Live Hard & Like It

I know I've mentioned here before that two days before the accident, Rbf told me that if my life ended, he'd take his own. Simple and matter of fact. According to him, he would never recover, and if he didn't die, he'd just be alone forever. (Kir: "OK drama queen.")

But this wasn't really something he was saying out of the romantic's flair for the dramatic. I think we can all agree he's not That Guy and never was.

He was saying it that night because we both understood that he didn't have many regrets. He had lived, much more vividly and robustly than I had. No offense to me or anything. He'd just kind of done it all. Not only did this make me jealous at times, but I felt like he was disappointed I hadn't carpe'd the diem a little more. But whatever, my point is this: It almost seemed like his way of expressing his satisfaction with the story he'd be leaving behind, if it were to end at that moment.

I'm afraid that in my final hours, I won't feel that way. I'll have a piece of crap to-do-in-life list that I didn't cross anything off of (cuz I was always blogging). I'm scared to death that I wouldn't be able to feel the things in my final hours that he felt in his own. And I don't want to be jealous of that. 

I want it to be true that when he passed on, I took on some of who he was, and became it. On my vanity bench are jewelry stands (thanks, Auts) and perfume and token boxes. And then his riding gloves and sunglasses. I wear his boxer-brief style work underwear, as shorts under my skirts on cold days. He just kind of left that stuff with me. And I really use them. Why not have his old virtues, too? Why not take over his old work ethic? Why not inherit his wanderlust? Suddenly, I am equipped with his aversion to gossip (not entirely, but wow did it seem to install itself in me after he left).

My positive attitude since the passing of the Mingos, is a function of

a.) suspecting that he's watching

b.) wanting to maintain, if not intensify, his posthumous affections

c.) my drive to ensure that my life ends on the same peaceful, satisfied note his did. 

I do have those days where I can't find the off-switch. They're days when that over-regulated, compartmentalized sadness is permitted to run wild and get its wiggles out. It knows that it needs to wrap it up by 9 p.m. on weeknights. And when it comes out, it bulldozes me - as it should. But the truth is that I choose every morning to make him proud. Most of what I do is a tribute, to him and the things he deeply wanted for me. When people think I'm handling "it" well, they're probably right. It's his fault. It's his example. I am entitled to a little self-pity and occasional rage blackouts. But he made sure to have fun every chance he got. That's what he's leaving to me. I want to live like he did, and that doesn't leave a lot of room for dysfunction or failure. He always ended his emails in "Smile." He always did. Why not me?

(Here's the video I put up last night that Microsoft's basic software used to try and RUIN my life. I got it mostly tweaked. Suck on that, Windows Vista!!! Keep in mind, I threw this together with scraps I browsed through on his hard drive last night. So it's not exactly documentary quality. But here's a two minute reason to smile, so do it.)

Words + Him = :)

If you know me (and I think at this juncture, you do), then you are aware that I like throwing gross words into sentences. My friend at work, Janae, HATES the words "spawn" and "offspring." So I try working those babies into any sentence I can. This is Janae, the same girl who is not a toucher or a cuddler. So Lindsay and I, having come from households of like 45 sisters each and are used to being sistery-touch-whores with our fondleriffic homegirls, we like to braid each other's hair between client calls and have pillow fights over our cubicle walls. Or maybe just sit uncomfortably close in the back seat of the car on the way to Crown Burger, and try leaning a head on Janae's shoulder (bonus points if she's in the middle with her feet on the hump and is flanked by our molesterish selves). Either way, it irks Janae and it's SO much fun.

Aside from doing it on purpose to make Janae cringe, I like to say "offspring" because it was one of Reboyfriend's words. He would use it earnestly each and every time he talked about having bebbies together. Like, he mentioned this on our first dinner in 2008. Before appetizers came out.

He brought it up once at 11:11 in the tradition our generation made famously annoying.

Me: MAKE A WISH!
Him: OK. Done.
Me: That was fast. You obviously didn't make one.
Him: Yes I did.
Me: No...
Him: I DID.
Me:  What did you wish for?
Him: A boy.

So much for my hope that he had wished for the same thing and we'd be all "one-in-thought" and on the same team with our hopes and dreams, cuz my wish was that our offer on the house by the SkyPark would finally go through. I suppose we should be careful about telling our wishes, because as it turned out, neither of those wishes came true for us.

