Sup dawgs.

Dear Beloved Strangers,

Who enjoyed the break, raise your hands? Whose husbands enjoyed the break from your compassionate crying and stuff? Whose husbands were sick of it, and thisclose to blocking my URL from your routers? Sorry.

I got burnout. Not blog burnout...cardboard box/funeral/driving/overeating/bad weather BURNOUT. I also got sick of the title of this blog. It was a placeholder at the time, when the blog was a wee baby new blog and I couldn't think of anything but lines from Legally Blonde. So I changed it.

I moved in. And for the first time in seven months, I feel like my emotions are where they should be. Living with my host family was like taking emotional percocet. I'm away from them now, in my apartment by myself, and the pain I've been assigned, but haven't yet owned entirely, is now revealing itself. This is good. It is the only way I can really heal. I have to own my loneliness and let it catch up to me.

I tagged along with my aunt to an annual family dinner where they celebrate the life of their late father. I heard there was food, so I signed up. He had 10 children and who knows how many grandkids. They sat around and told stories about him, remembered their favorite quirks of his, and laughed for hours. While it was heartwarming, I still went home and sobbed. If I didn't hurt that Rbf was a generational dead end, I'd be some kind of insensitive hag. So I'm glad this still rocks me. I ache that he of all people should have been remembered by a dozen of his offspring. In my head, I pictured them imitating their dad's dance moves and health food and how many times a year "dad" lost his phone. I wept because I realized that when Rbf died, it didn't just erase a person from the world; it erased an entire lineage that was to be. The magnitude of this loss is bigger than my comprehension. I thought of that popular Mormon family quip the SSB girl makes fun of..."all because two people fell in love." This usually accompanies massive family portraits with no less than 24 subjects...all "offspring" of these two people that fell in love.

I went through all these stupid boxes and eventually just dumped the crap on the floor. I'll find a place for it later. I have been doing this for weeks, moving random clutter up my stairs and into my apartment. Today, I spent hours "unpacking" and at the end of it, felt like I had done no more than move messes around into new, differently shaped messes. I think about the trailer my uncle had to borrow from his neighbor (TWICE) to move me two times in six months. I watched the sweat dripping down five people's faces as they moved my furniture up two flights of stairs. Wait, why are they moving my things again? I look at the stack of life-after-death quackery books I hug in embarrassment as I leave the Salt Lake library. I look at my life, how it is a foreign place to me and doesn't feel like it's my own. I look around at this apartment and wonder how I ended up here. And my only answer is: All because the wing broke off.

SO, since we're never not discussing my dead boyfriend and surely you're not sick of hearing about it...why don't I tell you about my funeral expertise? Because I'm a total funeral ninja. Yeah, turns out, when you bury three men at once, that crap's not cheap...even if you get a good deal.

This has been weighing on my heart, heavily, for seven months. I made a contribution for his headstone, but not enough to cover his share of the funeral. People might think I'm trying to be generous, but they don't understand. I'm not. The thing nobody else knows were his expectations of me. He would view that expense as my responsibility. I'm slacking, not generous.

So I set up the Jed Mingo Memorial Fund. If you see that this blog eventually gets monetized, that's where the funds are going. I figure this is all about him and what happened to the family. I have used their names and faces. It should help them. I feel my contribution should be no less than what it would have been if we'd had time to get married before the accident. Whether or not his mother or family knew this (and they didn't), he does: those costs are ultimately my responsibility. It's just going to take me some time to do it right. So there's that.

OK this page bores my ass off...PICTURE time!!!

Here I am with Macy, a 14 month old lab/golden mix CCI service dog in basic training. She stayed with me for four days, and she was my date to the CCI reception on Friday.

She also helped me adjust to this, and it is much worse than it looks...just so you can feel appropriately sorry for me:

Left: Macy judges me for not unpacking anything even though I've lived there a month. At right, I sport like 4 inches of my natural hair color in some form of weird self-sacrifice. Meanwhile, I appear not to be controlling my dog, and unable to decode this strange contraption called a BELT, while other CCI-ers are explaining to their animals how to make baklava.

This is Macy sprawled on the floor of the Little America, doing sudoku in her head and dreaming of the disabled children she will help when she is done with training.

