Caterwauling

Dear S.,

I never hated “If I Die Young” so much until today. My mom was playing the song. For you, of course for you.

I wouldn’t say I’m any more coherent today. But I did reach out to some people about you. Everyone is hurting right now. I think they figured I’m pretty inconsolable.

Some others worry that their grief is miniscule in comparison to what mine must be, so they were keeping it to themselves.

A couple of your old colleagues reached out to me to see if I’d be up for a drink and some reminiscing. I don’t even know one of these people, but if I get a funny Sia story, I’m sold. Bloody Marys by the beach are on tap very soon. Wish so very much that I were meeting you there instead.

I got to talking with one of our girls. I didn’t say it to her but I remembered my life plan to retire from the biz at 46. I came up with that with you. When we talked about it, I was going to give it five more years and go park my pudgy pork roast ass in Paris. For a season if not for good.

Our friend says I still have time. I say I need to keep playing the lottery. (And I do …)

I think what makes you such a loss, other than your all-around amazingness, is that you did everything you set out to do. Moved to a foreign country. Put yourself through school. Got your dream job and quit after it was a nightmare. Came to Florida because I asked you to. Worked your tail off and made everyone fall in love with you. And finally, finally, got back to the country you love so much.

Really, if there’s any comfort to be found here, it’s that you ROCKED THIS LIFE you had. And you left the world a better place.

And the loss here is that you had SO MUCH MORE GOOD to share with this world.

Mom calls it the “season of Sweet Sia.” It’s all we had you for. It wasn’t enough — it’s never enough — but it was vibrant and bright and colorful and warm and absolutely wonderful while it lasted.

Missing you more each moment you’re gone,
Goddess

Dearest S.,

I’ve never had someone die and it made me wish with all my might that I could trade places with them.

But there isn’t enough wine in Lodi to take away an ounce of this pain. And all I can think is, you should be here. And I would give anything for you to have more time in your too-short life.

Mom said she remembers you and me sitting on my L-shaped balcony on the Intracoastal, talking about things that were so over her head. Finance, politics, the characters in our too-crazy-to-be-fiction world, and all our theories on their behavior and what motivated them. 

She said she was in awe of us — we were so smart, so cultured, so worldly to her. You especially. You saw more of the world than I have. And you promised to show it to me. In fact, you couldn’t wait to be my tour guide. Paris first. Then … everything and anything. And finally, we’d run a crepe shop on the Mediterranean. We would be free.

I know the moment you died. I knew something was wrong. Mom and I were on a road in the left (fast — hahaha) lane. I had to come to a screeching halt behind some twit who was going 25 mph. A car — a crimson Nissan Altima — almost wiped us out — he came upon us going at least 70.

I swerved left. Nearly killed us all. But that car swerved right. And the cauliflower heads going 25 mph in a 50 in the left lane never noticed.

Mom and I sat there in that lane for a fraction of a second. I thanked Jesus a hundred times. God knows Mom has enough problems without THAT.

But I knew something was wrong in the world right then. I wasn’t sure why the universe spared us. But I was grateful. Yet I wondered … who wasn’t so lucky?

Had I known it was at your expense (and I know it wasn’t, but bear with me. This grief is destroying me), I don’t know that I wouldn’t have told God to take me instead. You’re so young. So much to offer. So … everything that is good about this world.

Everyone called me this weekend and today. I heard from Vitamin D., from our hero P., from our far-away friend S. … and so on. (And you know how much I hate the phone …)

None of us can believe you’re gone.

And that everyone thought of me … I am humbled that they associate me with your friendship.

I thanked them all for reaching out. For loving and caring about me. For loving YOU and wanting to connect with the person they associate most with you.

I’m not certain if you recognize the Jonny Van Zant song (“Brickyard Road”) I quoted in the title. I heard it in high school and have loved it for as long as you’ve been alive. But you loved you some Skynyrd, so maybe you heard Little Brother’s song somewhere along the line.

Facebook keeps showing me our memories. So few photos of us. But so many photos of good food, good drinks and many, many late nights spent in parking lots — thinking of ANOTHER thing to talk about. And ANOTHER.