A boy. Yeah, that was humbling. What the hell kind of trucker talks like that? Him. HE does.

He went on to remind me how much he wanted "offspring." He knew it was a funny word for a redneck small town board bum to use so often, which I think is exactly why he used it. I would roll my eyes, but just like you are right now, I'd turn my head and bite my fist at the cuteness. It was like when the first month or so we were back at it (call "it" what you will)...he started to feel like we were being too homebody-ish. So he said we needed to do more "outings." Outings? He really emphasized that part. So I said "what about ice skating at Gallivan?" And he was all over it. I thought he would think it was too cheesy. Oh no. He wouldn't leave till they basically kicked us out, and then asked if we could go again the next night. Outings. 

Nothing beats the time last July when we were laying on the boat, docked out behind the Duffins' house on the Snake river. It was getting hot, and I was looking at the water thinking it might cool me off.

Me: I wanna jump in. I should do it.
Him: Well I want to. I want to Frolic!

{Swear to God}

Me: Frolic?
Him: FROLIC!

This made perfect sense to both myself and my reboyfriend (who had a sunburn in the shape of a wadded up towel on his chest because someone fell asleep boating that day). So we stood at the front of the boat and held hands and counted to three and then flung ourselves with limbs flailing into the river. We weren't sure if the word frolic meant what it sounded like it should mean, so we made a little extra mid-air noise before hitting water. Just in case. You may bite your OTHER fist now, if his kickass-adorableness is hurting the one you're gnawing on now.

Once in the water, I underwent the mandatory feel-up he felt was necessary any time we were in a pool/hot tub/lake/river/dark room/empty room. I pretended to be appalled, he waited for me to get back on the boat, followed me up, and then we sprawled in the sun until we were all dry again. And anytime anyone ever says frolic, I want to laugh and cry all at once.

And offspring, really. Because he never really got his own, and that's the only thing he really wanted out of life that he didn't get.

Here are some tender-rama moments he had with everyone else's offspring instead. Insert your mental Sally Struthers music here.




Joslyn & Jennifer's boys




Baby E Jane



Jake Jr.





More Jake Jr.




LoLo




His sister Jamie's boys



Jodi & Joslyn's girls




Baby E Jane again, this time looking like she's more into it.





Rallying Joslyn's kids





Meeting my sister Madster





Say uncle, with Jenn's kids

So if you feel that sometimes this blog is just too much about some guy, or that I will someday find someone that makes me JUST as happy, maybe this helps you understand, just a little bit, why it's maybe not, and why I probably won't.

The Reboyfriend Quilt

Because of my uber-awesomeness, you wouldn't be surprised to hear that I am part of a quilting group. Because I can sew in straight lines most of the time and quite often get the seam width right, I think it's safe to say that I'm a master seamstress. 

Others might say that the quilt group keeps me around just because they're nice. And extra patient.

The rule with quilt group, is that you have to come. If you have five women slave away on your quilt top one month, it's not fair to withhold your own man hours when it comes to theirs. (Even if your man-hours = sewing the entire row wrong and then shoving it into Sandy's lap to unstitch the seams for you because your contacts are going to shrivel up and deform your eyeball if you don't stop).

There was one night where my invaluable man hours were excused. It was just a couple days after we found the wreckage, you know, back when I was not peeing? You surely remember.

Instead of sewing Kelly's quilt as scheduled, they changed course and did something beyond human. They congregated and skipped the wine (a permanent fixture for the majority of the group). They divided and conquered in an army of radness, gathering pictures and fabric and lyrics...configuring patterns, using flannel for backing and freehanding the meandered quilting. I probably couldn't even calculate how many manhours this took, but I have a rough guess, and confirmation from insiders...that it was a masterpiece.

Only a few weeks after the accident, I was a puddle when I pulled up to Kelly's house for what was supposed to be a little blubbering session with her and Sandy. After all, a plane crash widowed Kelly too, and hurt her own body so horrifically that she uses a wheelchair (and a service dog) to do her walking. She's always been a good listener and mentor. And the same goes for Sandy. I gladly accepted their offer to have me over for the listening ears and warm words.

But when I pulled up, the driveway was full of a big surprise. Mia, Lindsay, Kristin, Kylie, Kellene, Kelly, and Sandy's cars were all there. I walked inside, and there were candles with catered dinner and desserts and wines (and Diet Cokes) all over the place. I was late after dropping my sister off, and they were all patiently waiting for me. I broke down in tears when I saw they'd brought in my favorite drink from the night Rbf and I had our first dinner together at Ichiban.

