Ground Zero + 1 year

Dear My Favorite People Ever,

It's that time of year again.

I'm in my messy-ass apartment, getting ready to go to Baconfest 2010 (you can still taste it from when you read about Baconfest 2009, can't you?). Getting ready means wrapping up some things at work. And checking the weather. And charging my camera battery. Washing some delicates. Digging up a razor head as if I'm going to need to shave there. And blogging. Obviously duh like what else and stuff seriously?

There are some marked differences between this year's Baconfest and last year's.

For one). Anaga can't give me shit for being stoned out of my mind (stoned on xanax, sorry. No, I can't score you anything). It's me and her and the fam and the cabin and food and no sedatives and far fewer tears.

Also). I am not 102 pounds anymore. That's for fricking sure.

And). It's a few weeks earlier. So possibly warmer. Should I pack a swimsuit? Probably. It will go good with my not shaved legs. Sorry boys.

D). I'm flying there, not driving - all 330 miles and all in a very small plane. Our friend Rob (aka Fat Rob) is a pilot. A pilot I trust with my life, literally. And if I didn't, I am still so not afraid of death that I am OK getting into a small plane with him. The last small plane I got on was the Navion. And that was the last time it flew before That Day. I am brave. I have giant steel womanballs. I also trust that you meet God when you're supposed to, even if you're a baby, or don't feel ready, or just barely got that girl back in your life after waiting for years. I believe in those stories people tell about times they cheated death. It happened to Rbf three separate times while The One That Got Away was still "away." After he enjoyed his final year with her, he got to go home. In short, I'm putting on my big girl pants and flying free.

5). It's been a year. And everything that implies.

There is something about it being a year. There is something about honoring someone with reverence for 365 days, and for longer. There's something about confirming that it's possible to be loved purely and loyally by someone for 4 of God's seasons after you've moved into your next existence and left them behind. I wanted to do it right, I wanted it to be about him. I knew I was supposed to be that someone he left behind in shambles. I did it. I didn't just survive it, but I made this last year everything I wanted it to be. I got to look back on the agony I made it through, the gargantuan price I paid - all so that his final days, his final moments, closed out with all things in their proper places. To quote one of his dearest friends and certainly my own, Jesse Black: "He went out on top, in love, and loved by you."

So, guess who's still in shambles? This girl. But guess who can finally say "I'm good" when someone asks, not just a reserved "I'm OK." Me. I can. No, I am not in the dating scene. I'm not looking. I don't have to. I'll know it's time for that when he brings that person to me. I don't want people telling me my future. I always got nervous about people telling me I would someday love life again. I still hate that. It's for me to discover, not for others to predict so later the could say they "told me so." Nobody would ever say that...but I still felt like they might. It always felt like this thing they were doing to comfort themselves, and when I finally believed them, they could dismiss compassion. How stupid is that? Oh well. It's how a warped mind works. My girlfriend at work recently told me that she was worried about me near the end of July, about the dark place I was in. She's right, it was probably the darker and scarier of the stages I faced. I dreaded something, not sure what. Maybe I dreaded the reality that pain can be fresh and it can be stale. Stale pain hurts a deeply as fresh pain - but has less of the fanfare, so it's lonelier. How is that fair?

And I could have written that last paragraph right there, and saved you all a year of listening to me retch and groan about others' stupidity and my bizarre state(s) of mind, but that trademark mixture of your laughter and your tears is so much more of an experience than the other things you'd have done with those hours upon hours. Whoever you are, I love you for reading.

The past year hurt in blinding, debilitating, redefining ways, which I found fulfilling, which felt right. It was all about him, and it was amazing. I'm excited, though, for this next year to be about me. To live the life I love, and to let myself love it. He's next to me, communicating with me and circling around me still. One of his most valued themes in life was progression - something he talked about when he delivered grandpa Floyd's life sketch, something that was later quoted in his own. I don't want to bore him. I know he's ready to see my own progression.

I know how lofty this post is, I totally do. And I always like to close with something inappropriate and irreverent like a your mom joke or something about the trans-fat food-flush I like to put my body through every other day. But that's really it for now. I will post gratuitous pictures of bacon, children, and nature. And most importantly, yours truly in the air, womanballs of steel in the friendly skies. Year two is a go.

Love always and always,

Your mom.

Kirie vs. Someone Who I Promise Wasn't You.