Man, you and I would try to wrap up early to go back to work (or get up early for it — or both). And suddenly 8:30 p.m. became 2-ish a.m. and we were by ourselves under a streetlight somewhere … gabbing the night away.

I can’t help feeling like I failed you somehow. That you aspired to my stupid work ethic and surpassed it as only you could. That we kept the rest of the world at arm’s length. And then, eventually, we did the same to each other.

And if I can’t trade places with you, in a way I feel like the only right thing to do would be to join you.

I’m not going to. Not that I know of, anyway. God only takes the good ones. You never had an unkind word to say about anyone. You spoke your truth clearly and confidently. Your employer loved you and so did everyone else you ever met.

But as I read the tributes on your Faceypages wall, I see colleagues upon colleagues. You were great to work with. You were a great leader and team player. You worked hard and made everyone feel important. ALL WORK.

I feel like I was partly responsible for that.

And I also feel honored …

That you let me get close.

That you let me know the real you.

That you loved me so damn much … and let me love you right on back.

Back before gay marriage was a thing, you joked that we were soulmates. Too bad we can’t get married, Goddess, you’d say. We are more alike than any man we’d ever met. Shame we can’t give up on sex or else this would be the perfect arrangement!

We would laugh. We always figured we’d be friends. We said men would be secondary to our friendship. Not that we wanted it that way — we just figured that’s how it would unfold.

And in the past year or so, even though we weren’t as close as we were when you lived in Florida — I could still reach out and THERE YOU WERE. Every time.

Anyway. I had so much to share with you. So many things I knew you would relate to. But we hid behind our professionalism. Smiled over the crazy things. Chose not to bond — preferring to keep secrets in our respective “families.” Families — that we love very much — built independently of each other.

And here we are. What was truly the greatest kind of friendship, stopped in its tracks.

And for what it’s worth, those things you did say a couple years ago — as bluntly as possible to me — were 100% correct. Rather, they were prescient rather than true at that point. But, you know. I had nothing to lose after it was out in the universe.

(You were right. He wasn’t worth it.)

OK I am guessing the wine is kicking in, thank you Lodi Estates. Which you would love. We always enjoyed the pursuit of amazing Bloody Marys, pinot noirs and rum drinks.

I told everone who called to have a Bloody or a good red wine tonight. And to “Cheers” to our girl.

We just all wish you could clink those glasses right on back.

Love you so much, I can’t even breathe. And not sure I even want to anymore …

Love always,
Goddess

Dearest Sia,

I know you’re going through your life review right now and don’t have time for the likes of me. Yet I feel you everywhere around me. I hope I am not too bold as to assume I’ve gotten a pretty kickass guardian angel. Because you can expect me to be talking to you a whole lot more than I did before this weekend.

I shouldn’t have come into work today. I try not to blog from here but I hope they will understand today. I was actually fine till someone said your name out loud. I was praying he wouldn’t. Praying. Praying like I should have when you were fighting for your life. Which I didn’t because you’re so tough. I never thought you wouldn’t make it.

The boys are used to hearing me laughing in my corner. Today they hear sobs. They are staying away now. I am grateful for that.

You will find this funny. When your name came up this morning, my friend thought he was talking about the singer. She pinged me to say no, she’s not dead. It’s an internet hoax. I Googled it.

At first I was stunned. Like, WTF is going on right this minute? Are you people all trying to make me insane?

And then I laughed. My first laugh since …

I explained we were talking about the lovely lady in my Faceypages profile photo. Yes, that girl. The one so young and full of life with the fire in her eyes. That one that should be here right now.

Mom misses you, too, Sia. When I told her the news, she crumbled. You were hers, too. She loved you so, so, so much. We are so sorry that we didn’t connect more, invite you over more. You never wanted to intrude. You knew how sick she was and how hard it was for her to be “on” for company. But you were family. You would bring the Chianti, mom would make the lasagna and I would just enjoy you both.

I can’t believe this is real.

Fly high, little lady. Don’t hang around me too long. You were never meant to be trapped in a body. You wanted to see the world, and you saw your fair share in your three decades on this blue marble. Now you can see it all.