They listened to me weep my feelings out, and we finished the dinner from our plates, and when it all quieted down, they brought out my quilt. Since I was already in tears before, I really can't remember having cried as hard as I did, other than the day we got the horrible news. Here was my quilt.

That night I went to bed, wrapped up in my blanket, and had the first sweet dreams I'd had since he was living. I haven't blogged this yet because I haven't known quite how to tell it. I finally decided to just post the pictures, and let them speak for themselves.

I may have to admit at this point, that they are master quilters. Like, they have businesses and win state fair awards. Although I am pretty proud of the fact that I can sew straight lines over squares of fabric, I think it's clear that I'm merely a guest, in quite talented company.

K, S, M, K, K, K, and L: I love you.

Hal⋅le⋅lu⋅jah.

My neck is so sore I can barely move it. I can't think what I did, except yesterday was one of those days where I couldn't find the "off-switch." I had to bail halfway through Sacrament before the crying literally became disruptive. Even as the day wore on at home with my family, there was so much leaky, rapidfire-drippo public weeping that I had to keep going up to my room where I could sob the real sobs. Which were apparently so bad that I pulled something. (Ever the athlete!!! Someone is rolling in his grave right about now.)

I couldn't even dismiss it as PMS. It was just memories: the fear of losing them, the bittersweetness of reliving them. The pain of knowing there can be no more. This happens every once in awhile.

I once heard that the memory-storing part of your brain doesn't acknowledge passage of time, so it is capable of processing a memory like it's in real-time. And yesterday, I got to relive Kirsten On Funeral Day.

I remember more about that day than I do about the blur of days after and before it. I remember sitting with his family in the front of the chapel and hanging my head. I remember there being talking. To me, over me, and on behalf of me. Words were spoken in the private gathering after everyone else had been moved to the chapel, and it was just our final prayer with them as one big family. But my memory stored only silence.

The muted footage my mind retained from that horrible day, it's like the Super8 silent home movies my grandparents took of my mom and uncle when they were wee little. One Christmas, I had them digitally formatted and I dubbed music onto them. I racked my brain to find the right music to fit the footage. I had to play it all over and over in silence until I found the right sound to accompany it.

I mostly remember what I could see from that day, framed like pictures on the wall of my mind. Over the mantle of that day hangs the image of that long, two-lane rural road that stretches uninterrupted through the fields and farmland Rbf and I looked at from the sky the last time I had been to that town. That was the last time he would take the plane up before August 7th, and I fell in love with those big, green, living, growing fields from my seat in the sky. This road seemed to cut through those fields for miles and miles.

And for whatever reason, my most vivid memory of that day is the image of all the oncoming traffic pulled off to the side of the road while we passed. All the farm trucks in the oncoming lane, sitting still to watch as we crept past with three of their own. Stopping the middle of their sunny, sweaty Tuesday to sit silently in the ditch to show their respect. They all knew who it was, what had happened. And I just sat in my seat and hung my head in all that quiet, and I will never, ever forget it.

This memory plays quietly on a loop while my mind auditions soundbytes to go back and fill in that memory. Today, Kelly gave me a CD containing the song Hallelujah, a title coating the haunting, sad music in irony. The song threw me back to the long road in Rupert, Idaho and the three hearses we followed. All around us was peace, growth, and vitality in all those green fields, of life and health and hard work - lined up along the edge of that paved road. And it was contradicted by the horror and sadness, the death, the silence that pressed on in the opposite direction. I found the song telling me the story of that day. It was pretty, and and poetic, and it hurt like a bitch.

The song was performed recently for those suffering indescribably in Haiti. For all the pain God has hand-picked for me to have to understand, I can't even wrap my mind around their own mental footage. Nothing can do it justice. From my broken heart to theirs, God bless.

...singing "Ain't this life so sweet?"

{C'est Les Choses Favorites de RéBienAimée, deuxieme partie!}

What? Did someone say Kirsten's Favorite Things List??? Start screeching and jumping and look under your chairs for free Egyptian Cotton sheets and MAC brushes and Rachael Ray crap! Except Oprah don't got SH*T on moi!