Below, this was fricking funny:

When you evolve past butt-sniffing to identify another dog, you use a really sophisticated thing called visual recognition. If it looks like a dog and sits like one...especially that still (CCI dogs can)...well then it must be a dog.

Last day with me. In my super clean car. CCI people, if you're reading, I hurried and totally put her in her crate right after this picture was taken. Did I give you ADD yet?

K bye.

How a year might pass

Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence.
Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance.
Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence.
Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance.

~ Yoko Ono

I guess this is growing up.

I never thought I'd have a blog that details my peeing schedule but not my family background. For the next few lines, we'll speed date while I share TMI in Kirstenese. I'm the oldest of six kids. There was a seventh sibling who was placed for adoption. I was born when my parents were both seniors at Manson High School. I got to go to my mom's 18th birthday party and since my dad only got his GED, he was free to hold me on his lap in the audience while we watched my mom graduate from HS. I have two nephews and a niece. One of my siblings has placed a child for adoption as well. I lost two pregnancies of my own. I feel the reaches of family throughout so much more than the nuclear unit we identify. 

I have three parents: a mom and two dads. The first dad (Dad1) gave me a first name and a face, well, and life. The second dad (Dad2) married my mom when I was five and legally adopted me and my brother when I was 11 so we could be sealed in the temple to the family. Dad2 raised us from there. 

Both dads have been good friends to me throughout my adult life. I love them both for their contributions to who I am, to their contradictions of one another, and to the claim neither of them could fully have to me, that forced me to learn things "daddy's girls" never got to.

Six or so years back, my D1 was in a car accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down. This gave way to health problems that begat more health problems, but it hurt his spirit more than his body. The deathbed scares were countless. Last summer, in the middle of my move into Rbf's house, doctors told him to start calling family. We dropped everything and bolted to Washington. Reboyfriend flew in to join us, to meet my D1, to say his hello and goodbye all at once. When we arrived at the hospital, his health returned. The doctors didn't have a very good reason for the spike in his wellbeing, but they were pleased. I quietly let the incident pass without bringing it into the blogosphere. I lightheartedly griped about the bruises on my legs from moving and the mess I was living in. I didn't want to bring the party down. The truth is, it took a massive emotional toll on me. The bad news followed with good news, the hospital, the visiting, and allll that driving. I just put it away and chose not to feel it. I did this recently with my current stress, and ended up puking all night long.

When Rbf died, I shut down on my D1. I didn't want to talk to him. I didn't want someone else to feel sorry for. Either I didn't like his own self-pity, or I didn't like him hurting on my behalf. He couldn't win. He always irritated me with his childishness BEFORE Rbf's crash - whiny voicemails making me feel like a bad daughter, wondering why I was avoiding him. But after the crash, it became more than I could handle. Calling him was a chore. I winced with guilt remembering the gentle lecture I got from Rbf on the drive home from Washington last summer, urging me to be more patient with my D1. Rbf liked him. He liked my hometown. He liked the stories my D1 had from his logging days and his trucking tales. He liked the family ranch I took him to. He liked the whole D1 side of the family. He told me to lighten up on pops. Sigh.

Rbf is everywhere and in everything. In traffic and TV. In warm water and in my breath on cold morning air. 

And this morning, my father joined him there, in music and sunlight, in the smell of diesel fuel and in the bubbles in your beer. They're both free of this stupid shit world and its incessant cruelty, and now I have them both to make proud from their perches in heaven. Today my dad died.

I cry daily for my own loss of my boyfriend, my fiance, my partner, my best friend and my future. I cry because it was perfect, just too perfect. Because other than letting him go on that godforsaken trip in the first place, I truly have no regrets.

I cry for the loss of my dad because I have too many regrets. I regret that I didn't have the patience Rbf wisely cautioned me to have. I hurt that I bitched out on my dad for his immaturity. Why couldn't I have let him just be that way? I regret that I kept him as a friend, not a dad. I regret that I let his absence in most of my life harden me toward fathers in general. I regret that I didn't call him back after his last voicemail. And while we're being honest, I regret that I didn't help him home sooner, like he begged. He suffered so much. I regret this for him.

