And then she was all like…

I am not going to blog-lie. I have never felt this horrible in my life. I cry all the time. I agonize about forgotten conversations I couldn’t write down before forgetting them. I lay in bed awake for a half hour before I can even bring myself to move. Every morning, I break the news to myself that, omygosh, I can’t believe this is my life. And that it always will be. How the hell am I supposed to know I’m going to just, like, LIVE through this? Can’t I die yet? Every night, I go to bed congratulating myself that I’m one day closer to it. My little spirit is so tired, and it just wants to go home. I’m sorry. I told you I wasn’t going to lie. Don’t get all up in my comments, and tell me to get help. I’m not going to off myself. I am just content with what I’ve done, and it wouldn't be such a shame if I got to duck out while my boobs were still semi perky. People tell me I seem like I’m doing better. Are you effing KIDDING ME? This is a month and a half after the worst day of my life. NOW is when it is SINKING IN.

I talk to reboyfriend out loud every night around this time. Up until the last night we spent together, we had a little two-part ritual any time we conked out. Now, I do my half of it alone in my bed every night. My imaginary friend, Jed, does his part back in my sad little pretend mental world. **WhoaWhoaWhoa WHOA...I just re-read this today...and realize it sounds totally dirty. Holy embarrassing. OK. What I meant was, every night we had a little back and forth VOCAL ritual, where he would sigh really big and let out this vulnerable, needy little hum, and wait quietly with his eyes closed, for me to copy him. If I didn't, he would do it again until I caught on. And when I did, he took it through about three more rounds. Duh, that's really all. But it was cute. He used to do it when we dated in college, and I had forgotten about it until one night this past spring he did it again out of the blue. It was our tradition of affirmation and endearment. Wow. Anyway...** I wonder if he ever sees me pick my nose, and I need to remind him that it was just an itch, not “picking.” I tell him about my day – my minor successes and the times he would be proud. I ask him if he misses me. I cry, because I don’t think he does, and then I get nervous about crying because I have this paranoid belief that he won’t come near me if I’m ever upset.

I can remember a time, four summers before this last one, when I was going through THE shittiest time. I lost 15 pounds, gave up on God, and I might have even developed a twitch. It was one of those things I Got Myself Into, so I made a point of learning like hell from it. I moved home from SLC, to live with my mom and four little sisters in Highland for the summer. All of them were going through their own loads of total crap. It was a crazy summer. Not the kind of “crazy” that involves jEePiN’ and lots of cuh-ray-zay nights out. I mean crazy as in mentally ill. Or pretty close to it.

Some of our favorite memories as sisters and daughters come from that time. We didn’t have a whole lot to be excited about in life. At all. We were all broke or knocked up or in rehab or getting restraining orders against people something equally rad. It wasn’t like we had a cruise coming up, or a wedding that we knew of, or some form of graduation from something. One sister had some childbirth penciled in, but she had to come home empty-handed from that one (and to this day, she is still my hero for choosing the harder route then for the better life now). Life just didn’t have a whole lot of sparkle on the horizon for us. So we made stuff up. There is just a human need, in some people, to have something, anything, to be excited about. And you need it even more when your heart is in a million little pieces.

We sprawled around on the floor of the living room and talked about this amazing song we heard performed on Leno, or the lame people in the online dating scene, or made fun of the girl that stole a boy from my sister because she drove a car called a “Lazer” that looked like a really old Eclipse, and we enjoyed repeating the word Lazerrrrrr as obnoxiously as possible. I looked forward to coming home from work and watching Mean Girls two times in a row, back to back. Or Little Women.

So, we’d burn that cool new song on to a CD and get in my car and open the sunroof all the way, even though the AC was running. We took late night drives down to Walmart or Del Taco, or the gas station for a fountain Pepsi we didn’t need. We drove down this really long “lane” (what a great word) that connects Highland to Lehi. It feels like a secret, because it’s really quiet and narrow and shady, and it doesn’t have lines painted on it, and hardly ever any other cars. The “lane” also meanders past some water reservoir/watershed thing, but they had to be all pretentious about the zoning, so it is surrounded by granite boulders and wrought iron fences, with pebbles spilling around the base of it as if to create the feeling of a quaint little pond. (Yeah, a pond that is a perfect rectangle and has this ugly metal power shed thing in the corner). We promptly mocked this, asking each other how in love with yourself you would have to be to take your neighborhood ditch and try to make it all classy. We named the road “classy ditch road.”

But it’s a beautiful drive. It cuts through field after field, before ending at the mouth of the world’s biggest jackpot of chain atrocities known to man. I love this, all of this. One minute, you’re in a scene from a Hallmark movie and next thing you know, BAM, you’re in The Meadows, the united states of generica, the glory hole of all strip malls, which has taken over Lehi, Utah. Anybody want Sonic? Somehow, that little road stayed surprisingly quiet and serene. I think legislature and resident CC&R vitriol may have had a hand in it. But also, you know, the fate that makes everything revolve around ME right now.

I take this peaceful, scenic little nature drive most mornings on my way to Starbucks or Walgreens.

Because here I am living in Highland again, once more to heal from something traumatic, this time something I didn’t get myself into, a life I never chose.

Tonight, I took the “lane” all the way back up into Highland with my Walmart and Panda Express bags tumbling around in the backseat. I opened my sunroof all the way, blasted my music and thought about the weird ways we stuck together and kept each other laughing that summer. It’s September 29^th. It’s still really Summer. And in Summer, you should always have your sunroof open when you drive at night, and your music should always be loud. I wondered, secretly at first, if maybe some of the sweetest things in life are things we look back and remember sprouting from the bitterest times. I honestly think some of the sweetest times in my life were those empty-hearted, broke-down moments next to Coot and mom that summer. I cut the stems off the Walmart roses I got for the counter today, eating my crap Chinese food, and wondering about that.

