Little over an hour to go until Julie gets here. After this I should probably go have my shower. Yeah yeah, I know I said first thing in the morning. But then, first thing this morning at 6:45, I looked around, realized how dark and quiet it was and decided that adding in the noise of the shower was a bad idea. Granted the only way to wake up Sara would involve tossing her in the shower. I'll have to figure out a better time of day to do it.

I think I talk about routines as a way to avoid talking about what's eating at me. There's also the feeling that I can only say so much about being depressed out of my mind before it repeats. But then I repeat talking about really boring shit like 30 minute tidies, etc. Gah.

Mike and I fought last night. We never fight so when we do it always feels bigger than it is. I hate bringing up chores and work distribution ever because it's such a sore spot for me, and he's almost always annoyed about it. I swear, we need to hire a maid to come in and take some of the weight off. I have no interest in being the 'happy housewife'. I just want to live in a clean home.

I think I may do some beading with Julie today. I have a bracelet with three garnet beads on it that have a lot of emotional meaning to me. I want to make something I'll wear with them as the focus. Right now they're just 3 beads on a bracelet of dozens. We'll see.

I don't have any words today. It's not a good day or a bad day yet; it's just there. There was fog this morning and it was beautiful. I itched for the camera. That's a good thing. I'm at least looking and seeing images again. Now to get batteries. Hah. I need to clean my desk.

And that's an extremely boring 15 minutes. ;)

Last week as I was dropping Mike off at work, I apologized for how completely useless I have been since Matt's death. He said, "Honestly, outwardly you haven't been much different these past three weeks than you were for the six months before." Me being the cranky ass I've been snapped at him something about implying that my grief wasn't a big thing.

Then I thought about it. I had it wrong, what it's been is I've been in a severe depression for 6 months now. The depression from losing Matt is just another barrel-full to the already huge lake I've been quietly drowning in. All the signs have been there, but I just haven't paid them any attention. The apathy, the thin skin, the increasing isolation from the people offline, the increased tunnel vision on my online life, how hard it's been to get myself in the damn shower, not writing, not reading, not photographing, being so incredibly tired all the time, my emotional disassociation, the list just keeps going.

Shit.

So there it is. I'm severely depressed to the point of lack of function. I am not suicidal, thank god. I just don't give a shit about anything; specifically, I don't give a shit about myself. This incredible apathy.

So what are my options? Go back on meds? I fucking hate the meds and anyways most of my depressions are situational. So back to therapy then? *sighs* I've been trained to do this for myself, I don't need a therp to help me dig around in my psyche to figure out what the fuck's up with my head. Might be nice though to have someone to talk to and to give me a marking point each week.

The time's just running away on me so fast. I keep trying, but by the time I get started my day's gone. Blink and a week has gone by, I haven't done anything that needs to be done. Need to slow that down then.

Simple truth... if you want to make a change in your life, you just do it until it becomes your reality. (aka the fake it till you make it principle.)

So where do I want to end up? This shit's not doing it for me. Matt gave me a much-needed injection of life to my life, but he's gone. Plus, I can't count on anyone else to give me my goals. That never worked with quitting smoking, why on earth would it work with my life. *sighs* Little steps.

Ok. I want to be at the point that I am clean, my home is tidy, and I'm writing. That'll give me my starting foundation to do the heavy work.

So a shower every day, at the same time every day. This will cut off at the knees one of my negative coping mechanisms of isolation. Super easy to say "I can't go out without a shower first!" and then never have the shower. Ok. First thing in the morning. Get up 15 minutes earlier and shower. Every day.

Home tidy. I punish myself for being depressed by allowing my home to get disgusting, then hating myself for my mess, then getting more depressed, etc. I've been not bad about it, it's manageable. I need to tell my family to get off their asses and pull their weight around the home or be willing to pay for a maid to get their share done. I need to get back into the routines I know work for me. 30 minute tidy every day, floors on the weekend.

Writing. I need to write to be able to work through the depression and come out on the other side. I put a lot of my truths here, but not all, and I need to explore the ugly I don't share with anyone. So, buy a new notebook, write in it once a week for an hour. Write in my OLJ daily for a minimum of 15 minutes.

And that's 30.