I hope you are waiting for me so you can show me everything when it’s my time to join you.

Love you so very much,
The one you always called Goddess

The Bible says “Hope deferred makes the heart sick.” That probably explains my acid reflux.

Of course, I quit taking folic acid in my daily B12 and that seemed to fix the problem.

I was in a foul mood yesterday. I know I took it out on mom. I get that way sometimes. Like, don’t make me breakfast and decorate my house and basically breathe in my general vicinity. Go fix you and let me worry about me for a while.

And then she gets super-sick yesterday, like she does pretty much every day, and I feel like an ass. Because my priorities are so screwed-up.

Right now, I’m so enraged over the apartment situation. I mean, a door is open — no lease no commitment, no nothing — and you’re supposed to walk through open doors.

Instead I’m voluntarily backing myself into a corner and paying more for the joy of leasing from assholes and living below a terrorist.

Since I can enable anyone, I’m perhaps enabling myself by saying at least I won’t be getting daily shitty texts from the Cunt Du Jour (which is how I listed her in my address book).

Now she’s saying she will never raise the rent again. The bitch of the day before her said the same. So there’s that.

But at least I have some “security” (ha ha) for now. Stability is probably a better word.

I have a list on my laptop that I made at New Year’s. My bukkit list for 2016-ish. (Am a procrastinator, after all.) Time to pick something else off the list to achieve.

I used to tell you to expect big things from me. Now I don’t know what to say. Maybe just don’t expect a lot of whining and complaining.

I have a shirt that has another bible quote on it, “Hope is the anchor of my soul.” If you see me in person, you may notice that I wear a lot of anchors via jewelry and T-shirts.

I don’t know what it is inside me that keeps me smiling sometimes. But if you see me wearing an anchor, you know those little touchstones might have something to do with it.

The world needs a moment of silence, a time-out and/or a good spanking right now.

Stop the damn violence already.

Stop it with the police murdering law-abiding citizens.

Stop it with vigilantes taking white cops’ lives on purpose.

Stop it with the posting photos of your guns on social media and vowing to use them.

Stop it with letting terrorists and bad cops have access to those guns.

Stop it with giving people like me more punishment for only counting to three at a stop sign instead of five more punishment than those who take lives in cold blood.

Stop it with thinking things will organically get better. They haven’t, they aren’t and they won’t.

Say a prayer if you must. But if you think the same smiles of fortune from God that bless rich TV preachers will somehow keep bad people from killing good ones, well. Say one on my behalf too.

Love may very well be the answer. But how do you use it if you’ve never known it?

Why do I give up everything I love (and pay for)?  

I canceled the key west hotel. Not sure of the refund policy. But who cares. Fuck it. Just don’t speak to me right now …

I booked a few days in key west for mom’s birfday. This after I wanted to take days off for my birfday but someone else claimed a vacation on those days first. 

Now I have a hotel booked and someone else took those days off before I asked for the time. 

Now I’ve got a non refundable hotel stay I can’t even enjoy. 

This and losing out on money to see an event at the Kravis Center is pissing me off. 

I mean it’s my own fault. But still. I am so very very tired of being accommodating to the point where I break. 

I keep saying I want to do better and be a better person. As if saying it out loud makes it so.

It’s been a very hard couple of days. Everything has been harder than it should be. It’s my fault for not moving my part along faster last week. As if fault can be assigned for prioritizing other urgent things. But the definition of urgent is a wide one. I know this.

Alas, things have come together. Finally. And I’m calling upon the heavens to help me show the grace that has been shown to me in the past … and for grace to be shown to me again for everything that didn’t get the love it deserved in the meantime.

I feel a massive shift is coming. I’m trying not to fear it. But I’m at the point where I have a great team … I kind of sort of don’t hate where I live … the car is fine *knock on wood* … Mom isn’t at her best but not her worst … and the cat is sickly but in good spirits … and this is the best combination of circumstances I’ve ever had in my life.

Lord, let me enjoy the peace while I have it.

Down 63 from start nine years ago. But this is good too. 

Party! With vegetables of course.