I have to make it clear up front that NOBODY reading this has contributed to this rant. I promise, the people who inspired this have no idea my blog exists. Just so you know. OK now read it.

Kirsten: Hello. What a charming tie.
Person: Thank you. I'm very rad. Who is your boyfriend?
K: His name is Reboyfriend, most specifically on my blog, which is the only thing that matters because everyone who reads it is magic and I treasure them. I still get butterflies when I see pictures of Rbf. 
P: Where is he?
K: He lives in heaven.
P: I'm sorry to hear of your loss.
K: Thanks. Me too. We just got headstones. So pretty. Want to see?
P: No. I want to circumvent social norms to ask if you've started to date again.
K: I'd rather talk about going to India.
P: But I'm really preoccupied with your single status. It's an odd number, and that makes my married, middle-aged ass SUPER uncomfortable. I want your status to be different. 
K: Me too.
P: I'm going to say things about you getting married someday so that I can sleep better tonight.
K: I can see that. And I'm saying really polite things to dismiss this issue and reroute the conversation.
P: Yeah, I'm missing all of those cues.
K: I can see that also.
P: Sooo. Have you started dating yet?
K: No.
P: But you're too cute. You can't be alone forever.
K: I can't? I am pretty sure it's allowed. So, technically I can.
P: No you can't. Being single is like being an armless legless torso person, who has to find a way to get all their food from the dumpster behind Jimmy John's.
K: I do very well alone.
P: No you don't. Being alone is the worst thing that can ever happen to anyone ever. Nobody has ever survived it.
K: I'm OK.
P: Nope. 
K: ..............
P: Did I mention you're too cute to be alone? I'm cloaking this in compliments so it goes down easier and then you can't easily paint me as a complete tool. You're pretty, you don't deserve to be alone.
K: Thanks. Well, I'm working on destroying my complexion and waistline so that I look more like people who DO deserve to be lonely and miserable.
P: Oh ruk ruk ruk!!! (That's how a complete tool's laughter is spelled)
K: I'm really just doing my own thing these days, haven't really thought about that.
P: Yeah it's really soon after the accident I guess...
K: Yeah! You said something right! I think we might have diverted the conversation before you hurried to throw in "But you'll find someone."
P: ...But you'll find someone.
K: OK. Well I don't know if I need to "find" someone since I'm not looking right now. But I'm staying busy, trying to heal, and trying to have fun. I have really great friends and my family is incredible.
P: {lunging at me} But you WILL get married.
K: Behh Ok. Sure, maybe. 
P: NOT MAYBE. 
K: Mumble fidget clear throat hate awful bad evil this is such a fail, my cuticles could not be more fascinating. Is that some sort of silver Ford Taurus? Those are interesting too. I need to stare off that way.
P: NOT MAYBE. Why are you ruining this for me? I wanted to sound sage, and all-knowing. I also can't handle your reality. It scares me. YOU HAVE TO AGREE WITH ME.

K: So when you buried your partner, your lover, your other half, your best friend, your everything...how long did it take you to replace them?
P: Who knows. I've never buried a partner or a lover or my other half or my best friend or my everything. All those people are alive and thriving! OH and I forgot to throw in the disclaimer that I certainly don't mean to imply that Rbf is REPLACEABLE even though that's pretty much what I'm implying.
K: Oh. So after God appeared to you to tell you about my future, did He command that you shove it down my throat like this?
P: I'm really tempted to not correct you, because I like the sound that one part, about God appearing to me with imperatives regarding your fate.

You know what I wish I could say?

Besides STFU?

That I know something they don't - and I'm not referring to my awareness of boundaries and general manners. I mean I know something about them that they don't know. Some people have a very strong compulsion to tell me this about my life and future, that I'm bound to live it in _____ fashion. It's a common reaction of people confronted with my situation. It makes them uncomfortable. Most of them don't know that the reason they fixate on convincing me of their idea of my life, is that it makes them feel better. Not me. They don't know that, but I do.

They have no idea that it is still painful to me to have it pointed out. And most don't recognize my resistance, and therefore force the topic - insisting with absolutes like "can't" and certainties like "you will."
My objection is not faux-modesty. I'm not holding out to solicit assurance. Know what it is? The sad truth that I really just want to pretend, for a little longer, that he's just around the corner. This force-feed is like telling me that he's not. And it's like losing him all over again. I wish people could understand this. I know it's sad, that it's naive, and that it's going to hurt when it wears off. But I wish people would just play along. Not because it's true, but because it's the polite thing to do.

