passing to realize there was no preventing it. Cancer, is an asshole. But, I suppose we know that. Knew that.
The “loss” of my best friend of 12 years in the opening months of this year was of my free will. It was a conscious decision that I made on the spot but that I’d been building up to over the months prior. And while her character was never much of a secret, I was made privy to its true nature over the last couple months.
You (she) will never, ever read this but I would like to say now what I couldn’t say as your relationship with my estranged husband came to an end: I’m so very truly sorry that the timing of my mental break down was so inconvenient to you and your desire to throw your beliefs aside and get laid. Because really, my mental break down really has been inconvenient to us all. I suppose you’ll have to go and find another fuck buddy. If you need help finding one, may I suggest the depths of hell where your selfish, inconsiderate, whoring soul belongs. You’ll find your people there. And they won’t care how truly hateful and negative your depraved existence is, inside and out.
Bitch.
Maybe we won’t add that friendship to the loss category after all. We shall call it my escape.
The other friendship loss also wasn’t much surprise. They say some people enter your life and are meant to stay there until the end. Some come into your life and their role is brief. Maybe it’s only meant to last a few weeks. Maybe a few months. A few years. Or, in the scheme of life, even a decade or two might be considered brief.
N, as I shall call him out of a true respect for his desire to remain unknown to this world as a whole, I thought was meant to be a life long friend. I still hurt over the loss of what I thought it would be. But through my tears of the loss of a friend, I do see the role he played. He was my secret keeper and companion in the days leading up to and following the end of my marriage. And while he and I were only ever friends and never would have been more, I was able to examine who he was and my response to him and start to see glimpses of what it is I seek in a romantic companion.
The list is much longer than what I will say here, but for a starter, I will never, ever again find myself in a relationship with someone who doesn’t read. My joy in sharing books with N and him sharing books with me… Him handing my books that weren’t about, “You’ve read such and such so you might enjoy this,” but was instead, “I really enjoyed this book and I’m excited to share it with someone who reads,” was, I think, one of my (many) favorite things about that friendship.
The idea of being able to add a romantic aspect to that, with someone else of course, is something I will no longer settle over. I look forward to the day I find myself in bed with someone, sitting side-by-side reading our respective books. Maybe we’ll even be reading the same thing so we can talk about it as we go, careful to avoid spoilers. Both people in that bed understanding that the lights can’t be turned out until one more chapter has been read. And one more chapter is never just one.
N, I don’t really expect you’ll read these words but please know while our friendship exploded in flames and anger, I will forever thank you for the role you played in my life and the gift you gave me of sight.
I’ve already written on the end of my marriage. The loss of tucking my children in each night and waking to their fighting each morning. I do not wish to dwell on that here. It’s been written about, but I can’t fail to mention it.
The loss of my fine motor skills, as I type on a computer keyboard plugged into my laptop because the keys are slightly bigger and have more space between them allowing for easier manipulation as I write, my fingers struggling to keep up with my head and heart as it is, has been the hardest to swallow. Special pens bought for work in order to have a better, more secure, more comfortable grip. Each of my coworkers knowing that while we are forever stealing one another’s pens, mine are off-limits. It isn’t a matter of being my favorite, it’s a matter of me being a liability as I need to be sure and reassured I didn’t miscount the money my fingers struggle to manipulate. I never count just once, I’ve learned to compensate, how to count it, how to manipulate it to be sure I balance each night. But my fingers, my hands, my fine motor skills are being taken from me as I fight tooth and nail to not lose it all.
As I drop my camera, not the point-and-shoot, but my darling Nikki due to a compromised grip as I simply lifted it to move it over 2 feet. A special strap is already attached to help with grip, any photographer wanting that security no matter the state of their hands. But who attaches a strap to move something 2 measly feet? And Nikki fell, my portrait lens busted, and I still, months later, can’t bring myself, can’t find the will within, to learn if my beloved Nikki is still in working order.
As my fine motor skills trickle away, my sanity, stability, tumbles.
To Be Continued