I know it probably weirded you out to read my first part of this entry. Where I talk about being one day closer to death (that always depresses people. Hell, it used to depress me). But don’t start thinking I’m some goth emo pu**y who just wants to lay around and listen to Radiohead and Tori Amos until people get sick of me. I put on a game face every damn day. I congratulate myself for things besides being a day nearer to God. I congratulate myself on crossing off 50% of my to-do list today at work. I congratulate myself for taking a shower AND using face wash in the process. I reward myself for going to work, almost once every single day. And here are some of the ways.

- Go to Smart Cookie. Buy a cream-cheese-frosted sugar cookie in every color. Bring home to host family.

- Stop at Cheesecake Factory on the way home from work. Pick up Wild Blueberry White Chocolate Truffle cheesecake. Bring home to host family.

- Buy myself a celebrity smut magazine (the first I’ve read in about a year, excluding hair salon days). Then eat cheesecake while reading about how Scroungelina is jealous of Brad’s relationship with The Walking Perfection That Is Rachel McAdams. I got to the blueberry graham cracker crust right about the part where it talked about Angie making Brad UNINVITE Rachel and her husband to the Jolie-Pitt Chateau. Tacktastic, Angie!

- Get a carwash. The best one they offer, with RainX and rainbow soap and free vacuums at the end.

- Stop at Starbucks and buy myself one of their really pretty mugs with my pumpkin latte. When they start to wrap it up in tissue paper and a gift box, stand there and don't stop them. Because it’s a present. To myself. Open it once I get to my desk at work.

- Get a cute pair of socks at Target when I really went there for contact solution.

- Get a cute notebook to scribble in and carry in my purse.

- Draw a bitchin bath, as cliché as I can – meaning candles and bubbles and Enya. Soak in my cliché. Bask in the triteness. It’s overdone for a very good reason. Shave! Past the knees even!

- Get Ghirardelli raspberry squares for smores that you will make in the chimnea on the back deck with the host family. (I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since the cabin trip with Zeke and Anaga…a blog you will read soon).

I do something like this for myself, every day. All this while, I am feeling incredibly sorry for myself, which is also healing. It makes you feel so deserving of the treat, and also makes you feel so loyal to yourself, and so in control of your healing. I get so tired of saying "what is taking so long" and not even know whose mercy I'm at.

Last weekend when I was out hunt for some gifts, I bought one for myself. I was at my favorite store of all time (Tabula Rasa), browsing all the cool books they have on display. One stood out at me – it is a little post-card sized hardcover called Take Time. It is full of inspirational quotes about how to LOVE all the time you have, how to make the most of it. Relish in the potential contained in the seemingly ENDLESS SPRAWL of your untouched future. It was on a day that I was feeling particularly overwhelmed by the amount of life I have left to live without the Jedster. And this made a celebration of that, focusing on how much of this life is terrifically just mine, for now. And that I’d better soak it up before I’m dead and back with him, so I can appreciate doing our nightly rituals and teasing each other about voting wrong.

Reboyfriend always made me make my bed – or made it for me, every morning. I NEVER made my bed in the morning before that. Now, I make a thing of it. And I put my dumb little Take Time book on the edge of it like a present, and it greets me when I get home from a long day at work.

I urge you to get something for yourself next time you buy something for someone else. I think you should congratulate yourself for something every day.

Oh, and there was no real point to this post. Hence the title. Sorry if you were waiting for it to make any sense, ever.

Whatever. Here's that book.

And, you know, that other book.

And Reboyfriend's copious notes taken while reading this blog, still stuck inside the pages of the book.

We love books.

I'm so effing smart.

I want to brag about myself for a minute (get a snack, you're in for a real long post!).

In panic mode, I started to think about how Tmobile, in its history of pissing me off, might just note my intense vulnerability and see an opportunity to outdo itself (in suckiness) - by somehow deleting the two saved messages left on my phone from Reboyfriend. I go in and resave them every couple of days, just to make sure they are still there. They each reflect a different side of him. One of them is all funny and inappropriate about my sweet ass and wanting to get home and do stuff to me, and the other is the I-just-got-you-the-Creamie-Girl-gig business call. And I had no intention of ever losing either of those little treasures.

It was starting to give Tmobile too much power. I'm tired of not having control over how much of him I get to remember (it's not as easy as it sounds, trust me). I'm tired of there being so much I want to have or keep, and so little that I get to. I'm tired of how obsessed I get over it all.

So I took matters into my own googling hands. I wanted those voicemails on my hard drive, non-erasable and clear as a bell.

If you ever find yourself as desperate as me, wanting some special voicemail saved onto your computer...take heart, and follow these instructions! (Have a great day!)

-------------------------

1. Download Skype. That part is free.

2. Choose to "pay as you go" for credits. They are about 25 cents a minute. You buy a minimum of about 40 minutes. This will set you back $10. Boo hoo. Turn your lights off while you're gone and let your hair air dry a few times. There. I just saved you $10 on your power bill. Suck on that, Pacificorp.

3. Download a 15-day trial of Skype Recorder.

- NOTE: It asks you fifteen times if you are sure this isn't some hard-drive rape virus that is going to destroy the world. Just keep clicking OK. I'm still not sure it's not violating and my hard drive right now, so don't sue me if I just directed you to your PC's blue-screened demise. It will also ask permission to connect with your Skype. Tell it OH YES. It will take it upon itself to notice when you call someone, and it automatically records.

