don’t be afraid

I’m going to keep writing about grief for a few reasons. Satre questioned ‘to live or to tell’ as a writer. To anticipate how you will describe something when you put it down on paper takes you out of the moment. You observe as you experience. An excuse I employed to not write, my mind spun regardless, never totally grounded or present. To experience this grief with an eye on how to describe it keeps my foot on solid ground. It’s disconnection, but with purpose. *

I look back on my experiences and wish that I had written, even in the form of note taking. I wish I wrote during the two years I had a hormone imbalance and was functionally asexual. I didn’t document the year I lived in a warehouse in San Francisco with a community experimenting with sexual and spiritual freedom, life without limits. Of the year I spent with PTSD hiding in an Upper East Side studio, all I have is the line ‘depression would be relaxing if it didn’t feel so terrible.’ I've regaled my friends with private stand up routines through years of dating, but rarely recorded them. Only poetry and screen shots remain of the greatest love affairs of my life.
*

I didn’t tell you any of that because I liked having secrets, because I was ashamed, because I didn’t know if I could trust you. And now there is this. There is you reading this and I’m processing it in front of you. I am putting my experience out there and you are responding and I love that. This is a time when someone should let themselves be loved. When tragedy punches you in the gut and instead of turning away someone kneels down, rests a hand on your back, and says ‘breathe, breathe, you’re alright,’ that is love. *

Everything goes in and out. In moments I’m okay and want to go on with life as normal. I am perpetually wandering around looking for something. I drop off in the middle of sentences. I move from room to room unsure of what I’m supposed to be doing. As if in the kitchen my friend won’t be gone. As if if I walked into the bedroom he might die all over again. Afraid if I stand up grief will pounce. *

There is no elegant exit, this is only the beginning. Don’t be afraid, I’m not afraid.