Anyway, here's the list as of right now. It is subject to change as things are subject to piss me off out of the blue and dismantle themselves from The List.

1. Using real mail, with stamps and everything
2. When blog readers call me "Kir" even if I haven't met them in person 
3. When big black dogs sniff the ground on a snowy day, and look back up at you and there's snow all over their faces. It has the same "funny factor" as someone with pudding smeared down their chin going "Is there something on my face?" mixed with the cuteness of Labs' need to be ever-and-always retrieving something because they're genetically engineered to want to do that, but not knowing what they're trying to find.
4. Afrin (this is like La Lohan talking about a few lines of really good blow being HER favorite thing. I should just quit the habit, not embrace it, but what's the regirlfriend blog without a little gratuitous honesty?)
5. A new celebrity gossip magazine - either about some character flaw Saint Earth Mother Jolie might have, or Heidi Montag's addiction to plastic surgery.
6. Running the blowdryer for 5 seconds under my quilt before getting in bed
7. When Meems comes back for the weekends...and the family takes up a whole row in church, and we be irreverent and loud the entire time, but we're all there and worshiping something together.
8. Fruit bites, those ones you can get at Costco. MMM.
9. CCI Dogs. VERY little in this world is as heartwarming as these creatures.
10. The Visual Voicemail app on my Android phone.
11. In fact, the entire Android OS (G1 = meh, except did I ever mention how much I hate the word "meh?" Sorry, but I didn't know how else to spell my near-apathy toward the G1. I don't like Apple, but wow is the iPhone sex-in-a-handset. Sorry G1. I like you in a you're-cute-in-an-Original-Nintendo-Controller-retro kind of way, not taking yourself too seriously or trying to be flashy in any way. My Zune is cute in this way too.) Why am I always trying to be the CNET of the bitchosphere? I have one genre, and it's not tech. Sorry. Oh, and I know I already talked about Android anyway, OkI'mShuttingUpNowSorry.
12. Surprised kitty (You have to click it...it's 15 seconds and I mean it)
13. Athleta catalogs, even though I will never have a need for any of the stuff in there because techically, I don't hike up onto a rocky crag in a khaki cargo-style miniskirt and sassy logging boots with my yoga mat and Hindu-y shirt. But I dog-ear those mags to their demises, with the best of yogic intentions.
14. Kirkland ice cream in root beer. Again, this is another Costco product. The Kirkland vanilla is unbeatable. Don't ask me why.
15. Just booking the damn flight already.
16. And good friends that get you go to Brazil with them already, Geez!
17. Fleur de lis textured wallpaper
18. When ReBF's friends still take care of me in their little ways, because they know he wants them to.
19. When my aunt Jennifer comes to family dinner
20. Calls from ReBF's nieces and sisters
21. My Zune passport (changed my life. For real).
22. That picture of ReBF's casket where you can see my dried tears (and a little smudged lip gloss) dripping down the side. They buried the casket with my tears and kisses still on it.
23. Romping through snowy Utah streets undaunted in my trusty Warthog.
24. Playing with my aunt's D300
25. Signs from ReBF that say hello (obviously, this transcends anything on this list and probably doesn't even belong...but a Favorite Thing is a Favorite Thing).
26. Jeans
27. Spending 40 minutes looking for a greeting card at Target, because I can.
28. Eyelash extensions (Helped when makeup efforts were futile due to of all the crying upon crying)
29. Old school hatboxes to keep underwear and jammie pants in
30. Registering my car before it expires
31. Jedidiah Clothing Co.
32. French music
33. Wearing ReBFs old beanies and shirts
34. Having a AAA membership
35. MadGab and Cranium
36. Playing TV-God with shows on DVD. You're not over till I say you're over, and you're going to play the next episode and you're going to LIKE it. Except that's not how God says anything to you. So really I just play TV-AbusivePartner.
37. Hands down, the most unconventionally pretty song I've ever heard in my life, Animals Of The World by the Great Lake Swimmers. It has a haunting, content helplessness to it. We are moths around a porch light, We're covered in jars, Or pinned to the wall. Dried out and displayed, tired out and dismayed.
38. Frozen custard
39. When an old memory resurfaces, and you can write it down so it never leaves you again.
40. My quilt club
41. The Urban Outfitters gift section
42. Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory caramel apples
43. New razor heads
44. The first time you know what you're hungry for in your career. It's the only hunger pain that ever satisfied me.
45. When kids can't say "except..." so they say "but sepp..."