4. Open your Skype.

5. Dial your cell phone number. Let it go to voicemail. You'd think that's obvious, but you'd be surprised how tempting it is to answer the phone call coming from your own laptop.

6. Make sure that the "dial pad" is displayed. That's where you will click the star or pound sign (to get in to your voicemail.)

7. Proceed through all the voicemail you want recorded. Because the tape is rolling.

Click on the call in your Recorder's box afterward, and save to your hard drive.

Love is immortal. I want it written and engraved on everything, because it is. You can't kill it. It isn't an account that dies with the person you're sharing it with. It just is. Love is just immortal...

And now, so is Reboyfriend's verbalized desire to smack dat.

The Little Red Book

Last night, I prayed to a God I'm trying to reacquaint with, in hysterics, begging for comfort. I hate asking God for stuff, because if it's a big enough deal to ask for, then it's big enough to be a serious blow when He says no (see the post where I profess my love for the phrase, "Fine, REER!").

I wore makeup today, for the third time since the funeral. So like, whenever you're ready to hand over my medal, let me know. Surely God rewards such efforts or puts you in Cosmo's Fun Fearless Female section. It takes every ounce of strength I have to get out of bed in the morning, and my courage and stamina are waning fast. At some point, I'm going to break. And what is God going to do then? I feel like at some point, this Heavenly parent of mine will give me a little credit or cut me a break or something. I don't know.

I had one very special experience at some point between the accident and now, and I don't dare ask God for more. But last night was wicked, so much so that I didn't know how much more of this I could take. I proceeded to wig out.

It's almost like I believed if I freaked out big-time enough on God, it might make Him really uncomfortable and hastily amenable. Like when I cry on the phone to I.T. at work, and they close out my Help Desk case pronto just to get off the call. Maybe God would just give me one more sweet dream, if I cried ugly enough. I cry ugly. I saw some pix of the first few days after we found out our three men had died, and I look disgusting. My face seriously like, grew a new muscle in it just from scrunching and crying, so it's shaped all different.

I went to bed, curled up in my quilt, and - get this - spent the entire night having horrible nightmares about Reboyfriend. Um, WTF? It was the most direct NO I ever got from God. (Reer!) A dreamless sleep would have gotten the point across, but OK. So, I think we have established that God can't so much be manipulated the way computer nerds can. And the louder your plea, the louder your answer. Clearly.

Then Reboyfriend's sister called me today.

Her: I have something I thought you might like to have. We found it in Jed's stuff. It's called, hold on, let me see...The Big Book Of Words You Should Know.

Me: [frozen. this is a mean trick. this can't be.] ............What?

Her: Yeah. And there is a really sweet note inside. It just seemed like something you might like to have.

And, after a couple of seconds of it sinking in, down dripped the makeup.

When God torches your future and it burns to the ground, and it's all erased and you don't want it rewritten...

Sometimes if you just ask, He does you a solid.

I got the book from her. He took it out of his backpack at his mom's, and they think he combined bags with his dad and it got left out. This is the first time I've been grateful for his flakiness. Just as I told you several posts back, it was a very sentimental part of our relationship. As Joslyn gave it back to me, I noticed that no part of it had been disturbed. In its pages are the love letter, a post-it he stuck in there of things from this blog he didn't get (his way of proving that he did read it), and a five dollar bill stuck in one of the pages. The giftwrap tag from Tabula Rasa (where I got him his equally special airplane globe), was stuck to the inside of the cover. His sisters kept it exactly how they found it.

I know we shouldn't cherish material things, but sometimes memories are not tangible enough. Material things have the power to aid through symbolism, to be something you can touch and see with your eyes. Almost smudged with emotional and spiritual residue from the experiences you had with it. Months ago, I mentioned that when Reboyfriend and I found one another, it helped me keep my attitude off of all I had lost that year. I wrote:

"...And I was happy. I didn't feel loss. I have been focusing on everything that felt like the opposite of loss. I focus, to this very moment, on anything reclaimed."

I have the book. I have the letter. Thus embodying, I guess, the opposite of loss. Wouldn't you say?

Happy Bananaversary.

Dear Reboyfriend,

Well it's that day. Nine years after that pie.

There are so many things I want to ask you. Big things like, I don't know, where the crap are you? And harder questions about what happened to you. Questions that haunt me.

But I have silly questions, too. Like, I've always wondered if you remember that night with the pie the same way I remember it. Sometimes I'd talk about it, and you'd always make some joke and be all inappropriate and poke me in the rib and laugh. (So no, you don't remember it how I remember it, because I get misty eyed when I remember it, and you seem to only remember the juicy stuff, and talk about scoring on me and whatnot, which does not make you misty eyed. Scoring on my fine self should have EVERYONE misty eyed. It's a magical thing, homie).

OK so the night I was staying late with your family at the church the night before your funeral, hugging people and talking about it sucking (oh, wait you were there, you already knew that). While they waited for me to finish my regirlfriendly duties that night, my family got together for banana cream pie at their hotel. When someone brought me back to the hotel, I saw it and it made me cry - but happy tears. The next morning, when Jake gave your life sketch, they got to find out why.

"Jed always had a thing for the ladies. He was a ladies man. I remember one time when Jed was asked to a dance and was not sure how to answer his date, so he called her roommate Kirsten Montague to help him with a creative way to respond. They decided to bake a pie and write a note that said, 'I'll say yes if you give me a piece.' Turns out the only piece Jed received was from Kirsten that night. This sparked a long and very memorable relationship that lasted for years."

