lost in a dream

i dreamed of J last night.

the whole dream he accompanied me, wondering why i am not looking after him. asking, why it is that i am only preparing food for myself, or not reaching out to him. why are we not spending time together? he wondered. i didn't have an answer. i didn't understand. "yes, why would i do such a thing?" i asked myself. then i invited him to lay down with me on the couch to spoon, thinking to myself, "oh God, and why did i sleep with another guy?! how could i do such a thing?! i can't ever tell him that. he'll leave. .. and i don't even know why i did it. i don't know the reason for any of these thoughtless actions." ... only when i opened my eyes, did i realize the reason why.

because he died. that's why.

tears are good for you?

From one of my Daily Grief-Support Emails:

The True Nature of Tears - Day #296

[…]
 In one survey, 85% of women and 73% of men reported feeling less sad or angry after crying. I can believe it!

Psychologists and research scientists are trying to discover what the content and purpose of tears may be. Some of this research has been conducted by William Frey in an effort to discover the chemical makeup of tears. Frey compared tears induced from sadness with tears caused by cutting a raw onion. He found that the tears caused by emotional stimuli contained more total protein than those that resulted from irritation.

Frey proposes that the emotionally based tears contained high levels of cortisol, which is the primary hormone released during stressful situations. This suggests that we may be literally releasing toxins from our system when we cry, and that crying may support our overall well- being.


Well, ... if that is true, I should be toxin-free at this point. I have cried almost every single day for the first year and a half... until the beginning of this summer, which is when I decided that I didn't want to cry anymore. What was the point of my tears? Did it change anything? No. Did it help? No. So why the F spend all this time sobbing? It made no sense. It began to make me angry.

I guess, I still carry anger - but together with the anger comes a little bit of acceptance. This acceptance, however, I was only able to reach by removing J from plain sight and my thoughts. I still have a few pictures around the house, but, I actively try to avoid spending time thinking about the past and us, together. I'm trying not to make it too obsessive - as i have read that some people create temporary psychoses to protect themselves from trauma in some way, and pretending we didn't exist together could count as such, however, I am actively counteracting any inclination to wallow in grief.

I know, that repression isn't a good thing to do either, for the pain will catch up with you at a later point tenfold, i hear, so i am aiming for a certain balance, which will allow me to grief a little but only that. No more looking at pictures, listening to songs (if it comes on radio, skip it), and no more memories. .. Sounds like BS .. which it probably is... but, anyway, ... I am attempting the realization of some version of this plan.

my mourning dove

i like it when i'm asleep. it's like i live in a different version of reality there. sometimes, i forget that J died and the feeling of joy about his presence or our togetherness is beyond words which could do this emotion justice. in my dreams it is often so that i realize (or think to realize) that it was all not real...that he is alive after all, and somehow i just didn't know.

the day we left to go on our yearly trip home i found myself more somber than usual. it made no sense, for J never came with us in the time that we were together. i guess, it was as if i was leaving his space, the place that i associated with his presence, even though he was no longer that --- present.

as i was standing in the computer room i heard a familiar, yet strange, sound. it was the cooing of a mourning dove, only it sounded as if it had been recorded and played back slowly in order to analyze every part of its call. when i looked out of the window, i saw a mourning dove was sitting right on the outside sill, looking at me. i could have reached out and touched it, that's how close it was. another mourning dove sat on the tree behind. after all my encounters with this bird during the last year, i have come to learn that there is a certain significance to it when i see or hear it. this one seemed like a gentle gesture of farewell.

mistakes in grieving

a few days ago, i made the mistake of watching an old video of J and I bickering .. but, the way we always did... a fun, sarcastic banter between us...and, it made me laugh. of course, it also reminded me of how special it was that we had ... and how i never had this kind of chemistry and exchange with anyone else. it reminded me of how unique he was.

people feel compelled to tell me that love will come again and that i shouldn't close myself off. but, i am not big on relationships .. and, i think, this was it for me. sure, i could have other relationships one day but why? 80% of relationships are work, sacrifice, compromise, and general annoyance, aren't they? at least, that's how i perceive it.
with J it was different, even though, all these things were part of it, too. the difference was that i loved him so madly that it all didn't matter and was worth it. perhaps, i am romanticizing my relationship post-mortem. there is a chance that i'm doing that. it's a coping mechanism but, i suppose, it's a virtuous thing to remember only the good things about a person after they die.
then again, i don't only remember the good things. i remember all the bad sh-t, too. only, it makes no difference. just as it made no difference when he was alive and i was trying to convince myself that it should.

anyway .. so after the initial fun i had with watching this video (and another, in which he is rapping to a song on the radio as he is driving the car on a warm summer afternoon in the city), i later ended up in the fetal position on the floor, crying my eyes out, barely able to contain myself. i hadn't lost it like this in a while... in fact, i thought, things were getting better. after seeing his daughter two or three weeks ago, i had been feeling so calm.