I'm told that he stopped breathing, in his sleep. He died peacefully at 7:10 this morning, on the seven month anniversary of Reboyfriend's death. We bury him on Saturday.

I've stayed cheerful today; I embrace his relief, his new world. I remember him for the sweet times I had with him, I replay the time this year he told me he was proud of me and what I'd amounted to. I know he's happier, that he finally has what he wants. But boy, do I wish I could rewrite his last five years for him. It's weird the things you cry over. I'm sick of being a grown up. I'm sick of loss and pain and dealing. I'm sick of the fact that I am always on the receiving end of people's kindness...that I worry daily that the compassion will end and astonished when it doesn't. People helping me move. People still checking on me. When will I ever not be at the mercy of everything around me? Why do I feel like the older I get, the more maturity I gain, the less independent I somehow become? The more I need people? I remember just laying there after Jed died, thinking "My soul just needs a nap." I don't even know what it needs now. It needs my facebook page to not be a perpetual obituary. It needs to be able to worry about stupid things again like traffic lights and checking balances. My little soul, it doesn't want to be a grown up soul anymore. It wants to embrace its petty, childish side...like the side of my soul that is jealous that he is now in heaven. 

But that's just not how it is. I feel it growing up, turning into a seasoned veteran of pain and wrapping itself around this shit, in effort to own it and overcome it and not let it win. And I guess that's what's happening.


And thank you for keeping your front row seat to that show....


What a year it's been.

But everybody's gone
And you've been there for too long
To face this on your own
I guess this is growing up.


--Blink 182

Remember when it was OK to use the term "mack" as a verb?

Mercy, he is cute.

Rbf's friend Lucky emailed me tonight with some letters he found from my man back in the first few months he was dating me. The world is portrayed in, ultimately, two ways:

The Way Girls Talk About It On Their Blogs (Click Here to read such insight, on our hallowed bananaversary)

and

The Way Guys Talk About It To Their Friends. (See below for the counterpart to such insight)

If you didn't follow the bananaversary link above, my question to Rbf was this:


"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)."




Well, Lucky gave us all the answer! Behold: Reboyfriend version. In Reboyfriend's handwriting

From a letter dated November 19th, 2000.





I blurred out the poor other girl's name since you never know if it might bug her to stumble across her name on my blog. Never know who's reading. Seems I meet someone new every now and then who's been reading (Hi Christina!). (Anisa! I still owe you a letter! Four pages to be exact, full of loving thank yous!). Blur-name girl irritated me, naturally, since back in November of 2000 I was even more immature than I am now and wouldn't have liked ANYONE who would have dated Rbf right before he met me...even if her fate was some oneliner in a missionary letter while I was the CHOSEN one who got MACKED. (It was the year 2000, and you were probably still carrying a beeper or something so cut him some slack). Sorry blur-girl.

I also cropped out the part about getting his pilot's license and getting A's in O-chem and stuff, even though those were both huge deals at the time, which I fondly remember. Kinda funny how that brought back so much. I remember giving him his favorite treats in care packages on his bed before his mid-terms for those classes, then reading about the grades he got, almost ten years later, and welling up about it. It must have been those yogurt raisins I left him. :)

This letter was obviously written to a missionary, which meant that it was about 2 years before I was even able to meet him. I eventually did, but never got to know Lucky too much. Even still, he took the time to scan these and email them to me because that's how cool he is. THANK YOU, LUCKY!!!

I write this blog pretending there are *5 people that read it so that I don't censor anything. I hope it doesn't seem too blasphemous to put images of Rbf's handwritten letters online for the world to see. At some point I might go private but in vintage Kirsten style, I'll wait for a regrettable, preventable incident to happen before I make that judgment. In any case, this beautiful creature's take on our first hookup was pretty precious for me to read yesterday.

*(I still try to pretend Rebrother-in-law, Chris, doesn't read it, but if any member of the Mingo clan could handle my potty mouth, it's Chris or Kenny, so hallelujah for us having them!).

Note: Tomorrow is the 7 month anniversary of the accident and yes, I will be notifying you on the 7th of every month, how long it's been since the crash. Because it's my way of bragging. I am prouder of myself with each month that passes, for living through it this long.