--Jake Meng, delivered 8-18-09

It was banana cream, and the rest was history.

I could have lived without the ladies man part, but then again I'm thinking your mom could have lived without the piece part. Jake's straight up, and it comes with the territory. "The Ladies" at large, as a general population, are less awesome than me because they didn't bury you with a lock of their hair and pump the internet full of you, on their whiny blogs. So Kirsten Is Win!

So, although we all know you got action, it was tender and Lifetime-ish, too. Hell, YOU didn't know I stole that salad-dressing-bottle-for-a-rolling-pin idea from the Boxcar Children. You thought I was the cutest thing you'd ever seen. Is that what won you over? Is that why you sat on the ground next to me, up against the wall of your kitchen and you played with my hair until we had ourselves the most G-rated four hours of straight kissing you ever did see? (I want to know where that willpower came from, because I've eaten half a cheesecake in like 48 hours, and it would come in handy right about now). I will admit how funny it is that we thought it was SUCH action back in the day.

I guess nine years is a long time. I don't know, it went pretty fast for me. For anyone reading this, I guess they can have the nutshell version of that fateful September 17th (or the stuff leading up to it), without being told of all the caressing of hair, and the informing me of my immense beauty, and eye gazing that you totally committed that night (doesn't crack people up at funerals as much as the piece thing, though, so I can see where you'd fixate on the makin out). Correct me if I'm wrong, reboyfriend, but I believe it went a little something like this:

Girl sees Boy.

Girl asks Boy to Sadie Hawkins (it was a roommate's boyfriend's roomate kind of thing - but in my defense, Girl didn't know Boy).

Boy goes to Girl's apartment to meet and get to know her.

Boy instead sees Kirsten standing on balcony.

Boy asks around to find which apartment is Kirsten's. [um, next door to "Girl"]

Boy finds apartment, stands in Kirsten's open living room doorway with determination, smiles widely and knowingly at her and stares.

Boy meets Kirsten.

Boy captivates Kirsten. It would have been creepy and weird, but he was frickin' hot and that makes all things less creepy and weird. He could have raided my panty drawer and given me a doll made of my own hair, and I'd have been down with it.

Then Boy left to go cosmic bowling with a bunch of people.

Boy runs into Kirsten a week later, and they talk for 45 minutes.

Boy asks how he should go about "answering" Girl (with a yes) to this Sadie Hawkins thing.

Kirsten suggests giving Girl a pie with a note saying, "I'll say yes, but only if I get a piece."

Boy says he can't make pie! Much feigning of concern.

Kirsten can TOTALLY make pie! Much feigning of surprise, non-feigning of delight.

Yum.

[Background: It's true. I'm all about being loyal to other girls before any guy, but if you have read any stitch of this blog, you might say that Missy took one for the team in the bigger picture here. Plus he made the moves, not me - and Missy didn't even know him. (Missy, you haven't ever commented, but if you're reading, back me up on this one). Nine years ago tonight, he picked me up on his motorcycle. Me and my ratty green JanSport, with nothing in it but a pie plate I snuck from Missy's kitchen for her treat. Nine years ago tomorrow, he dropped me off in the morning, same outfit and an empty Jansport. One year from today would have been our wedding day, marking a precise decade of just plain crazy - all of it bookended with sweetness and joy. Maybe we'd have served banana cream pie at the wedding.]

Anyway Reboyfriend, back to you.

The night you told me you needed my help with a pie, you know, because you would be lost without me and didn't know about cookbooks, Autumn met Nate. The night I SAVED your ass by HELPING you make that pie, and you kissed me...Nate kissed Autumn. September 17th would always get me and Autumn into that reminiscent mode. She let me text first this time.

She said she found a pic of me and her the other day, an old one from that Fall, where she and I smiled innocently. Autumn laughed about our two naive smiling faces. "No idea what the hell was about to hit them," I said. We looked so excited about our lives, with these bright, endless futures and the stomp coming up, and these cute boys we'd met. Hers was from Colorado, and greatly enjoyed baseball. Mine was from Idaho, and greatly enjoyed to lift up his sunglasses and romantically lean in but then smash his face into mine for the ugliest most unromantic kiss ever. Kind of like how as little girls we would mash Ken and Barbie's faces together so hard that they'd dent inward (my Barbies were passionate, either that or my childhood idea of kissing ended up being your adult idea of being a smartass, so I clearly found my soulmate). And I'd squeal and pretend I was indignant and demand a romantic kiss that was not gross or open-mouthed.

I wonder if you took my picture right now, what the "Me" nine years from now would say to Autumn about it.

Jed, I was always good to you. I never once disrespected or betrayed you. There was that time I married someone else, but that had to happen. You had places to go and I had things to learn. What amazes me is that when I came looking for you again, you were right where I'd left you three years earlier. You told me that first night at dinner, that you wanted children, but that you had just been waiting for the right person to have them with. When you said that, you pointed your hand to me.

We didn't have an agreement. We never said "If you wait for me, then I'll come for you." Tracy Chapman said that, and we just stole it from her. But at the end of all this, you waited for me. And I came for you. We each lived a lot of life during that break, and came a long way personally. But you said you never really let go. You held a part of yourself for me only, a place that nobody else was able to claim. I want to thank you for that. I settled back into it quite comfortably.

