It Makes Me Sigh

I’m starting to realize that so much of my writing was for Derek.  Everyone needs an audience, real or perceived – and I use “audience” loosely – think of that tree falling in the forest…  Derek & I, we were all about audience….

When Derek died, I had so much to say.  So angry with him.  So terribly, terribly lost and brokenhearted.  So very alone.  So fucking sad.  I have never felt grief – my thoughts, my sadness created such physical pain – how could I not write?  Writing cleared the thoughts, let the sadness take form, relieved the pain…

Lately, as I lay in bed for the first twenty minutes of my day – just me and my thoughts – I write.  I write in my head all the things that are so clear at the beginning of the day.  Somehow, those thoughts are muddled, chaotic, or forgotten by the end of the day.  The words wrap around, day after day, they are there every morning – a never ending circle of days and thoughts – and I clearly have so much to say, but can’t remember the words.

When the words do come, they are tangled in guilt, regret, fear, and love.  I have the privilege, and I do feel it is a privilege, of being married to the most wonderful man.  He and I, the sum of us – we are greater than our parts, we are greater than each other.  And so, most of me knows that writing for a dead man – that wonderful man would understand.  But other parts of me, those parts always ask – why do you want to write a dead man?  What could you possibly have to say to him that you can’t say to that wonderful man?

As I write these words, I feel tears piled up, pressing forward.  And all these words have spun ’round my thoughts and, as though panning for gold, I am left with a little treasure.  It is this:  one love does not replace another, one love is not greater, nor less than another, and that said, I want to write to a dead man because I miss him.  I  miss him every day.  I don’t think that will ever go away.  I’m okay with that.