If making your own list is not something you find healing in the grips of bitterness, you must be made of stone. Or just prehistoric petrified feces. Thank you all for sharing the glory list with me, and now it's your turn. Amen.

Outside by your doorstep

in a worn out suit and tie
I'll wait for you to come down
where you'll find me
where we'll shine.


- Band of Horses - I go to the barn because I like the.

And this month makes five.

{Services held 8.18.09}

*(Thanks to Boog & Michi for the gift of good music)*

Be a guh girrrrl!

Every day I leave for work and my cousin (Meems' miniature sister MiniMeems) sees me go, she books it after me into the foyer to urge me to be, well, a good girl. But she runs "good girl" into one word and axes the "d" so it sounds like guhgrrrl. This has gone back since the very first week I went back to work after the accident. Her mom thought it was bizarre. She said she cannot think of where mm could have heard that.

Oh, and if I said "ok" instead of an affirmative I WILL, well, she'd chase me out to the porch and repeat herself until I answered correctly.

In church is where she shines, though. This past Sunday was a missionary farewell. The kid giving his see-ya speech was talking about a buddy in the field and choked up at his friend's strengthened faith. MM looked up from her coloring book and goes "Is he crying cuz his friend is gone on a mission?" OMG!

A few minutes later she looked up again and said to Meems, "When you were sick, I was there for you."

Yeah.

Josh and Leo

So, the forum for young widows I frequent helps me tremendously to read people tell the messed up, psycho things we all think. Everyone's grief pattern is different, but it's no surprise that we all end up having some of the same insane thoughts and behaviors. Someone posted on the forum, about one of my favorite episodes the other day. Josh is being diagnosed with PTSD, and Leo (a recovering addict) tells him this story.

"A man's walking down the street and falls in a deep hole. The walls are so steep that he can't get out.

A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, 'Hey you, can you help me out?' The doctor writes out a perscription and throws it down in the hole, and then moves on.

Then a priest walks by, and again the guy shouts up, 'Father I'm stuck in this hole, can you help me out?' The priest writes a prayer and throws it down in the hole and then moves on.

Then a friend walks by and the man says 'Hey Joe, it's me - can you help me out?' Joe jumps in the hole. The man says 'Are you stupid? Now we're both stuck in this hole!' The friend says, 'Yeah, but I've been down here before and I know the way out'."

I cry a lot when I watch the West Wing...this is why.

And I will refrain from making inappropriate comments involving the above overuse of the word "hole."

Love to you.

Almost Family

Since Reboyfriend wasn’t a man of many words – like I mentioned in a recent post – some people weren’t offered the luxury of knowing all about our passionate love of teen vampire proportions. Unless, of course, they read my blog. But because I must use expletives on this thing with reckless abandon, it's hard to share with everyone. So his family never got to know me, and only when ReBF mentioned the upcoming family reunion, and sounded completely stunned when I didn't automatically assume I was going along...did they get that chance. It was a trip that changed everything. It was after that trip that he knew I was in it for the long haul, and he I think felt confident enough to approach The Topic head on.

ReBF has always loved his sisters, including Joslyn who lived closest to his home. She (like Kir 2.0), knew how to operate the fickle machine that was ReBF. She knew when to dodge and when to strike in the case of his quirks and social hiccups, and she (like Kir 2.0), did not lose patience with him (not the case with Kir 1.0, who terrorized him for being too groggy for spontaneous DTRs). She and I knew that he was already a pretty perfect version of himself, and that if you loved him (like she and I both did), you just let him be him. You embraced his tardiness, flakiness, stubbornness, and borderline-shady methods of avoiding 1.) ports of entry, 2.) parking citations, and 3.) marriage (circa Him 1.0), (but marvelously upgraded in the wife-seeking version 2.0). He depended on her to be the lifeline to the shore of family when he alienated himself from them. Little did I know, she'd be mine too.

Joslyn's father and two only brothers died three days after she’d had a baby. She was given the job of swimming through the scraps and loose pages in no particular order that comprised Rbf’s business, with an infant in one arm and three other children to watch after. She's a pillar, and it's a little intimidating.