I have a lot of life ahead of me without you, Jed. I will play guitars and violins and develop my own film in darkrooms, speak French to native Tahitians and nail the GRE so some academic institution will allow me to expand my mind. I think I'm supposed to write a book. I think I'm supposed to get another dog. I would like to think I could name him Floyd. Maybe someday. In several years, I will have done a lot.

But through all of it, I will be thinking of you. So many of my goals, I achieved with your voice in my ears as I set the goal. This will continue, but the success will be shared with you, set aside in its own place inside me that belongs to you. I'm so sad you won't be here to share in the successes you inspire.

I am not sure if you miss me like I miss you. But if you do, I'm a little glad. I am going to die too, someday. It reminds me of the note Juno wrote to Jennifer Garner. If you're down, Jed, I'm down. Wherever you are, let's meet up when I get there. Everyone keeps saying I'll find love again, but I don't know what chump deserves to live his life in the shadow of what we built, or what's so empty about a life that is lived for the new experiences that will fill it, not the next man who will. I know 2,500 weekends = a lot, I am only able to wrap my mind around what 27 years feels like. I won't be so arrogant as to say that in time, I won't change. That my heart and mind won't change. I know we just buried you a month ago. Every widow in the history of time who ended up remarrying, felt this way after a month. But the point is that I feel this way right now, and that's what I am telling you. I'm telling you that I'm down with the holding on thing, if you are.

Maybe that's unhealthy. It's probably unrealistic and certainly it's ambitious. Who cares. It's our bananaversary. I can say what I feel right now.

Today, I received a card from my grandma, sent to my office. It was encouraging. It said that I do have the strength to do this. Included was a small insert, a poem, that I pinned to the wall of my cubicle. It summed up how you always said you felt about death. I know it's what you would like to see from me. Let me tell you, though, Mingo. It's much easier said than done. Either way, it is a good reminder.

Thanks, babe, for rewarding me with ten sweet kisses for every obnoxious one. Here's to more of those sometime. Happy nine-year.

Yours only,

Regirlfriend.

When I must leave you

For a little while,

Please go on bravely

With a gallant smile.

And for my sake and in my name

Live on and do all things the same –

Spend not your life in empty days

But fill each waking hour

In useful ways –

Reach out your hand

In comfort and in cheer.

And I in turn will comfort you

And hold you near.

-Helen Steiner Rice

To Jake With Love

There are just some things in this world that make you feel like the biggest wimp around. Things like marathons, childbirth without epidurals, Jed's family (my loss x 3 = their life right now. Nice.)

And then there's Jake.

When this all started, I called Jake in hysterics and begged him to fix it. Begged him to find reboyfriend. Jed's best friend, Jake, understands aviation. It's in his blood like it's in Jed's. He's wicked smart. He's smooth. He knows people. He understands who to call about stuff like dropped radio contact, and what landing technique Reboyfriend would have used in which weather pattern and why, and when, and how. Reboyfriend's family had it all under control, they had done everything possible, but I didn't understand. I felt like if we put Jake in the mix, everything would be OK.

Jake kept me updated. Jake calmed me down. "Kirssen," he said in the relaxed, board-bum way he's pronounced my name for nine years, "You and I have both been up in that plane with him. We both know that Jed can land that plane in anything. Just try to stay calm, OK?" I calmed down. When I was in a slouch on the floor after I got that phone call that Jed had been confirmed dead, wailing and bawling, the call from Jake came. I quieted down, he calmed me.

I've never heard Jed refer to anyone as his best friend before, besides Jake and me. But more Jake than me (durr). Jed barked at a local Realtor once who was trying to undermine Jake (also a Realtor) during Jed's and my home hunt this year. I was fascinated at Jed's protectiveness. "Buddy, he's my best friend. Try me." Jed was mellow and smooth, but he could boom his words if needed, and he boomed that to the douchebag. It gave me chills the way he said that about Jake, and I'll never get that out of my mind.

My confidence in Jed's bromance with Jake was reinforced one day when De'dy happened to be up in SLC (from their home in St. George), and invited me to go paddle boarding with her and Brooks. Jake didn't come into town with her, he had stuff to do. I texted ReBF that I would be paddleboarding with De'dy that night. He texted back "sounds fun" and held out a few hours before calling. "So, you're going out with De'dy? Cool. So, is Jake in town, or..." He was worried Jake had come to town without immediately calling him to hang out. As tough as he was, he couldn't disguise the hurt and bewilderment in his voice. It was like when little boys get left out of camping trips or sporting events but try to act curious, while also trying to hide that they care. Nothing could be more endearing than this.

While I was curled up in a ball, sobbing and gagging on food, Jake sat down at kitchen tables to navigate a way through Jed's two businesses to pay their drivers, and bill their clients for unpaid loads. He spent an entire day in meetings with Jed's mom and the state, laboring tediously to get her added to business accounts only Jed and his deceased father were on, so that she could make her mortgage payment. So that she could sleep at night.

He tracked through all Jed's bank accounts to find any shred of life insurance to get to Jed's mom.

He packed Jed's belongings and hauled them to Lehi to Jed's sister. He got the trucks moved somewhere safe, and kept the trucks running, to keep the businesses going until Jed's mother could decide what to do with them. He privately and extensively consulted with my mom over a number of phone calls, to discuss how to handle me, and how much they felt I should know about the accident.

He tactfully but forcefully dealt with anyone trying to exploit the family. He protected me from the things I shouldn't hear, and gently delivered the news I needed to. The news I only wanted to hear coming from him. In the middle of this, he managed to scan through 12 years' worth of Reboyfriend's tireless journals for some of the most moving and eloquent passages I've ever heard, and composed a life sketch to deliver at the funeral - short enough to fit into a triple funeral, but concise enough to say what needed to be said.