I finally sucked it up and talked to Iole about the memorial on Eta for Matt today. She didn't know what to say, so I hummed and hawwed and sat down and wrote this:

To love life,
To hold it fully,
Is a gift beyond death's reach.

Thank you, Matt for loving life and us. We miss you.

I am infinitely prepared to deal with the heavy lifting of grief. They trained me to be able to. I learned how to explore how I felt and why. I learned how to change the self-defeating belief systems. I learned how to slow down and stop reacting to my life. I learned how to accept and embrace all parts of me and of my life. I know how to do this and I have been.

Yesterday was a bad day. It started out really well, a song to sing along with, and friendly chatter with my various friends on gaim. Then I remembered and missed and started to finally realize what exactly dead means. Please don't mourn forever, she's not coming back.

I guess I've been doing my heavy lifting and trying to keep from thinking about what it all really meant, to me. Looking at the big painting and ignoring the stripe of purple, the dab of black, the line of maroon that made up the whole. Getting upset about the missing logs, and ignoring the missing man. Because I've known from the moment I locked down on myself 2 weeks ago that missing Matt would be my undoing.

Realizing that I'm never going to have any more than the tiny bit I have. That I'm never going to create more memories. Just missing this precious person in my life. How do you write out what this feels like? How do I?

I try because to be alone in this is so dangerous for me. I can't hurt this bad alone. Isolation means I start thinking about suicide. So I keep talking and talking and talking because I am never going back to that place inside me. Never. I should tell Ed that, hah.

I'm never going to get my head-squishing hug. I am never going to get to sit across from him and actually ask the hard questions about his life and answer his hard questions about mine. I am never going to get to mail my stupid letters, even though I was patient when he asked me to be. I am never going to get to see him row. I am never going to get to be one of his best friends. He's never going to be one of mine. I am never going to be able to tell him how much I wanted to sit in the waiting room for his surgery, because that's what I do for the people I love. I am never going to be able to say any of the stupid little things I said to him, ever again. I'm never going to read any of his stupid little things he had for me, ever again. I'm never going to get to prove to Matt that having someone that sees all of you and loves you for it and in spite of it isn't scary.

I think I need to go on a mad "I love you" spree again. Because this hurts so fucking bad, but I have people around me that I adore so fucking much and I love so much and I can either disappear into the pain and die too, or I can reach for the love and the joy and the friendships I have and fuck the pit.

I'm coming round to open the blinds
You can't hide here any longer
My god you need to rinse those puffy eyes
You can't lie still any longer
And yes they'll ask you where you've been
And you'll have to tell them, again and again

And you probably don't want to hear tomorrow's another day
But I promise you you'll see the sun again
And you're asking me why pain's the only way to happiness
And I promise you you'll see the sun again
And I promise you you'll see the sun again

See the Sun, Dido

The world is coming to an end. An entry on a Saturday. *gasp* I just need to get this down before I lose it. So yesterday, as I was packing up my stuff for my quiet hour while Sara has her swimming lesson a question came to me.

After all the noise from other people is gone, what remains in the silence?

I dance when I hurt. I dance to feel life. That when my soul bleeds I need to move and feel alive. I stopped dancing because I stopped hurting because I stopped living. I once went out dancing every Friday night. I danced until I was soaked with sweat. But I was so alive.

I'm pretty fucking brave. I feel something, I say it. I don't fuck around when it comes to love or appreciation. I love each one of my friends so very much and goddamnit, I tell them. Because shit happens and one day for whatever reason that person you love might not be there to hear you say it.

I think people that use other people are scumbags and cowards. I should know, I was once the queen of the people-using scumbags and I was a fucking coward. I know what it's like to stack the dating deck with sweet, quiet young men who just need a hint of sex and the possibility of being loved to keep them there. They deserve better.

I absolutely loved and knew Matt. We didn't use each other. We didn't know what the fuck was happening to us or why it was there but we both knew it was there for us and we needed to take it for every ounce, every second. And we did. The next time I question this amazing gift I was given, I need to remember our everything conversation. I need to remember that while it was only 3 weeks, we packed a fucking lifetime in there. I need to remember that every single time I doubted when he was here, he told me he loved me.