I didn't know this family very well before the accident, but it turns out, I have forged bonds with them since. I went to ReBF's niece's birthday party last night, along with the other Mingo cousins. It wasn't for school friends or church friends, just family. When I got there and saw the small group of kids, I was flooded with realization. I had gone to festival of trees with Joslyn and Shelley. We've all gone out to dinner, or brought in takeout and hung out. Shelley does my hair. I'm slow, but I figured it out. These people are OK keeping me around for me. It's not like they're forced to be polite for their brother's sake.

ReBF's brother in law (Jodi's husband) saw on my Fbook today that I booked my trip to Rio de Janeiro for Carnival. He urged me to be careful, expressing his concern about the dangers there. It was as if he was he brother-in-law he was close to becoming. They don't just include me, they rally me. They check on me. They remember my birthday. They communicate with their mother about it.

Every time I see them, my heart breaks that they can really never be my family. But I've learned that I have, instead, unexpected lifelong friends. It's incredible and humbling and sweet. They have taken the time to know me, to move past that confused stage where they had no idea what was going on with us. I'm able to know that, in a "what if" situation, ReBF would have grown closer to his family as I became one of them. Because I have get-togethers with Shelley now, I know that we'd have done "couple" things with Jordan and Shelley, giving the two brothers opportunities to see each other as much as they wanted to. It breaks my heart and mends it all at once.

Aside from the obvious comfort there, being around the family reminds me that these three men are still real. And if ReBF really is around those he loves, there's no way he wouldn't be there when I'm with his family. Something in my heart feels this. It feels...happy. It's an emotion I forgot about.

I'm not certain of much, but I'm certain that love is immortal. The truest of it is impossible to destroy or kill or bury, no matter what act of God finds its way to you. In my faith tradition (LDS), doctrine projects this truth into an assertion that families are eternal. If I really do have the chance to be with ReBF again, essentially, these people I've come to adore would be my family at that time. I'm not the dogmatic type, and I always interpret that kind of doctrine very gently. But sometimes, even if that's not exactly how it really works...it makes me feel just a little bit better.

I am so lucky. You guys, read your comments. Look at you. I read them, cowering before them wondering "What did I do so right to deserve this?" My support system, it is iron-clad, made of stone. I have friends that are true, and they are visciously, fiercely loyal. (that's you). I have seriously questioned why I would go on living. It's because I am probably supposed to be here. (I'm eating pizza at 10 o'clock at night, I'm going to Brazil with old college friends, I'm going to BlogHer, and my cousin MM just held up an iPhone to me and announced, "it's LOADING.") (Um, she's barely 3). It's a pretty damn charmed life.

Someone's been praying for me.

My Life Would Suck Without You.

Autumn heard that song and thought of me. Oh, Autumn, and our near-decade of telepathy.

Over the past year, I've had a faithful handful of you become better friends than most real life people. Over the past four months, I've taken comfort in your comments, all about how I don't have to dodge reality on this blog just because it scares people off. About how it is my journal. It was more of one back when only 5 of you were reading it, before I plastered my name and Reboyfriend's all over it because it seemed cheeky to treat the title like a tweet.

I read your input that a journal doesn't talk back, and that anyone who tells me to get over it can eff off (my grandma said the same thing to me in a card, and just like you she spelled out the real word, and it was satisfying and awesome). All of that is the truth.

I've been super scared since the beginning that, in blogging about this, I look like an attention whore or something. But blogging is my therapy, my thing and has been for five years. It was a small soapbox in the broom closet of the Internet that only that five of you really knew or cared about. It felt private. It felt safe - it WAS safe - to say our names, to show our faces.

But still, I worried that all this could be taken wrong. Nobody really knows just how suicidal I was, and have been, and hearing voices of strangers root me on helps. It has made all the difference. I would not be OK if I didn't have the feedback. Literally, I was cognizant of the risk that it looked fame-whorish, and posted it all anyway.

I'm constantly cringing at myself. I blurt shit out. I say "fiance" when I should just say boyfriend because people didn't know how serious we were. People have seriously told me they didn't necessarily believe that Rbf actually asked. While that felt like lemon juice on top of blunt-force trauma, I gotta say, why would anyone believe it? OK. We moved in together, got a quarter million dollar home loan together, signed construction contracts, and picked the wedding day. Had the preliminary proposal. But not all of that got out to everyone. He was waiting to make sure I wasn't going to say no. So while it hurts, should I be all that surprised? I'm constantly cringing at myself because it's my nature to do things like blurt shit out and become the queen of TMI. I don't know the difference anymore, between whether something is special and sacred, or if it's sweet to tell on the blog. It's my decision, but I don't really know how to even make those decisions anymore.