He's tall. People listen to him because there is something in how he speaks that commands your ear. Or is it that people listen to him because he could tell a story about wiping off a countertop or watching paint dry, and make it hilarious?

When I couldn't go to our house alone, my mom and aunts and sisters and cousins all took turns accompanying me to gather things I needed while I stayed with family. Of course, he was there, taking care of something or another that nobody else thought to. On the way home, all the girls would laugh about how good-looking he was, how they felt like cougars around him, how beautiful his wife obviously is, and how they'd get all giggly and nervous around him. It never occurred to me to see him that way. Probably because I was always being blinded by Jed's perfection while Jake was yelling at us from the bathroom about how he just got the biggest pee shiver EVER.

I haven't been as in touch with him lately as we need to be and hopefully will be soon. I really hope that this is because he is ending his one-month marathon of keeping-everything-together-for-everyone-else with some form of nap, or meal, or backrub, or one night's sleep - or just a day on the lake in Jed's honor. I hope he gets to start HIS turn to grieve. Oh, I forgot my favorite part - he's in the middle of moving and settling into a new house. Of course he is. Why not? He went, like, a week without seeing his kids. His gorgeous, patient wife De'dy stood by him, by me, by everyone, like a rock. I guess behind every amazing man is the woman making them that way.

I want to go on and on, to tell the stories about him that would make you laugh and love him like everyone else does. How, ugh, he and Jed took me and De'dy to some STUPID haunted forest the first Halloween we were all dating back in 2000, and the chainsaw guys made me and De'dy scream bloody murder and trip all over ourselves to get away, and Jake and Jed were laughing so hard at us that they were bent over, going hoarse, and would break the silence on the car ride back by spilling into more laughter. We were less amused.

Or that same year, how we tried watching the Exorcist and for whatever reason, laughed throughout most of it. You know somebody is a funny mother****er when they can have everybody busting up at The Exorcist. The guy that makes you laugh at Exorcist is the guy who will most likely hold you all together when your mutual best friend dies and you have to fall apart.

How everything had to be about something naked. Jake and Reboyfriend were fitness trainers at Dixie together, and therefore readily abused their employee access to the fitness center to let us all break into the campus pool late at night. Everything had to involve naked something, like naked breaking-in to the pool, or naked water-weener riding, or naked chasing you. And when naked breaking into the Dixie fitness center pool, for whatever reason it meant naked aftershowers - but only in the women's locker room. Just because they could, and because they wanted to know what it looked like. Maybe it was because the girls' locker room had individual shower stalls or something. Because after a night of nude frolicking across campus property, they needed a little privacy. Who knows. We didn't have many secrets, did we. Jake would stay at the house any time he had an early load out of SLC the next morning. A couple months ago, Jake busted through my bedroom door and pretty much walked in on us. It wasn't like we were fornicating or anything, but still. "Hey guys. What are you doin. Havin happy times?" We stared back, and he just kept walking in and climbed up on the bed. There we all were in bed together. He proceeds to talk about this load or that flatbed or some dirtbike or something. It was so romantic. For the two of them.

He and Jed would speak Portugese to each other on our double dates back in the day when they were only a year off their missions, and De'dy and I would go from annoyed to furious, then Jed and Jake would sit and gripe about "brawling" with us. When Jed and I first went to dinner to catch up after all these years, Jake was the first person Jed called in the care on the way home. The first question he said Jake asked was "Dude how did she look?" Vintage Jake. I wanna tell all the stories, because after losing it once again today, I thought of him and how he held it together and took care of everyone else first. I feel like everyone needs to know him.

In all of this missing plane crap, this death crap, this funeral-planning crap, this business-saving crap, I never once saw Jake lose grace, lose composure, lose patience (Me? All three. Multiple times. Publicly. With much mucus and incoherence). If it weren't for Jake, I'd have been a bigger mess than I was.

I guess I just want to publicly thank Jake for being so strong, so patient, so helpful, and so selfless. I want to thank his family for giving him up to us for this. Even his father, who honored Jed and his dad and brother with a fly-over, just like Jed did for his grandpa Floyd a couple years ago in the same cemetery.

It's not like they were life partners. (They would be the best life partners though, huh De'dy - if it weren't for you and me, they'd be the next best bets for each other). I know Jed wasn't Jake's whole future or Jake's chance at children. But Jake's loss was as massive as mine. And he was a stud through it all. I'm just amazed. That's all.

Thanks, Jake, for being the friend you were to Jed. He loved and loves you and I couldn't pick a more entertaining bromace.

Like That Big Black Guy.

Two of you know what that title means. The rest of you are about to find out.

(Or you're guessing correctly as many people have expressed a certain specific wish to me that brings to mind exactly what this refers to).

First off, I know this blog is bumming people out. We might all be ready for a little positivity. It's going to feel for a minute like I'm just going to make you cry again but actually, if you read it all, it won't depress or bum you out at all. I promise.

Second, I would like to just bear my testimony of yoga. I know I've done it before. Here I go again.

I like it because it's really nice to you. The instructors are nice, like a psychotherapist mixed with a massage therapist. Soothing voices, encouragement in dim lighting. The only thing you're not "allowed" to do in yoga is to judge your body's abilities or your thoughts.

My poor body has been nearly motionless for 23 days, and nearly everything I've put in it has been either from a gas station or a pharmacy (exceptions: people buying me meals at restaurants). I remember the other day realizing "I didn't even go pee today." And only once the day before that. Gross huh. Are you so grossed out or what? You can be. Because that's so gross. Sorry I typed it, but I thought it just said a lot about my body. I mean, I just didn't even pee one day. Isn't that kind of something that should just have to be told to people? Because it's so weird?