If I miss it, I'll notify you every 10th of the month on the anniversary of us finding the plane, and the 18th of every month how long it's been since we buried them. So you don't miss ANYTHING! :) I love you guys.

{The two lovebirds a few months after the letter was written.}

The Grape Amp How-To Series: Dealing With Widows

Man I've been testy lately! Mostly with other people.

I felt this weird need to post on my blog a grand sweeping press release about My Decision (I love to cap strings of words for emphasis). It was going to be this big blogvom, where I threw it down, and was all serious and stern. Then I decided this was stupid, so I didn't. You're welcome. It's still saved as a draft so I can go back and re-read it and yell "yeah!" at the computer and chug my Grape Amp, and get all mad for no reason.

I'm hypersensitive and you're walking on eggshells (not YOU, I mean everyone else). I just can't believe the comments some people feel OK making to me. When this happens, it all comes vomming out! Case in point: this post. Put on your Snuggie cuz this is a big one. You can always tell when some moron makes a thoughtless comment to me. I stock up on Grape Amp and dominate lunch hour with my coworkers bitching about it. And blog about it.

The problem today: Me getting overly pissed off at people who think MAYBE I'm starting to thaw out in the warm glow of the Rising Sun Of The Dating Scene ( <---See? Caps!). I realize I have not made it clear. I'm not dating, right now at all. I'm not dating, and it's a long-term decision. I won't use the word "forever," but this is not temporary. The decision has nothing to do with it being "too soon" or me just "not being ready." The whole "when you're ready" addendum to everything everyone says, is a colossal waste of words, and I like words.

I also realize that having a crush on someone in my situation is not really the same thing as lusting after a 12 year old girl, but in my warped sense of reality, it might as well be. Pre-crash, I was flattered if someone flirted with me and just tried to be as gracious as possible when eschewing advances in my loyalty to the Reboyfriend. Post-accident advances make me want to throat punch people.

I realized the other day that one of my male acquaintances might have a little crush on me, and he's been waiting around innocently in the friend zone waiting for any signs that I'm maybe ready to date. Now, I could be wrong...but that's what's so irritating. It's one of those situations where you'd be an arrogant snob to suspect that he did, but you'd also be a naive, reckless tease to suspect that he didn't. And either way, you are the one that gets burned if you don't return his feelings. Which, obviously, I don't. Bonus Bitch Points if you go so far as to equate his feelings to that of a predatory asshole. Of course, it's not so far fetched to treat him like the kind of guy who chases 12-year-old girls since I totally act like one.

The truth about this guy is that I wouldn't have dated him before Rbf, and I wouldn't date him if I ever got OVER Rbf. I wouldn't date him if I he were the last guy on Earth. He's a fun friend, but that's it. I'm OK talking about it here, because neither this guy, nor his friends, reads my blog.

I guess what I should really acknowledge is that when I've said I'm not dating, I think some people have mentally added "yet." They've apparently interpreted the reason to be "It's too soon." Or "I'm not ready." Both of those reasons imply that my feelings are temporary. They're not. If I sense anyone hovering in the friend zone waiting for my availability-pulse to return, my disdain for them would emerge beyond pre- AND post-crash rage-records. I don't know how to handle this social situation, and it irritates me. So, naturally, I am irrationally avoiding all men now. My poor innocent guy friends, who are in no way interested in seeing me romantically, are probably wondering why I don't have the energy to deal with them and their maleness. It's getting to the point where I even avoid eye contact with gay guys. Seriously.

I guess what makes me so mad is that:

a.) How could you be romantically interested in someone you believe to be super vulnerable, someone you assume must be lonely? Doesn't that make you kind of a creep?
b.) Anyone looking at me in a romantic way is, in my admittedly-warped view, making lemonade out of Rbf's death. My future husband dying in a plane crash is not lemons. It is the runny diarrhea of Satan. You can't make lemonade out of demon-shit. If you think you can, then your punishment will be me making you shotgun a can of it when I figure out what you're up to.
c.) Your assumption that my off-market status is temporary, clearly shows that you don't know anything about how deep our relationship went or how sacred it was.

For example: Is it OK for me to say this to a newly married guy?