it's always the same, i think i'm safe and i have made it through the worst, and then it gets you again, the hammer of grief .... for the lack of a better analogy. i like to refer to it as the strangling grip of grief but, really, it's more like a hammer coming down on you, out of nowhere, knocking you off your feet as you stand there unprepared. .. or another suitable tool analogy would be that squeezy apparatus .. i don't know what it's called.

anyway, so since then i've been feeling pretty low. yesterday morning, i reached out to a friend, but, it may not be a good idea to tell all your friends how there is nobody who can compare to the company J was to you. how there was noone you would have rather spent your time with. how he was the funniest person you knew.
... basically, i am telling everyone that their company is sub-par.
sigh. ... i must stop that.

what is this life for? if love is so important, why was this one taken. then again, the love is still here. he is gone. and from his departure, new love sprang. between all the people he left behind. ...

achh -- i hate it when i get all kumbaya and pseudo-wise/insightful.
it's annoying.
i'm angry.

kids are the answer to our sorrows

for some reason, the past week has been hell.
actually since his birthday last month, the grief train took a downward turn again (as in .. you know .. it goes up and down like a roller coaster. man, i'm tired. i'm gonna have to come back to this later to edit the lyrical nonsense i'm spewing right now.)

anyway, on thursday i actually yelled at myself all the way as i was driving to work. i was crying again, missing him so much .. and it just pissed me off. "STOP f---ing crying already. STOP!!" I screamed at the top of my lungs as I shot down the highway. "There is no freakin' point in crying! No point! What is the point?! Stop feeling sorry for yourself! YOUR LIFE IS GOOD. People all over this world have way worse to suffer. SHUT UP already!" ... For some reason, that made me break down even more. As if the realization of this made me feel even worse. Or maybe I cried more because I realized that none of these facts helped in my recovery from this pain.

But, today, I came to the conclusion that there are things that assuage my suffering. At least, it is a theory, for I feel balanced and alright today. Maybe it was just my hormonal state last week (remember my hormone balance - grief relation theory?) .. but, I think, what was balm to my soul this weekend was having J's mother over for two evenings (Thu, Fri), and then seeing his daughter on Saturday. She turned 8 years old and the celebration was a small get-together in the park with his ex-wife (who remarried and is pregnant again), her best friend and family, as well as J's mom and one of his sisters, plus the kids.

It was a lovely afternoon but most joy I experienced by just watching his daughter smile, laugh, and play. She is such a sweet kid, so much heart, so smart, so considerate, and just such a shining soul. And through her, I also saw him shine. That is a little piece of him right there. And so is his ex-wife, .. his high school sweetheart. She doesn't like to talk to me about it but, I know, she loved him deeply and this must have been a great loss for her, too - despite the fact that their marriage ended almost seven years earlier. So, when I see her, I also see a piece of J. A piece of his love is with her and that means she brings a little tranquility to me, as well. As much as she may despise me at times (I don't know if she does, but I have a hunch that maybe sometimes she does. We knew each other while J and she were married and, although, J and I came together after they split up, she may have suspicions of earlier activities. It's only natural. It's the doubt in our heads. Life's bad experiences. I don't know.) ... But when I see her, I have love for her because she is being a wonderful mother to that kid of J's. And she could shut me and my kids out completely, but she makes an effort not to. And that's big of her.

I love that child like my own because I loved J. She was only a baby when our patchwork family began to sprout. It's really amazing what can become of a family that's split apart if all involved parties are open to different reconnections. It can become a beautiful tapestry of people, diplomacy, forgiveness, and love - and the recipients of this love, tolerance, and connection are all the children involved. My kids may be children of divorce but they have seen only cooperation, helpfulness, and good-will from me (that's not to say that I haven't had plenty of moments of frustration or anger about their Dad, but I have kept them hidden from the girls). I have never spoken badly about him, nor have I insisted that they can't call their new step-siblings 'brothers and sisters' or their Dad's girlfriend 'stepmom', even though all that took time to get used to. I had nothing but support for the fact that their Dad, last year, announced he had another child [from a few excursions during the months of finalizing our separation]. It wasn't easy - because I'm a narrow-minded adult now - but, at least, I was able to remind myself that, to the kids, this was just another little sister (yeih!).

Life is about love. It's true. And while I may have lost my romantic love - that man, who I would have died for - I still have plenty of love all around me and I try - very hard - to focus on that, remember it, and appreciate it. And maybe - one day - this pain will be nothing but a memory. A scar. A thought about light, passion, and love. A sliver of hope for a reunion one day, when it is my time to go.