I've come really far. A lot of the stuff I started as a fake it till you make it routine is now my reality. I still have a lot of work to do, but I've come so very far from the broken girl I once was.

I'm still a petty bitch. I knew just dropping offline the way I did would upset my friends and I didn't take the small steps needed to make sure they wouldn't worry. This smells an awful lot like a 15 year old hollering, "If I just disappeared nobody would give a SHIT!" And yes, I'm terribly thrilled with myself in this. *sighs* I have apologies to make.

I'm blessed with Mike. He sits and talks with me about Matt. About all of it. He just looks at me, at who I am, what I do and accepts it. Accepts me. We need to figure out how to talk to each other again.

I regret nothing.

I'm angry. I'm hurt. I'm lost. I'm scared. I'm mourning so fucking hard. I'm alive again. I want to dance, I want to fly, I want to run on the water. I burn really bright when I live and anyone that can't handle that can fuck off. I burn bright because my life has been so very dark. I'm done apologizing for being too much, too serious, too intense. That's me. Deal or leave. I will always love my friends, but not at the cost of my self.

I love myself.

Truth lives in the silence.

I quit.

I went to bed last night hurting. I ran into a wall of silence last night and it hurt. So I finally did the smart thing and went to bed, where I lay for half an hour just thinking. Thinking about my friends, about my little pirate world, about where I fit in my life, and where I don't fit. Thinking about walking on eggshells, what to say, what not to say and to whom. Thinking about loyalty and love. Thinking about quitting. Giving up. I thought about suicide for a moment. I thought about my past. I thought about my future. I thought about Matt.

And I quit. I fucking quit. I'm done with trying to figure out where I fit in this new world of mine. I'm done juggling what to say to whom and when and how. I'm done with putting myself out there to get lost in the rest of the noise. I quit.

For a day or two.

Then I'll go back in and I'll keep trying to figure out where I fit and how. I'll go back to keeping some truths to myself because they make other people uncomfortable or put them in bad positions. I'll keep being amazing because that's what I am. I'll keep being "too strong" because that's who I am. I'll keep moving because goddamnit, it's what I do. But for right now, I need to just quit for a little bit.

Because this hurts so much. Very few people have ever understood me. Understood my big fancy pants routines and the small little scared girl inside. Understood that I could be so incredibly accepting and wise and level headed at the same time as being terrified and lost. I don't think Mike understands me that way, he just simply accepts me as I am and that counts for a whole lot. Matt understood me.

My god, the shit I didn't have to explain. What a fucking amazing feeling that was. And it's gone. Fuck me, I had accepted that I didn't fit in anywhere. I was ok with that. I was ok with keeping most of my stuff to myself because of how uncomfortable it made people. I was ok with living halved. I had burned out so many friendships with how intense I can be, that I had just reined myself in and tucked it away.

And I was so lonely. I don't want to be that lonely again. Please god. But I think I'm going to be and I have no idea how to make that process stop. The person who wanted to know how I saw the world, and made me think and made the loneliness go away for such a small amount of time is dead. I can see myself burning out the friendships I do have now, the starting signs are there. What's left for me is to pull my truths back in and make them burn a little less bright. But that fucking sucks. This fucking sucks.

Fuck you, Matt. You made me believe again that I could be a whole person and then you left. I don't know how to do this alone. Fuck you, Death. Keep your fucking hands off the people I love. Fuck you, my shitty shitty life. I'm gonna keep moving but how many times can a human be beaten down before they can't get up again? I fucking quit. I'll be back once I shove myself back into my fucking box again.

I get far too much of my sense of self from the people around me. It's one of my major issues and something I just don't seem to be able to budge from my psyche. I let their opinions of who I am alter the way I see myself. I question my feelings, my motivations, and my views. I may talk a good game now, but I know deep inside there's this part of me questioning, questioning.

I've been doing it in a big way over Matt, his death, and what we were. We never got a pretty shiny and secure label on it because it kept changing on us. I used to ask him to let me know where I stood, I didn't mind being insecure with him like that. I didn't mind him knowing how unsteady I actually am. Anyways, we never fit some package, pretty box with a bow and we were ok with it. I think in part because even though we both knew core deep that death was right there and could come at any time, we also thought we had lots of time to figure it out.