The only thing people need to be concerned about his this: Every single second of my whole future was deleted, and I'm still just trying to grasp that. The only thing I ask is that I have a little more time with just question marks there where my future used to be. I wish people would please stop rewriting it for me. I'm not ready to have it retold by someone else, someone who knows nothing about what this feels like - by someone whose future is still theirs to call "tomorrow." It may sound like a happy ending to them, but it feels like a kick in the face to me.

When my life is eventually rewritten, it will be solely authored by me. And told by me. I will not hear it from someone else. There is nobody who knows my experience except for me. I want to be the person who announces it if I've moved on, if I've let him go. And most importantly, I want it to be OK with others if I never do. I want people to be comforted by my peaceful decision to live an authentic life, whether or not someone's by my side. My biggest fear is not dying unmarried; it's dying unaccomplished. When people speculate on the likelihood that I'll backfill his role in my universe, it's not a comfort. It's scribbling all over the blank slate I paid everything for. And it hurts. And this is the most sense I've been able to make of that anger. And I'm so glad I have a place to yell about it.


This little exchange of cluelessness happens to me probably about once a week. When I mentioned that I wasn't really thinking about "that" right now, that Rbf isn't someone you move on from in just one year, a man recently responded "Aw, OK now, that's a real nice sentiment, but you are too young to be by yourself forever." He was so condescending and tactless it was breathtaking. After he walked off, I turned around and pouted into the shoulder of my bestie Jason. He knew it was coming and just said "Kir, he's an ass." I asked him why it's always old, married people who do this? It's highly possible that the offender heard me say this, peppered with my signature f-bombs. I'm weirdly content with that being true. Could it be that the big fat lesson he thought he was being bestowed upon me was actually his to learn? Who knows. But the point isn't whether or not it's true. The point is whether or not it's nice to say to someone. Do I come up and tell a 50 year old man that he's about 40 pounds overweight? That his house is totally upside down in value? That his sweet teenage daughter is SOOOO not a virgin? Do I throw it in his face, even when it becomes clear to me that he does not feel like believing that right now? I wish some people weren't so damn stupid.


I still wonder if I'm in a weird dream that I'll wake up from any day, and roll over and tell Rbf all about. A year is a long time to feel that way. Sigh.


That was an epic vent-out, if there was one. Thanks for listening. Love to you.


/Fin/

365

Time to be trite. You knew it was coming. But I kinda have to. All the words you read, and cried over, and responded to over the past 12 months...I can't just not write a big fat tearjerker on the one-year anniversary. This is an epic moment. If this makes you sad, I just want to apologize to your husbands in advance. Sorry husbands.

The Regirlfriend Was Here.

I know why they call the blinking vertical bar a "cursor" because I swear it's a curse on my ability to fricking TYPE. It just sits there blinking at me like "What are you waiting for, moron? You came and logged in to me, drafted me up, and now you're just going to sit there? Spit it out."

August 7 will always and forever be a cursed day to me. It might be sacred in a way, but when you get to live the year I just survived, you lose your ability to tell the difference. My friend Christi wrote today "It's almost time to say goodbye to the hardest year of your life." Meems wrote from the road: "I'm thinking about you. You have survived one full year in 2 hours." And for whatever weird reason...I'm sad about that. It feels like I lost something more now that The Year is up. I have no idea how to explain this.

I cry when I think about me, 365 days ago. Bebopping around in my car, totally oblivious to the fact that I had been common-law-widowed. I was sitting in Soup Kitchen with my coworkers, talking about the house we were buying. His plane was falling from the sky as I ate my lunch.

I think of that next day. August 8th. I had a hair appointment and then a family party. I went to the Barnes & Noble by my salon and picked up the Utah Bride & Groom magazine to thumb through while my hair was getting done. I found the ring I was to buy for Reboyfriend, and showed to everyone I could. I found a dress I thought he might like to marry me in. I could not wait for him to get home from Washington to go through the magazine with me. I knew he'd patiently play along. He was excited to start the planning.

I brought the magazine to the family party where all the girls sat around and analyzed which gown would be most "Kir." I showed off the awesome ring I'd buy him. While we planned my future, his body lay quiet and undiscovered in the mountains.