"death cafe" in my head

if you've been reading this blog, you know that i have had a lot of mystical experiences since J died. experiences i have never had in my life before. even though, at that moment they are undoubtedly some sort of sign, as my heart is in charge, i usually end up questioning what has happened, for i inevitably return to my skeptical self, searching for rational explanations... or, at least, one type of explanation that could make sense in this world somehow.

for example, one question i had: ... how come some people have these experiences after loved ones have died and others don't? although, so far, almost everyone i have met - even one of my atheist friends (who is convinced she is imagining things) - has had such an experience after her sister passed away. BUT, just for the sake of the argument - let's say, it is just a sub-set of people who has these experiences, then my question would be: why? is this a choice that can be made by the deceased? are they even conscious of anything? is there something like a hell or a not so great place to be after you die? but how could there be? how could an all-forgiving God not forgive the ones that have been shaped by a horrible environment growing up, or who have lost their moral compass along a difficult path with nothing but bad influences, or the ones who are just mentally ill? clearly, the latter would be excused, right? but then - does that mean an ill jeffrey dahmer would go to heaven and a child soldier who is broken by his fate will go to hell for having become an adult who can do a lot of bad, for he is so desensitized about what is truly immoral?
i think, not. ... so - in the end there would be forgiveness for everyone. even the ones who got lost on the way and became "evil". even the dictators?  .. yes - so, that is the constant back-and-forth in my head. asking and answering. philosophizing. theorizing and then questioning my own theories. it can be maddening at times. i want answers!

why couldn't we have an arrangement in which the deceased could officially communicate to tell us about the after-life. or, wouldn't it be neat if they could write one letter to the loved ones who were left behind? one letter. 6 months after they die. this way, the ones left grieving would have something to look forward to ... but, that would be a lot of pressure, i suppose. not everyone can write a letter, or say the right thing.
maybe, that's why the messages come the way they do. in little signs. some more subtle than others. it's like a letter substitute, but, we have to really tune in and pay attention.

then, i thought, ... why are the deceased staying around at all? and where or with whom are they staying around? can they be in more than one place at once? are they following patterns? do they have mortal desires still? which ones do they still have? are they aware of anything? do they learn about their new existence over time? do they stay around (or visit) only until their loved ones die? i mean .. in the grand scale of things, whatever life times are left over of the ones still walking around breathing, is probably not a very long time. or do they check in to see their grand and great-grand children grow?

too many questions. i want answers. and since the only way to know is to be dead, i guess, i will always remain without certainty.
this sucks.
the only thing i cling on to now is the saying (or... actually..it's from one of the Abrahamic books...the Quran, or the Bible, or Torah... wait...if it's in the Bible, it's probably also in the Quran.. anyyywayy .... here it is - my comfort:  "all will be known in the end."

i miss him so much, it's sickening sometimes.
but i don't cry every day anymore. ... i guess, that's a step forward.

depressed much?

i should smoke some weed i tell myself. escape this empty room, this empty everything. but, i don't want to. what i want, is to submerge myself in an even greater void. i want to drown myself into nothingness. i want to pull these blankets of darkness over my head and just wait it out.

the anger is back, together with the apathy. grief - a merry-go-round of unpredictable stages i thought were going to come and pass chronologically. that's what we've always heard. the stages of grief - they are a,b,c,d, and e.
no, they're not. not in that order, anyway. they come and go and come back and go, only to return again.

live in the present moment, i read over and over again. don't look back, for it is in the unchangeable past and don't look into the future because the thought of his absence will drive you mad. just focus on the present moment. pay attention to the details. that's how you stay in the moment.

the present moment.
it is midnight. almost the strike of.
it is an unusually mild march evening
i open the window and lean out to take in a breath of fresh air
i close my eyes - the night's scent reminds me of a nyc summer evening
i remember sitting on the fire escape with J, smoking cigarettes, talking.
*stay in the moment, dammit* .. NO memories now.

i walk into my children's room to retrieve my younger daughter's tooth.
she has lost it today and it is under her pillow waiting for the tooth fairy.
it's a molar. that's two dollars. i take the bloodstained tooth and save it,
even though i really just want to throw it out. i can't.
i take my time to carefully cut a pretty ribbon
and wrap the dollar bills like a gift.

the present moment is over.
i don't know what to pay attention to anymore besides the empty room.
i don't want to do anything. i just want to submerge myself in nothingness.

mysticism explained?

this morning, as i stood in one corner of the room, quietly  getting dressed, a picture, which had been leaning against the wall, sitting on my dresser across the room for months, suddenly slid forward, pushing off a glass candle holder, which then shattered on the floor.

as i walked over, puzzled about why that happened, i noticed that behind the picture frame were a bunch of drawings by my daughters. the one on top was just J's name in big, fat letters and lots of colors, filling the entire page. something my younger kid had painted for J when he was away.

as i swept up the shards on the floor, i thought about how one could now interpret this. yes, it could just be a total random thing. this stuff happens. but, maybe it was J - saying hello ... or being angry that he can't help relief this constant sadness i now carry with me.

and then this made me think about how mysticism works... or maybe works. everything that happens to us or around us can probably be rationally explained somehow, even if we don't have the capacity to do so. however, i think, the whole point of the mystical is to be subtle. maybe, the other dimension is allowed to give us small signs but they can't be too tangible, for it would throw off our concept of reality and probably drive some of us insane. things have been happening this year in a way they have never happened before. many of them could be coincidence or explained away with some stretch of the imagination (or sense of what's rational, that is), but how would that help me? it wouldn't. and that's why the signs are subtle. so that we have reality to hold on to if we needed it - but also the option to see and appreciate the comfort of something else besides this bleak existence of grief.