We didn't. Go figure. The one reality we both accepted as a part of life, is the reality I have to deal with in my face right now. And I'm not doing so shit hot with that. I've been taking my cues off of other people in attempts to find my pretty packaged box with the perfect label and to avoid causing more pain. But in so doing I've betrayed myself, Matt and the crazy mess we had together. We just knew even though it had no more of a label than 'crazy mess' it was something special, perfect and what we both needed so very much right then.

But Matt's gone now. I can't say to him "dude. I feel all freaky stupid insecure." and have him tell me what I meant to him. I deleted my fucking logs so I can't even go back a re-read them. I have to rely on my memory with its fucking holes and gaps. So I've been casting about to the people that knew him to tell me it's ok, that what I remember is right. Problem is, we didn't talk about it much to the people around us. It was our crazy mess, we didn't need anyone else mixed in.

So now that I'm absolutely numb, feeling so very little, I question myself. I question what I felt and how I felt it, if it was real or not. I question what I feel now, because love and care doesn't die, even when the person you love and care for does. I stopped yesterday and actually asked myself if my numbness meant I had been lying to Matt about how I felt.

I was thinking about it this morning as I puttered doing dishes and tiding. And oh my god, I am such a fucking moron.

My primary coping mechanism throughout my life, that kept me sane, kept me alive was my numbness, my disassociation from my emotions. I allowed myself two emotions, rage and fear. I've only started to learn how to feel other things in the past 5 years or so. So my god, how else would I deal with this insanely stressful, painful situation? I have never lost someone I love this much, this dearly to accident. I have never been faced with the brutal reality of one sunny afternoon, joking about life with this man I *get* and he *gets* me and the next afternoon I'm being told he's dead, gone, never going to come back.

I've said a few times that the first couple days felt like I had no emotional skin. And I think if I let some of my disassociation go it would hurt that bad again. I probably could, I mean I learned how to... I just don't think I should. Not yet. My subconscious is much much smarter than my brain when it comes to protecting me (it better after that many years of practice) so I should probably pay attention and let it take care of me.

And I have to stop looking around at the people that knew and loved Matt for my acknowledgement. They had no idea. I did and I have to trust that.

And that's 30.

Transcribed from my notebook, written October 7, 2004

I'm sitting at a picnic bench at Conestoga Lake CA. I just finished painting in my sketchbook and taking a few pictures. It's a beautiful fall day. The ducks and geese are being noisy, and the only human sounds I hear are the occasional passing car on the dam to my right.

The depression sits on me like a lead cloak. I managed to shake it loose for a little bit this morning, driving here. Now it's back and oh so heavy once again. I know I need to cut myself some slack here. I guess I'm so used to handling my normal depressions that I don't know how to deal with this one.

I've never been here, this place before. I've lost friends, family to death. But never someone I loved like this.

I have a really hard time with knowing that I was the last person he loved like that, ever. He told me once that how he felt about me blew everyone before out of the water. I remember thinking but not saying that I so hoped that someone fully available to him would come along and blow me out of the water. She never came, and I'm that one, the person he loved like that when he died.

That's awe inspiring and terrifying. It hands me a geas. For me to crawl back into my safe, distant shell would be a betrayal of this man, a betrayal of the something special he saw in me. I know this, core deep. And I don't betray a geas like that. Not when it's sealed by death.

So where do I go from here? I'm just as scared, if not more so as I've always been. I'm just as shy, as quiet as ever. I'm still me. But the me I was before Matt came into my life had given up. I had reached safety and simply stopped.

...

A motorcycle just accelerated across the dam. I stopped to watch it. I understand why he wanted to go ride like that on Sunday. It looks perfect for the adrenaline junky he said he was. I just wish he had come home on Sunday and sent me an IM saying he had so much fun. But, I can't even really wish I had asked him to stay. Not when he loved it so much.

I think I'm going to go home now.

On September 11, 2004 I met Matt. Squeaky. My new friend I was getting to know, Karin, had just gotten her new Grand Frigate in the game and was showing it off. I never pass up the chance to look at the bigger ships in game, so I was so there. Somehow I ended up making some offhand comment about coffee and Matt asked if I'd share. I replied that you must always share fresh coffee, and he sent me a hearty invitation in response. I'm not one to turn down potential friends, so I of course accepted.