For my cousin Tommy's 17th birthday, we were at Chili's for dinner. I ordered the chicken crispers (normally magically wonderful - about as good to have go through you as a bullet, but yummy still). It's just my usual. For my two sides (they let you PICK now!), I ordered vegetables and salad. When my meal came, I found myself feverishly horking down the broccoli and salad, and polished them both off. I realized I hadn't touched the chicken crispers. Yeah, it was like an out of body experience. Me? Stuffing my face in a desperate frenzy...with broccoli?

My poor little body was so starved for nutrients that it behaved in a way I've never ever seen it (Okay, A: broccoli is there for looks, and B: salad is there for the guy you're dating to know you are able to eat it and therefore might not get fat later). Maybe that doesn't sound so bizarre to you, to dive into the greens at dinner and not touch the greasy stuff. I know many people, especially supersmart awesome people, and therefore readers of this blog, eat right. After all, Reboyfriend had lectured me on the health benefits of nutritious eating, and it had rubbed off. I was a Whole Foods girl there for awhile.

But in addition, I've hardly moved. I've done a lot of relaxing and being gentle to myself, which are appropriate descriptions when they last a week. When they last a month, it's called being a depressed slug. Nobody can say "take care of yourself, girl, let's go running." Cuz then we get all up in a wad about, like, what is that supposed to mean. And stuff. So in that awkward case, nobody else can "take care of" myself. Otherwise, it would have been done for me, and everyone here knows it.

So in yoga today, when my whole body shook and trembled - in downward dog with BENT KNEES - it hit me what terrible shape it's in. I had no strength. I had to go out of every pose and acknowledge my weakness.

I was instantly self-conscious and ashamed and embarrassed. I'm sorry, but we were just laying on our backs with our feet in the air, and my legs were spazzing all over the place in shakes from not being able to hold them up. For the love of God.

So I was all nervous the instructor would notice. But like I said, yoga has one thing it "discourages," and shame/judgement/negativity is it. Why was I judging this poor human body that had done nothing wrong? What the hell was it supposed to do? I park it on a couch, then in a bed, then in an office chair for a month, starve it, pollute it, then throw it on a mat with nothing inside it except coffee and Amp, and expect it to be a sweating, stretching, engaging, contorting temple of zen radness? Then I'm all embarrassed of it? It wants to please me! It wanted to do what I told it to. I just won't let it. It can't win.

I mean, first off, I read this study where if you abruptly remove someone from your daily life that was in it a lot, after like a breakup, or a plane crash, your brain notices when it stops processing the smell of that person's pheromones or whatever. The absence sends a message to your body. It feels that loss. It is experienced on a physical level. My brain and body are noticing Reboyfriend is missing. Like that flock of ducks that wandered around our backyard for hours after our dog killed one of its members...they were so confused and they were FLIPPING out, quacking and going in circles, looking for this missing duck. Ducks are stupid, so they must not have noticed when our dog duck-napped it and bolted. Its feathers were all over the place in this big mess. I was really little, and my mom's heart broke over it, and she used the story in many [disturbing and, now that I think of it, not entirely age-appropriate] object lessons later in life. Sad. My mind got the phone call and read the FAA report, but my body's going "Hey! WTF! Something here has gone missing." I sniffed the sheets on my bed when I went back to our house last night. My body felt better for a sec, as I took in Reboyfriend's smell, still in them.

There were the mornings when the pain in my spirit was so great that swear it must have had to overflow into my physical body. I woke up shaking, trembling. It weirded me out. I looked down at my arms and legs convulsing and felt like such a freak of nature. My skin throbbed (every inch of it) like the way it does right after a gnarly belly-flop. I think my body got sick of that. It wasn't sure what the hell that was about.

Then I pump it full of shit.

Then I don't let it move or stretch or walk around or get any fresh air.

Then I take it to yoga and judge it and feel ashamed of it! I'm such a dick.

And then at the end as we lay there on our mats, the instructor telling us not to engage in thought, but to let our thoughts pass over us like clouds...I felt like when I was little and it was "nap time" at daycare and we were supposed to lay on our little mats and go to sleep. As if. My little budding ADD had me wide awake, blinking in the room, having to close my eyes when mean daycare lady came in to make sure we were asleep because I would get in trouble if I were awake. My inability to concentrate and just go to sleep meant I was kind of one of the bad kids.

So I'm laying there at the end of class when they let you relax (can't remember yoga name for it, remind me) I had just made my body do its first activity in a month, and it was thanking me with bloodflow and endorphins. But instead of meditating like I was SUPPOSED to, like all the other good yogis were, my mind went promptly to the vision of plane wreckage. Of the disturbing details they reluctantly waited to tell me until barely, when I demanded to know more about the wreck (of course, after I got all the graphic details I barked about deserving the DIGNITY of knowing, I got of the phone and almost threw up. Jenni had to drive me to the store for Pepto). Yeah. Those were my happy thoughts. Let me tell you, I caught myself doing it three times, and judged my thoughts (and my inability to control them) harshly.

I have GOT to get a grip, one of my thoughts expressed (in my defense, that one floated over me like a cloud). You have a testimony of yoga, you freak, why are you ruining this moment that could be such a much needed peaceful experience? (I don't know!!! Because! Just because. Geez, sorry. Reer).