That awful day of waiting for news - the worst day of my life - sitting alone in silence at my computer next to my silent phone, with nothing else to do with my hands/eyes/mind while I waited in silence...I turned to my blog. MY BLOG. I asked people to pray.

Was I liveblogging my nightmare? WTF? Is nothing sacred anymore?

I don't feel like I know what that even is. It made perfect sense at the time. Honestly, perfect sense. It might be because I didn't really think they were gone yet, I thought they were hurt and lost in the mountains. Now in retrospect, it just seems ludicrous. In a state of total self-chastizing, I edited it with just news updates from that day, because I felt like such a freak. It wasn't real yet when I wrote it. I still thought they were coming home.

I had to read about the first sign of wreckage from the Boise news. I have a B.A. in news editorial Mass Comm, and that's the thing you are always trying to avoid. You can't say that stuff until family has been notified.

Family. They did their job, technically. Nobody ever trained me as a journalist to wait till "girlfriends" had been notified.

Days earlier, RBF was telling me exactly what HE would be doing with all my stuff if I died. "Duh Kir [with a touch of hurt in his voice], it would be MY stuff if you died." He was the executor of my life. He knew it. My mom knew it, my friends knew it. Everyone knew it. Literally two days after this conversation, he died, and I just sat there frozen and alone at my computer like an ancillary part of his secret life while his things just kind of disappeared quietly. He didn't tell his family much about me, and certainly not about our relationship. He didn't even keep Jake in the know. It confuses and infuriates me. And that's when I started with all the Blurting Of Shit.

My mom says when I talked to his family about the whole getting married thing, his mom's face looked ... not shocked, or horrified, or confused, or patronizingly polite, or disbelieving...but somewhere in between them all. And who can blame her? I simply wanted her to feel better about his lifestyle, I wanted her to know he was on the road she wanted him to be on in life. I am convinced my comments only made it worse. Part of me thinks that doomed fishing trip was when Rbf planned on telling his dad and brother the news. Or at least priming them to receive it soon.

I have had to give up my home and my best friend all at once. His friends don't feel like my friends anymore. I ditched my own friends to strengthen ties with his, and sometimes it feels like it was a waste. In the end, my friends have been here for me, while "his" friends have sort of disappeared. Why did I invest so much time getting to know the people in his world when we could have spent it together, enjoying our last few months together? The real answer to that is that I met a handful of other people through him, that have more than compensated for the lost time with Rbf and my own friends. Those new friends - and you know who you are - will be mine for life. I've told them they are akin to family. I thank Jed for them. But I resent the time lost on others who didn't deserve it. Like I said, all those things feel like losses now that he's gone.

I'm sick of the sound of my own voice sounding OK when I actually want to check into a mental institution. Yet I'm sick of the sound of my voice crying when I'm truly exhibiting how I feel. I'm sick of the sound of my thoughts. I'm sick of the sound of silence. I feel like I am in a constant CONSTANT fight with something, not sure what.

I mentally live through our wedding day. I mentally live through our first day home with a new baby. I cry when I hear people talk about fixing up their yards. Reboyfriend promised to plant me trees in the yard of our new house so I'd feel like it was home. I cry when I hear my uncle and his son talk about their Eagle scout stuff. I will never get to sit and hear Rbf and our son dish out pinewood memories they built together.

It's been nearly five months since Rbf's passing, and I am still only beginning to process the true magnitude of what I have lost. Not just in real-time...not just the presence of my best friend at Christmas or my New Year's kiss...but the loss of every day of my future and what it should have been.

I keep it all in, quite often now. It feels like the statute of limitations in the compassion sphere of blogworld (and the real world) may expire soon, and I don't want to be whining when that happens. I don't want to appear to exploit my situation to garner support and a "media blitz" of comfort. But being afraid that it's not OK to fall apart anymore, is taking a toll on me.

And I love him so much. And I miss him tremendously. And he's my best friend; isn't that how it should be?

Thank you for reading, for understanding, and for not telling me to STFU / accusing me of attention-whoring. Or at least for keeping it to yourself. Just thanks. Love to you, because my life really would suck without you.




And now for the daily Picture Of Us That You Didn't Ask To See.