This crying is really useless. My eyes have been puffy since March.
I always cry the same things, you’d think whatever in my mind is in charge of setting me off on a crying jag would get bored with the repetition, and stop making me do it.
It’s so unfair. That’s what J. said at the luncheon, after, in that take-no-prisoners voice of hers. I found it comforting, the forgotten familiarity of it like hugging a rock after you’ve been floating downstream getting ducked under by the current.
I find I can’t touch people’s hands or arms anymore - they feel too human, too alive. Back pats are all I can manage.
Because of course it isn’t fair. You were one of the best people I have ever known, that any of us have ever known. You were so smart, you didn’t mind being underestimated. People had no idea how fucking smart you really were. You got an MBA *on a bet*! Just to prove you could, going to night school…after you got your master’s in your own field. You never studied once - that was the bet. And you graduated with honors and then *didn’t bother telling anyone* that you did it. You were humble but self-satisfied as a cat.
You were totally right we should have set up a nerf basketball court in the living room.
Nothing got under your skin - that’s the way it is with the super intelligent, I’ve noticed. You were even-keeled, followed your own path with confidence, and never held people’s mistakes against them. That most of all.
And you saved me. I literally owe everything to you - my very life. Because I was going to die. I was on my way. Knowing you made me not want to.
I hate how fucking banal I sound. I guess that’s why I’m here, I need somewhere to talk about you without censoring myself, without worrying which of our relatives might be reading, without worrying the friends who are worried and they don’t even hear the sounds I make when I am wailing because I am fucking wailing every day since we hung up that last time.
After, I called your phone to hear your outgoing voice message. Then they shut off your account so I can’t do that anymore and I didn’t record it like an idiot so more wailing.
It was just your voice saying your first name, a single syllable. I could hear how happy you were, I could hear a smile in your voice, could hear that you were outside, could hear how your voice was bright and robust and inflected upwards and I was filled with such joy to hear it I kissed my phone (where you are the wallpaper) and called right back and somehow managed to stop wailing, holding my breath to hear you say your name again.
The last time we talked, the moment you answered the phone and I heard your voice weakened with an undercurrent of pain I knew and I cried out, just your name, that one syllable and you knew I knew and started to cry. I didn’t know the details and I didn’t fucking care because in your voice was the truth and my knees unhinged and the tears started to my eyes and my heart began to race and it hasn’t stopped since.