He must have watched me. He must have sat next to me, stood above me, swirled all around me as I read that magazine. He must have whispered in my ear when the image of his ring caught my eye and my gut filled with certainty that it should be his. He must have been the one pointing it out.

Soon after his death, on the week before he was to "officially" propose to me (according to his friends), my friends and I walked by a jewelry store that displayed a ring just like "his," but for women. They spotted it in the window and talked me into going inside and trying it on. They had my size. It was embedded with a white sapphire - a stone the sales lady said represented loyalty. The ring was a display of mountains, just like his was to be. The mountains were in the shape of the Tetons, which will always remind me of that day I randomly realized that I wanted to marry this guy. It all tied together too weirdly and too perfectly that I paid the price for the ring, probably more than I should have spent, but it was more than worth it.

I have worn it with the engraved band given to me by Argento, every day for the entire year. One for each of us.

Years ago, he was sprawled on my bed and I sat at the side of it talking to him. He said out of the blue, "You know, if I were deaf and blind and lost my sense of smell and taste and couldn't reach out to touch you, and I were lying here, I'd be able to tell you were next to me."

I was 19 and dumb and didn't really get it. He went on to explain that he clearly recognized my spirit or energy when it was around him. He could just sense me. And then I got it. Because I felt the same way about him. *I would be fast asleep, dreaming of cupcakes or garden gnomes, living cities away from him. And he drove into town in the middle of the night without telling me, and snuck into my room, and watched me sleep...and immediately, I was dreaming of him.

And now I wonder if that happened because he was right next to me, and I sensed him. This sense is piqued sometimes. And the part of me that has hope, believes this is because he's really nearby. The hopeful part of me tells the doubtful part of me to step off and get lost.

Think about it. Human beings can just burst out of other human beings after being tiny cells...all from a little bit of fluid swapping on a drunken night. Plants can just spring from the earth without any engineering from anyone. And perfectly on time. We all spin around this giant ball of fire every day without any human contribution. Why the hell couldn't this additional sense just be a part of nature? A part of science? A manifestation of physics? We can doubt it, and blame it on missing our other half. But it's just as likely that this shit just plain happens, and it's not all that complicated.

So I decided he is right here.

Dear Jed,

Thank you for the year of sweetness and miracles. Thank you for all the times you planted little whispers in my ears and the ears of those around me. We heard them.

I miss you. I miss you so desperately that sometimes *I don't see in color. At first I thought it was my contacts. Then I realized it's sadness. I'm a person, cut in half. And that does weird stuff to a girl's vision.

I miss you fast asleep, your limbs tangled around me like a koala around a tree. I miss the way you always addressed people by their names in the middle of your sentences. I miss your screwed up feet. I miss the way you held your cell phone. I miss my seat on the back of your bike, reaching around and into your facemask, feeding you a piece of Australian licorice at every mile marker. I miss you calling from the freeway just to say you could see my office building as you passed. I miss you lecturing me about not knowing how to use a tiedown. I miss you not knowing who Death Cab is. How you liked streaking. How your nickname for me was always "dream girl." How eerily appropriate that turned out to be. How you valued your freedom. How you would take off your shirt and make me wipe my nose on it when you'd make me cry. I miss your flaws, your shortcomings. I miss everything about you. Every little thing. And despite what we all hoped for in the beginning of this nightmare, a year's time has proven useless in fading any of that.

The last night we were together, I asked you what you'd do if I died. You flatly told me you'd follow me home. And to this moment, I can hear your words like you spoke them seconds ago: "If you died, I would never recover." That remark rings in my ears sometimes for hours as I go throughout my life, not recovering. Thank you for letting me know that I was your everything. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You were someone's everything too.

I'm wearing my big girl pants, Jed, even though I have lost everything. I want nothing more than to make you proud as you loom around me from time to time, probably shaking your head at me in the Crown Burger drive-thru, cheering me on from the stands of the ballgames, "frolicking" around me as I stand barefoot on your grave, and most likely watching me in the shower. I'll put money on the fact that you're saving me a seat next to you in heaven.

So I just want to check in, and write another one of my cheesy, weird, open letters to you for all to see, so they can know that you were here, and that even if you didn't spring generations of your progeny into the world, you left behind so much. Everyone deserves someone to leave behind in shambles. I guess that's my gift to you. To be that someone.

Always,

Dream Girl.

*These are stories I know I've told before. I haven't FULLY lost my mind. :)