Instead of my diary...

I forgot to mention about getting home from Brasil. Arrived at Florianopolis Airport at 10ish Saturday morning.

30 hours later, I landed in SLC feeling sexy and rested and not at all sarcastic.

Went into work Monday. Given that I hadn't slept on the plane the day before, I wanted some sort of award for being there. They exchanged me money for my time. I guess that was it.

Infiltrated staff meeting with stories of thong swimsuits and how none of the beaches were topless, and WTF is up with that, until my boss made me stop and adjourned the meeting.

The next day (yesterday) they had to announce the reductions in force. Three months of waiting to hear, and we have now heard. And four of our work family had to go. I was spared. Somehow. I want to make some joke about how it's prob because my fellow transpondsters wouldn't know how to operate without my HR inappropriate reports in staff meetings. But that feels insensitive. We lost four of our people, and between the pain in that, and the survivor guilt on top...it's an emotional toll.

That night I had an interview with an organization that shall go unnamed, vying with 20 women for 4 spots on a promo team. I do not expect to get a call back. That was stressful. Analyzing it was stressful. Getting to the meeting was stressful. Picking an outfit was stressful.

All of it caught up to me and I spent all last night puking violently, with no sleep. I just kept wanting to lay on the bathroom floor and sleep, but my stomach was having none of that. After missing a week and a half of work, missing one more day stresses me out. Which makes me want to barf more. I got a few hours in and then woke up to sob my heart out to my aunt.

He is not coming back. Buying new cars and going on trips and getting new apartments will distract me from that but it won't change it. And this slays me inside, and I hate remembering how much I don't want to go on sometimes. I'm stable and functional and do what I'm supposed to do and I do it well. But the brave face is only skin deep and sometimes, it's a lot of work to keep up. I'm tired of suppressing anger. Anger at others, even. Those who dismiss this misery by telling me Rbf "would want" me to be happy, when they don't know that. Honestly, if I die, you better cry your ASSES off about it. And when people tell you "Kirsten wouldn't want you to be sad," say "The hell she wouldn't!" Then forward them a link to this post.

Anger! At those who don't want to talk about him, who don't ask me about him, or those who have their own designs on my future, particularly when it involves romance or men. These people, 99% percent of the time, have a living spouse or partner waiting at home for them, making it very convenient to think the way they do. People who used to be in Rbf's life but have moved on, and avoid me - maybe because they feel guilty about that. Because my life has not come back together, because I'm not happy...they feel guilty that their lives aren't disrupted anymore, that they are happy. And as the person Rbf was closest to in his life, I'm somehow the pacesetter of where "healing" should be. So completely cutting me out of life, well that makes this all easier.

And this is great for them. But it leaves me very much alone in a world that doesn't remember him. And this world isn't acceptable to me, so I fight it. I talk about him to anyone that will listen. Wouldn't you want someone to do that for you? Don't Rbf, Jordan, and their dad deserve that much?

I have this whimpering gratitude for those who will let me sit and discuss, remember, and love Jed out loud while they listen and even participate. Members of Rbf's family and mine, they all do this.

And I think it's possible for God to. Why wouldn't He? Each of these conversations is a prayer of gratitude to Him. Thank you, God, for the sweet sound of his snoring. Thank you, God, for the little side of him that saved all my love notes from college and left them in a place I'd find them after he died, even though he never told me he'd saved them all these years. Thank you, God, for his smile. Thank you, God, for allowing him the capacity to love me like he did. Thank you for the energy he had and shared. Thank you for the time we did this and that. No wonder You wanted him back. Thank you, God, for not tiring of my sadness.

It hit me today, 6 months after having to let the Mingos go, that this pain won't ever fade, ever. In the blur of hearing things like "tender mercies" and "new normal," I guess I just expected that it would be less raw at some point. I realized today that it won't. Other things will fade or become less pronounced...but pain is not one of them. And that exhausts me and it scares and daunts me. I miss my best friend. He is never coming back, and that won't ever go away.

Thanks for reading.