Me: Hello hot stuff!
Groom: I'm married.
Me: Whenever you're ready to start dating, let me know! I want you! You really shouldn't waste your hot years like this.
Groom: No thanks. I love my wife.
Me: But I doubt your feelings run THAT deep. Eventually you'll be really lonely and horny.
Groom: No I won't.
Me: Aww, you're so cute to actually think that.
Groom: No I'm not.
Me: Give it time.
Groom: My feelings for my wife won't fade.
Me: No, but your attraction will.
Groom: Your inappropriateness is astonishing.
Me: Not it's not, because studies show that there's an 80% chance that one of you will cheat at some point in the relationship! Most people do! Or they just get divorced. I'm trying to COMFORT you!
Groom: How is this OK? Like, that you are saying these things? And why is it that you're not the only one?
Me: You WILL fall in love with someone. Sure, it won't be the same as with your wife, but at some point you will get REALLY BORED. And you'll need to LET GO of this weird loyalty you have to her. She will be banging your mechanic, so she'd probably feel better about you banging someone too. Like maybe me.
Groom: Plenty of couples make it without those things happening.
Me: Yeah, but you're too hot not to. See how you can't be mad, because this is a compliment? Isn't this great?

I'm sorry I had to be so forward with the pretend hot groom, but I'm being honest, as your mentor in the art of Dealing With Widows. The above comments made to the hot groom, are variations of things that have literally been said out loud to me in attempts to comfort me in the past six months. Except the part about banging one's mechanic.

The only reason people believe these comments are OK, is that my spouse-to-be is dead, and the hot groom's wife is alive.

So in a way, doesn't that make it even meaner?

If your 7-year-old is overweight, she probably knows what "fat" is, but because it is the last thing that should be important to her, she doesn't see herself that way. She's just going through life trying not to trip or spill on her shirt. So which one of us logic-driven asswipes feels the need to point it out to her, just because we're so arrogant as to believe it's our job to inform her? And what if in 5 years, we end up wrong?

So how is it socially acceptable to tell a young widow that she'll eventually start dating? So what if she does? It's not OK to talk to her about it. (And those weren't actual questions, so please don't get all up in my comments and attempt to answer them.) And by the way, what is he supposed to say to that?

Like when I say "I love Reboyfriend, and I believe he's just around the corner. So while I'm here, I have a lot of living left to do, and dating/boys just don't have a place on that list. Dating is the farthest thing from my mind"...and someone feels the need to CORRECT ME..."Yeah, but you WILL feel differently someday, I promise..."

...What am I supposed to say to that?

"You're right! I probably will!" (Is dirty, people-pleasing lie)
"No I won't." (Is honest response, and I can feel the offender's I-know-better-and-you-are-so-naive omicience boring into my head)
"I guess I am just not able to see it that way." (Although this is my current, neutral partyline, it has a 100% success rate of inviting the offender to reiterate loudly and insistently that, in fact, I will be "letting go" someday).

I get that "dating" becomes a little more viable when your partner is dead rather than alive. I got it. But it comes down to the question of devotion. Doubting mine in your logical assessment of where most widows really do end up...is still doubting it.

When someone develops a crush on me, it doesn't flatter me - it angers me. When someone lovingly promises me that I'll remarry someday, it doesn't comfort me - it hurts me. It tells me that they clearly do not understand my pain, the depth of my loss, or the intensity of the love Jed and I shared. If they understood any of it, they'd just nod and tell me it's OK to have a long list of things to enjoy in life that doesn't have MEN on it. I wish people would just smile and tell me that's great, and supress their urge to correct me. I guess that's all I'm trying to articulate. Do I know for a fact that this person is wrong? Of course not. Do I believe with everything inside me that they're wrong? Absolutely. I'm not dating. I won't "eventually" be dating. If I "eventually" want to, I'll tell you. Get a crush on someone else. And I feel better now, so thanks for reading.

{Editor's note: this is not a passive-aggressive shout-out to anyone who has committed this social crime. Ironically, these unwitting offenses come from strangers or quasi-acquaintances...just so nobody feels bad. Apologies from anyone in the comments section or my email inbox will be quickly rejected, as you are not one of the people who did it. Pinky promise.}