(My friend in fifth grade said that to her mom once after her mom said no to something. "Ok. Reer mom." You remember, I know you do! It's how bratty kids in the early nineties mimicked a pissed off cat overreacting to something by going "reeeeeeeer." But she pronounced it as just a clipped, decisive "rear." I still find this hilarious.)

Truly repentant, my mind responded to the divinity in me. The divinity in all of us that everyone talks about at yoga. My Heavenly Father stepped in. He stepped in and threw down, like the Father figure He is. Enough is enough.

I'm blessed with five healthy senses. Sometimes six, in that way that we don't blog about (even me). And in thinking of them, I Got a Grip, Reer.

I thought, "OK. I wonder. What is the sweetest taste I've ever tasted?" These thoughts don't have to pass like clouds. "I'm going to really really meditate about this and that's OK."

My mind went to an ice cream cone. No, I've had better. It went to a raspberry shake at Bear Lake. Cilantro and golden raisins on my mom's curried chicken. A sinful Dairy Queen stop one Fast Sunday after church with just me and my mom (don't tell dad, she said). That donut the other day at Beyond Glaze. Creme brulee french toast. What is the sweetest thing you have ever tasted? So delicious, you are emotionally responding to it right now? You have indulged in and intensely enjoyed food, dear reader of this blog, at one time or another. It was a time you relished in Life, something I'm capitalizing on purpose because It is sacred. When was it? Think for just a minute, for me. If your husband is watching ESPN or reality TV, or your kids are fighting, walk somewhere else and do this for me.

I moved on. What is the smell in my life I've enjoyed the most? My heart responded to this. Real pine trees at Christmas. The melange of perfumes and new clothes when you first step into Nordstrom. My sheets back at the house. My mind raced. There have been so many, in my 27 years, smells I've enjoyed. No, "enjoy" is not the word. They've brought me bliss. You. I'm talking to you, person reading this. What is a smell that has brought you bliss? You can't pick one can you? Your mind is racing. Memories of things are competing with each other to be your favorite.

How about physical sensations or feelings? A few unbloggables went through my mind, and then I thought of getting a massage when I really needed it. At that very moment, my yoga instructor came up and quietly traced her fingers around my face, massaged my forehead. That beat up, neglected, judged, bewildered body of mine LOVED it.

What visions (oh, I'm choking up, here we go)? What are the most beautiful things you have ever seen or beheld? These things have enriched your existence, made it wonderful. Think hard. Let it be like one of those email quizzes or blog tags where you list your "favorite" of something and always cheat and pick three. For this one, pick three hundred.

I really need to tell you this, and I need you to pay attention, because I need to believe it too. The sights you've seen that have covered you head to toe in chills, things so beautiful you'll never forget - they outnumber plane crashes, even ones as bad as I just learned Reboyfriend's was. I promise you. They outnumber the bad sights of the world, and to be honest, most of them are more beautiful than his wreckage was ugly.

Not to cheese you out (consider this your heads-up), but my first and only thought in the sight category was Jed, the way he slowly blinked when a big smile spread across his face, and his eyes waited until the smile was fully widened and letting out a laugh before they opened again and seared into my memory. Many of you have had babies. Nothing I've ever seen will probably ever compare to things you've seen through parenthood. I'm not comparing or being overly generous. I just believe you guys about it.

I got home, feeling all alternative-y and hollistic. (This pertains, I promise). There was a package for me here at my aunt's house where I'm staying. It was from two blog readers. My aunt Jenni walked out of her office for something, and I slapped a card down on the counter after I read it, in total disbelief. I stood and shook my head at her. Read this. This package, these cards and gifts, they are from people who read my blog. I've met Tammy personally, once or twice at big dinners where I didn't get her to myself...but how I really know her is through the blogosphere. Teresa, my cybersister, I've never gotten the pleasure of meeting you. Their blogs are on my sidebar. They are funny, and real, and brilliant.

Tammy's card said "For You I wish I was that big black guy..." At first I cracked up because I thought the inside of the card would say something about that big black guy from Bliss that was trying to seduce me while I looked for my be-mulleted reboyfriend but couldn't find him, because I literally didn't recognize him. But actually, she is referencing The Green Mile. She wished she could take some of my pain and feel it for me. My little brother and mom have expressed similar desperation. "I know, Mom," I remember saying. "Ryan wants to Green Mile me too. Everyone wishes they could carry a piece of this pain so I don't have to."

My blog post about Gesthsemane isn't happening. Not one person reading this needs me to spell it out.

Jenni pointed to her forearms. "CHILLS! Holy freak! How is this even happening?" She says something huge has happened in this world. It sure as hell as taken mine over. Of all the beauty in this world I've tasted and smelled, seen, heard and been touched with, I didn't really ever think I'd see so much beauty in the human population. Via Blogspot.

The care package was full of things that heal. Tammy is a very holistic person, a massage therapist, and believes like I do in things some might consider "new agey." I was in the perfect mood for that. From See's candy to vitamins to essential oils, this package included...well, just sheer healing. The realization about what people are really like when they don't have to be, that is healing. How the hell did you guys get my address anyway? You are amazing. I sat there reading Teresa's card, chewing on my second See's candy (both of them happened to be my favorite flavors from See's...coincidence? God likes me to taste yummy things, as I think we've discussed ad nauseum here), and crying. I have never met her. And she did this.

We took pictures of the package. I'll post it. I'll post it soon. Along with some other images I've been waiting to show you. Pins and needles.

Thanks for reading. And for all the comments that make me feel like a Big Black Guy who is super hulking and strong. And for saying I was awesome. Just thanks.