AMNESIA AND REAL LIFE
I am my own world. My spinning world of love and grief and memories. My world of my words. My world of my worlds. My ether, with floating, evolving, melting snowflakes.
At first, it’s a party. People come over. They bring food and flowers and booze. They clean. They cook. How are you? They ask, because they truthfully want to know. They bring books and ask you to go on walks. They plan the memorial. They stay by your side on that day of celebration. Like a birthday party, a memorial celebrates a life.
The memorial is the last phase of people gifting you their time. They must get back to their lives. They must get back to the people in their lives. Friends visit only on weekends. The phone rings less. The walks get shorter and scarcer. The carefully wrapped casseroles stop appearing in the kitchen. The flowers start to wilt, dripping their leaves on the tabletop. Like snowflakes and people—flowers melt.
How are you doing? The soft voices that asked the caring questions begin to evolve in tone, speed, intonation. And topics. Conversations evolve into the talk of life. The lives of the living.
But I cannot, I do not, return to my life because my life isn't there anymore. And never will be again. My life—my world— has been demolished.
My friends go out for dinners and take day trips to lakes and my friends eat at home, or the home of friends. They return to their worlds. Silence now permeates what used to be our home. My house is now empty of noise because it is now missing my favorite sound. Now nothing seems right.
Now. For whom do I cook? Who do I cook with? How do I comfort others? How do I adjust to a new life without that person's existence? In the beginning—disbelief, shock, a phone that becomes a cold thing that no longer brings me silly messages from the now dead person. I start feeling more feelings, and they are feelings that slowly start to fade as I acclimate to what's missing from my life every fucking day.
Then—then things start seeming kinda normal. I notice that the world is continuing. I cry less. I lol. I listen to a podcast. I eat breakfast. Then—when I'm kinda functioning without that constant feeling of emptiness, loss, grief—that is when the death hits me. I've returned to the normal headspace.
Life goes on and so do I.
I no longer have shock or disbelief to numb me. I no longer have the fresh, bloody cuts to bandage. All I have are what's under the now scarred skin: severed arteries and punctured organs and smokey images. Those things haven't started healing yet—and I know that the deepest cuts never will.
In the passenger seat, I see the stars come out of the sky, yeah, they're bright in a hollow sky you know it looks so good tonight.
My sky is exploding. My stars are combusting. I am a passenger. Newly healed and freshly sore. Waiting for my stars to come out of my sky.
And I knit and I knit. A scarf for Darlene. Darlene will smile. I'll feel her smile in the yarn coming alive in my hands.
I can not, I do not, return to my life because my life isn't there anymore. And never will be. My life—my world— is lost and I’m still trying to find it.
My friends go out for dinners and take day trips to lakes and my friends eat at home, or the homes of their friends. Somehow, they're still living lives. I envy that.