We ended up standing there talking to each other about random stuff for an hour, as everyone else gradually left the ship and went off to their other things. I learned how tall he was because of a silly offhand comment about how he was big all over, completely unintentional. Which me being the brat I am I teased him about. Something about "dude, we just met!" 6'8". So tall. I can't even comprehend how tall that is in a human being.

I took off to do chores for a couple hours, and when I came back he was there with more talk. I was so worried, he was so charming and so into me, and I was engaged. He had also broken up with his GF, Amy a month before. I didn't want to be his rebound crush, and I really liked him so I was trying to figure out a way to say that without hurting him. I dropped a couple hints and he got them. So smart. We kept talking in game and then moved to IM.

We clicked so fast. There was nothing we didn't talk about. If it came up, we'd talk about it and explore it and see why it was so interesting. He had this incredibly bad habit of editing what he would write to me in IM, I could tell because I have a "user is typing" indicator. So we made a deal, that we wouldn't delete. That we'd just type what we thought and hit send -- straight, brutal, honesty. We played the question game that I've been playing with people since I was 15. He drove me so nuts because he'd never have any questions for me.

By the 3rd night of us talking to each other every moment we could, I knew he was someone really precious to me and that he felt the same way. He gave me a bouquet of flowers in KoL, just because and that got to me, so very much. Stupid black and white line drawing graphic of a bouquet of flowers.

One of the things we talked about was being life bruised. He had been in an accident 2 years ago that killed a friend and should've killed him. He had found out 7 months ago that he was going deaf because of it. He was scared, so very scared to do anything about the deafness, to go for the surgery that might save it. I told him how scared I am everyday. I told him my story. We just understood, deep understood what that does to people and what it did to each other.

One of the best moments for me was when he said he was going for the surgery. He just tossed it into the middle of our little banter chats. We just knew when to make a big deal out of something and when to simply say "That's cool." And keep going. He would ask me these amazing questions, just perfectly set to make me think about myself. I did the same, he'd tell me. It's how he said he loved me; just out of nowhere he said that every time I made him stop and think he just wanted to tell me he loved me.

He loved me an awful lot. He would have taken all of me, if I had been free. But I'm not, and he just understood and accepted it and was so incredibly happy with what we did have. I cannot describe what that simple acceptance of my limitations and me feels like. I hated it too because I love him an awful lot myself and nobody should ever accept leftovers from the person they love.

We spent so much time talking to each other, every day. Sometimes it would be intense and thought provoking, sometimes so unbelievably stupid. He talked about his friends and how he was never lonely because of how much they loved him. He never had even the slightest doubt of the love his friends had for him. I admired that so much. I admired how he just lived. He loved so much and so many things and he'd do them. Life was this gift to him and he was so excited by it.

He made me remember what it was like to love something with a passion. I told him about the dreams I had to be able to fly and to be able to run on the water. I never told him that because of him I decided I'd finally learn how to sail. He went one night to the Duck Dodge and came home and described it to me and it was something I wanted to see and be a part of somehow. His life and his passion for it made me want the same thing in my own life.

I called him my Tree because his nickname, Squeaky was so silly and he wouldn't let me call him pip. He called me silly girl.

I once asked why this friendship of ours was there. What it had for us. Was it there for him, for me, for both of us? I figured out my part pretty quickly, I adored him, I loved him and he was perfect to me especially his bruises and where he was broken. I made him happy. His gift to me has been my life back, a remembrance of what it was like to be excited about life. That I could be scared, so very scared and still live a full life.

The last time I talked to him he was going out on a motorcycle ride because it was a beautiful sunny day out. I teased him about being safe, and that I wished he'd stay. But he loved the beautiful days so much, and being an adrenaline junky, he said. So I said I loved him and that he should shoo. He called me his silly girl, told me he loved me and shooed.

Matt died on Sunday, October 3, 2004 when a truck sideswiped his motorcycle and he went off the road into a guardrail. He died instantly. He died the way he wanted, fast, doing something he loved and happy. I am going to miss him so very much.

I'm going to run on the water, Matt. I promise.