Sunday, August 13, 2023

Bury Me in Memory

I watch videos of my Virgo almost every night before I go to sleep. Among other things, he mouths I love you to me in some of the videos; in others, he sends kisses to me; sometimes he does both. I've tried not watching the videos; in fact, in the beginning, I couldn't because watching hurt too much, watching what was once mine show me how much he loved me in a way that always made me feel connected and close, but as time has gone on, I can't not watch the videos for precisely that reason--they make me feel connected and close. 

I watch his little half smile, the puckering of his lips, the distinct shape of I love you they make, and for a few minutes, it's almost like nothing has changed. It's almost like nothing has changed, but as much as it's almost like nothing has changed, of course, I know it has. When I'm watching the videos, when I'm watching my Virgo, I'm watching him love me and show me that he loves me, and I'm loving him back, but I'm also consciously missing him at the same time because even though the videos make me feel connected and close, I'm still fully conscious the whole time I'm watching that we're over. It's not like I'm watching and pretending that nothing has changed.

It's not like this morning.

I don't know what possessed me to do it this morning, it's the first time in this entire ordeal that I have, but when I came in from walking the dogs, just for a second, if even for that, I imagined my old life. I saw myself saying to the dogs, or maybe it's more apropos to say in my head, I said to the dogs, Okay, now it's time for me to go upstairs and see Daddy, and then I pictured my Virgo upstairs asleep on his side of the bed. I didn't just picture it, though, not in the way that I often picture scenes and things from our past, things like us sitting at the table together eating dinner side by side or sitting on the couch watching TV or driving around in his car, Apsaras, him holding my hand, our fingers intertwined. I pictured it in a way that leans toward pretending. It was just for a second if even that--a flash, really--but it was like my Virgo really was sleeping upstairs. 

And it was devastating. 

As everyone knows, I've been heartbroken, and my coping has been muy malo. I do nothing but think about my Virgo and have cried more in the last two months than I've cried in my life, and these tears? They don't care where I am or who I'm with; when these fuckers want to come out, they wait for nothing with absolutely no regard to acceptable behavior or social norms (case in point: in an attempt to do something healthy i.e. not sit in the house and cry about my Virgo, when I was invited to a party/get together by a professional yet friendly acquaintance, I said yes, only to burst into tears when a woman I'd just met that afternoon asked me what I've been doing all summer long). Anyway, the point? Things have been bad or more accurately, things have been horrific, abysmal, brobdingnagianly awful. 

But today was different. 

I don't know why that flash of the past as if it were my present . . . no, that's not what it was. That what?  Alternate reality present? Alternate reality present. That's what it was. An alternate reality present. I don't know why that flash of alternate reality present was so particularly painful, so crushing that I had to go upstairs immediately and regroup on my bed (where I had another flash, this time seeing the room exactly as it had been, the absent picture of Snake that my Virgo hung on the wall years ago and the picture of two skeletons holding hands with the caption I'll find you again wherever we end up next no longer absent, his personal belongings still stacked on his nightstand) and then, when I  came downstairs, cried my way through so many tissues, my table looked like the byproduct of some attempt at arts and crafts.

I don't know if this is what healing looks like because I've never been here before since by the time my ex-Glenn and I finally ended, our ending was so overdue, I didn't feel a fraction of what I'm feeling now, but I don't think that it is. I've experienced plenty of pain before, both physical and emotional, but never sustained with such acuity, such ferocity, and in those experiences, the pain gets better instead of worse. So healing? I'm thinking no. 

I'm also thinking that you're maybe reading this waiting for me to come to some sort of revelation or unveil some deeper meaning as I've done in previous posts. If that's the case, I've got some bad news. There's no we-have-to-experience-loss-to-appreciate-what-we have or suffering-is-necessary-for-growth-and-makes-people-stronger here, no theme, no general message about life.

What's here is pain. Suffering. Debilitating wounds. 

What's here is an all-encompassing, suffocatingly enveloping, life-altering trauma, a loss of hope, a lack of understanding, a dearth of trust, and a surplus of incredulity. 

What's here is me. 

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